Terri Schiavo: Beyond Saving

AFTER AN EXHAUSTIVE three-month investigation, the facts are in.
Report of Autopsy – SCHIAVO, Theresa (pdf)

There are two parts to the report that attempt the questions susceptible of medical resolution:
1. A summary, the tests and results.
2. A narrative that takes up the allegations by Schindler et al.

The autopsy report vindicates Michael Schiavo.

TERRI SCHIAVO WAS BEYOND SAVING. Insofar as the truth is knowable, this is just what Michael Schiavo and the courts said all along: she was a vegetable, it was a terrible misfortune, with nobody to blame.

**The cause of Terri's collapse in 1990 cannot be determined with certainty. It was NOT abuse by Michael Schiavo.

**When her heart stopped beating, she suffered extensive brain damage. The damage was "horrendous, horrific and irreversible".

**Her brain had "profoundly atrophied" to less than half the size it should have been. Her ability to process sensory data had been totally destroyed. And in her final days, she was blind.

**There was no, NO possibility of restoration of any life function above what she had at the time the feeding tube was removed.

Her parents had wanted to prolong her life to recover her normal brain function. But no treatment could have reversed the damage.

**She had been in a persistent vegetative state. The brain damage left her incapable of eating or drinking had she been fed by mouth, as her parents had requested.

**The brain damage had left her non-responsive - contrary to her parents' assertion that she was responsive to them.

And finally...

After her feeding tube was removed, she died of dehydration. Not starvation - as most of us aasumed.