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massive PR campaign was unleashed. The Schindlers had a small army of supporters who were watching the news eager to help. Within hours phone calls, faxes, and e-mails poured into the senate and into the governor’s office as nearly two hundred thousand concerned citizens made their wishes known to the Florida legislators.
    One reason there was such a tsunami of support for Terri is that the pump had already been primed by several talk radio hosts who had been following this case for years. In one particularly heated exchange, nationally syndicated radio host Glenn Beck grilled Steve Schiavo, Michael’s brother, about the state of a country that would intentionally starve a person to death. I’m sure the fact that Glenn has a handicapped daughter weighed heavily on his heart upon hearing the news that Terri would be starved to death.
    Steve asserted that Glenn and the public were being misled and misinformed by the Schindlers. Glenn took exception to that remark:
GLENN:
I saw the videotape of his wife who is very much alive. I saw the videotape of a woman who is handicapped— not dead—that [Michael] is trying to kill. I don’t get my truth from the Schindlers, I get my truth from the ultimate source: I see it with my own eyes.
STEVE:
Excuse me, Glenn. When did you become a neurologist?
GLENN:
I’m not a neurologist, sir. When someone is asked, ‘‘Open your eyes’’ and they lean up and open their eyes and follow commands, sir, I know the woman is
alive. . . . She is handicapped, she is not terminally ill and we don’t starve people to death that are handicapped.
STEVE:
Okay. That’s your opinion.
GLENN:
Let me ask you a question: Do we, Steve, in Amer-ica— or as people—starve handicapped people to death?
STEVE:
That . . . that is . . .
GLENN:
That’s a simple question. It’s a ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ question,
sir. In America—or as human beings—do we
starve handicapped people to death? Yes or no?
STEVE:
I would imagine so, yes. Yes.
GLENN:
Hang on, Steve. I want to give you every opportunity
to bail yourself out. Your statement is, as Michael
Schiavo’s brother, we do in America starve handicapped
people to death.
STEVE:
If that’s what the courts call for, yes. 2
    Exchanges like these had exposed the truth of what was happening to Terri in Pinellas County. After the avalanche of faxes and e-mails supporting Terri, and at the urging of his fellow senators who were equally deluged with pleas from the public, the senator blocking the bill was persuaded to offer a compromise. He let it be known that he would agree to allow the bill to be heard and voted on in the senate on one condition: that he be permitted to rewrite the bill and introduce it on the senate floor as his bill.
    Recognizing that, as the saying goes, half a loaf is better than none, our side agreed to the compromise. The version of the bill our office had drafted was designed to be broad in scope. The senate dramatically narrowed its version of the bill. They took out the general public policy language and inserted a more specific provision requiring action by the governor to reconsider Terri’s case within a limited amount of time.
    These changes substantially weakened the bill’s constitutional viability. We had to wonder if this was a ‘‘poison pill’’ intended to permit the law to be passed but then to be struck down by a separation-of-powers argument. We couldn’t be sure. All we knew was that we were being presented with a ‘‘take it or leave it’’ option. So we took it.
    We also recognized that Terri had been without food or water for five days. No one knew how much longer she could survive. Worse, Terri had initially been dressed in warm clothing to cause her to sweat and dehydrate more rapidly. What choice did we have? We had to agree to this compromise to keep Terri alive for another