North Country Gazette



Notre Dame To Host Bobby Schindler, Phyllis Schlafly

Posted on Monday, 7 of April , 2008 at 11:07 pm

NOTRE DAME—Bobby Schindler, brother of the late Terri Schindler Schiavo and syndicated columnist Phyllis Schlafly, founder and president of Eagle Forum, will be among the keynote speakers Friday, April 11 at the University of Notre Dame.

Bobby’s presentation will be “Remembering Terri Schiavo: My Family’s Battle to Save My Sister’s Life”.The Notre Dame Right to Life will sponsor the Collegiate Conference: You Shall Not Kill, Evangelium Vitae III. The event is open and intended for all students, faculty and staff in Room 102 DeBartolo Hall, Basilica of the Sacred Heart and Gold Room of North Dining Hall. Registration is required and free at www.nd.edu/~prolife/conference

Since his sister’s death on March 31, 2005, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed by court order, Bobby has left his teaching position and as spokesman for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, travels across the country, appearing in numerous speaking engagements, devoting himself to protecting other people with disabilities and raising public awareness about the growing threat of euthanasia. www.terrisfight.org

Bobby has been a passionate and outspoken pro-life advocate, specifically in opposition to the euthanasia movement, activist judges and pro-death lawyers and doctors. He believes that laws that set the groundwork for his sister’s death were motivated by the expense of caring for the disabled and elderly.

Bobby is also a staunch supporter of the pro-life movement’s battle to end abortion. Terri sustained serious brain damage in an unexplained collapse in February, 1990, that left her incapacitated. In the years to follow as the Schindler family battled her husband, Michael Schiavo in the courts to keep Terri alive, Bobby became the family spokesman. He has addressed the nation through countless television, radio and print media interviews—the mainstream media which misreported the situation and was “less than sympathetic”.

As the urgency of Terri’s situation grew, so did Bobby’s efforts. After the feeding tube was removed March 18, 2005, from Terri at Woodside Hospice where she had been for five years although not terminal, Bobby traveled to Washington to personally intercede with members of Congress to try to save his sister’s life.“We, as a society, are standing on a cliff with two clear and utterly polarized choices that we can make: Either we value each other - in spite of disability, or we despise each other based on those limitations”, Schindler said. He believes that thousands of people will face a similar experience as that of his sister because it has become acceptable to terminate people if it becomes too costly to keep them alive, especially if they are on Social Security and/or Medicaid and Medicare.

“I believe that’s what’s happening, not just with people like my sister, but the elderly and other people who are disabled,” he said.

Since Terri’s passing, the Schindler family has been actively working for the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, originally established in 2001 to help save Terri’s life. 

Others appearing on the program will be Rebecca Kiessling, a Michigan attorney and author of “Conceived in Rape: A Story of Hope”; Catholic philosopher, theologian, author and lecturer Alice Von Hildenbrand; Dolores Meehan, co-founder of Walk for Life West, a pro-life activist group and Dr. Eugene Diamond, a fellow at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Deerfield, Ill.

Diamond, an accomplished writer, is professor of pediatrics and past chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine. 4-07-08

Category: Calendar, Disabled, Education, Family, Health, Religion, Schiavo

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