Terri Schiavo may be dead but the end-of-life brouhaha she inadvertently started is not. Friday marks the one-year anniversary of her death, so of course her former husband and her parents released books earlier this week about their experiences.
This will be sure to thrill those who didn’t get their fill last year of the talks on persistent vegetative states or the legal maneuvering from every single branch and level of government. And there must be people out there who didn’t think that hearing details of Schiavo’s private life and seeing multiple photos of her in various states was intrusive enough.
Everyone else probably feels as if the media and Schiavo’s family members outwore this issue long ago, and understandably so. At first the coverage had at least a vestige of purpose. Schiavo’s situation brought uncertainties about end-of-life decisions to light. But the whole thing quickly turned into a circus, jugglers and all.
It’s bad enough that media and protest groups across the country embroiled themselves in the issue, but congressional and executive meddling went way too far. Nobody should have gotten that involved in Schiavo’s personal situation except for her family. It’s not a debate for anyone else – a concept that Shiavo’s own shameless kin has yet to grasp.