Originally Posted - September 3, 2006

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Tuesday, Sept. 5 is Primary Day in the state of Florida and one of the most contentious races is for the Senate seat representing Florida District 8 in northeastern Florida.

That race pits incumbent senator James E. King (left), former Senate president, against anti-abortionist Randall Terry (right). In that there is no Democratic candidate, it's nearly assured that whoever wins the Primary Tuesday will capture the Senate seat.

The winner will represent about 400,000 residents in St. Johns, Duval, Flagler, Volusia and Nassau Counties.

One of the hottest topics in the campaign, disregarding other issues such as property taxes and education, is the Terri Schiavo case and the roles that King and Terry played in the death of the 41-year-old disabled woman who died on March 31, 2005 at Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Pinellas County, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed by judicial order.

Terry has made many claims about his role in the Schiavo case while waging one of most negative political campaigns in the history of Florida.

In an attempt to set the record straight about his real involvement in the case, The North Country Gazette conducted an exclusive interview with Pamela Hennessy of Clearwater, a marketing and media executive and founder of the Partnership for Medical Ethics Reform.

Ms. Hennessy served for more than three years as the media coordinator and spokesperson for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, a non-profit organization which sought to block the court-ordered removal of medically-assisted nutrition and hydration from the severely disabled, but non-dying woman, and maintained the foundation website, www.terrisfight.org.

NCG: You were involved in the Schiavo case for several years. When did you become involved and why?

PH: I first heard about Terri's case in 2000. At the time, I believed the news media when they reported she was comatose for 10 years, on artificial life support and had no hope. In 2002, I heard radio host Glenn Beck talking about the case and he said "They're going to starve that woman to death!"

That's what really got my attention. I didn't previously realize all Terri Schiavo was receiving in the way of 'medical treatment' was a tube feed.

Years prior, a doctor -- on his own volition -- took food and fluids away from my own sister. She was not dying, but she was very ill at the time. When my mother, a Registered Nurse with more than 30 years of experience in critical and intensive care, confronted him, he told her, "Why not? She's just going to die anyway."

Coming from a family full of doctors and nurses, I saw the act of taking basic maintenance away from someone, in order to make them dead, as the most patently cruel act ever. It was then that I contacted the Schindler family (through their website) and offered to help in any way they needed me to.

NCG: What role did you have in trying to save the life of Terri Schiavo?

PH: The Schindlers told me that the courts were failing their daughter. They explained how Terri never had a written directive, how hearsay was used to determine her wishes and how the law was squarely on her side, but the judge was not.

They figured the only thing to do was to get the state of Florida to enforce their own adult protection laws.

I took the role of a one-person media agency for them, in the hopes that telling the family's side of the story would raise some authoritative eyebrows.

We put together a petition, asking Governor Jeb Bush to invoke FS 415.1051 (adult protective service) and we published video shorts of Terri (from the 2002 medical evidentiary trial) so that the news media and state agencies could see what we were talking about when the family said Terri did not fit the criteria of persistent vegetative state.

NCG: You were intimately familiar with the role of Sen. Jim King. Can you tell us the efforts that King took to basically insure that Terri's Law ultimately would be ruled unconstitutional? Did he redraft the original legislation?

PH: As I understood it, yes. According to attorney David Gibbs, his firm and a number of other attorneys, versed in constitutional law, drafted a piece of legislation that would not only protect the life of Terri Schiavo, it would have raised the evidentiary requirements for denying disabled people ordinary care if no living will or advanced directive ordered such denial.

According to Gibbs, the final version of this to hit the floor was nothing like the original. Indeed, King was alleged to have modified it in such a way lest he would not allow it to be brought forth during that special session in 2003.

Many of us who were involved at the time believe firmly that King's modifications were both unnecessary and hazardous to the bill.

NCG: There's been a lot of talk that Sen. Jim King was protecting his legacy. Can you explain this, his role in the Death With Dignity Act and how in fact, this is little more than advocating euthanasia?

PH: King was responsible for bringing Florida's death with dignity legislation in the late 1990s. He told the St. Petersburg Times that he was not interested in legislation that would dismantle his legacy. He also went on to say that personal reasons (his parents' illnesses) were the reason he brought forth such measures in the first place.

I'm of the mind that the good of the citizens and not personal feelings should have been his priority, but it clearly wasn't.

NCG: In October, 2003, the Schindler family reached out to Randall Terry to conduct a "public relations" campaign. Are you familiar with this?

PH: I was contacted by a woman who worked for Dr. Alan Keyes in October 2003. She asked me if there was anything they could do to help us. I told her, though I didn't know what would be of any good, I would take any help she was willing to throw my way. The next phone call I got was her, with Randal Terry conferenced in.

He asked if I knew who he was and I admitted that I did not. He then told me that he had a great deal of experience in bringing important issues into the media mix and he wanted to lend us a hand. I took down his contact details and emailed them to Bob Schindler. I had no idea who or what Randall Terry was and any offer of assistance at that time seemed like something to take.

NCG: Randall Terry is making a lot of claims about his involvement in the matter, particularly in regard to the passage of Terri's Law. You have personal knowledge about that, what can you tell us about his claims versus the truth of his role in the matter?

PH: When we were petitioning Governor Bush, radio host Glenn Beck supported our efforts by asking his listeners to read over the petition and sign it, if they agreed. He made mention of this several times, each show, for the month of October, 2003. He also gave it a lot of exposure on his website and did a number of 'bits' about it on his program.

Everytime Glenn made mention of the petition (which I wrote to email directly to Jeb, with a copy emailed to me), the numbers jumped.

When it became clear that our petition wasn't sufficient in the eyes of Governor Bush's legal advisers and, when it was made clear a model for Terri's Law might get airtime with the special session, other radio hosts chimed in.

I spoke with Michael Reagan a number of times and he pleaded for his listeners to contact their representatives. I also spoke to VCY America for nearly an hour one day as they gave the same call to action. By the end of the program, people were phoning in to tell us that they were getting 'all circuits busy' messages when they phoned Tallahassee.

I'm convinced that the outpouring from the grassroots is what made legislatures stop and think about what was actually happening in the Sixth Circuit's courtroom.

It was an amazing thing to witness.

NCG: There was a immense grassroots effort undertaken to gain Gov. Bush's support in saving Terri's life both in 2003 and 2005. Do you have personal knowledge about that and what, if any role that Randall Terry had in it?

PH: Randall, apparently, was able to arrange a brief meeting between the Governor and the Schindler family in 2003 -- on the day Terri's feeding tube was removed.

Beyond that, the grassroots activity was a freak of nature -- stemming from the family's website, talk radio hosts discussing the issue and something that I can only call an email storm (emails being sent, forwarded, resent, etc.) that really changed the tide. Bloggers were also picking up on the issue and becoming very active in their newly-found role as media people.

NCG: How did Terri's Law evolve?

PH: I would refer you to David Gibbs' book on this, "Fighting for Dear Life".

NCG: Is has been said by some that Terry is taking credit for accomplishments and work of volunteers. It has recently been revealed that Terry didn't "volunteer" to help save the life the Terri, but rather he was paid at least $10,000 for his "efforts". Were you or any other volunteers that you're aware of paid for your services and efforts?

PH: No. The Schindler family had a core group of very active people who befriended the family and worked non-stop in whatever capacity they could. We never took money and never would.

A lot of disability advocates also got involved, at their own expense. You rarely hear mention of them in news media. The other people, whom I knew personally, took on projects at their own expense or worked several hours a day with no expectation of pay. We simply weren't there for that reason.

NCG: What role did Terry have in organizing the protests in front of the hospice where Terri was dying?

PH: He may have played a major role in getting it started, but people were coming in from all over the country -- because of the story itself and not because they were directed to.

When Randall talked about staging protests back in 2003, the Schindlers were all for it -- if the demonstrations were to take place in front of the courthouse. I don't think they were ever comfortable with the idea of demonstrating in front of the Hospice Woodside. As much as that family was at odds with what was being done to their daughter, they still thought of others and were not keen on the idea of making things difficult on other families visiting that facility.

I remember, quite clearly, showing up that afternoon in 2003, when Terri's tube feed was taken away and I, being blind with flu. Mary Schindler, who was in the most horrible circumstances of grief over her own child, actually offered to hunt down some orange juice for me.

That's the thread the Schindlers' cloth is made up of. They aren't money-grubbers, political hacks or panhandlers. They are just a tiny clutch of people with feelings.

In the end, the demonstrations and media coverage in 2005 was nothing short of a disgrace and a circus and it didn't aid the Schindler family one bit. The intentions may have been good, but the carry-out was incredibly flawed.

NCG: At what point in time did William Greene become involved in the Schiavo case and in what manner?

PH: To my knowledge, he was never actually involved. All I know of Greene is what I heard from a New York Times reporter by the name of Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick phoned me in October 2003 to ask why and for how much I sold my email list to Greene. I told him I did no such thing, was never asked to and wouldn't do so even if asked.

NCG: The Schindler family was heavily criticized when it came to light that they had allegedly sold their e-mail list to Greene for solicitation. Do you have knowledge of this and what role, if any that Terry had in this?

PH: The list in question was not ours. As near as I can decipher, it was a list of respondents to a previous email sent by rightmarch.org/com.

I kept a list of subscribers for terrisfight.org. These were people requesting updates on her case. At the last, the list totaled nearly 9,000 people. I never handed that list over to anyone.

If Greene has claimed that his list was the terrisfight.org list, his claim is totally false.

I used that list to do precisely what it was meant to do -- update those people on developments in the legal case. Never was I asked to hand it over to anyone, sell it or give it away for a political group.

The Schindler family is not a political family. They are just a normal family, struck by very abnormal circumstances. If you had it in your head to exploit someone in a desperate situation, I can't imagine you'd find easier pickings. All they ever wanted to do was save their kid. Now, they've been lambasted over other peoples' bad behaviors. 9-3-06

© 2006 North Country Gazette