TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The case of Terri Schiavo captured the attention of the nation and the world in the early 2000s.
In 1990, a heart attack left the 26-year-old woman in what doctors described as a “persistent vegetative state.”
There was a legal battle between her husband who wanted her to be removed from life support machines to preserve her dignity and her parents who said she was responsive to them and they wanted her to live.
She passed away in a Pinellas Park Hospice in 2005, after a feeding tube was removed following a court order to allow it.
Now, Terri Schiavo’s mother and others are asking the court to unseal her health care records.
“What we are identifying is the guardian reports and the medical records that could show how Terri was being treated, how her care was being provided,” attorney Jeremy Bailie said.
He said it’s important for her mother to know how she was cared for at the end of her life.
“They truly just want to understand what happened, so they can continue their advocacy efforts and explain what happened to Terri in those final days,” Bailie said.
However, an attorney for Schiavo’s husband said those records are sealed by law and should remain sealed forever.
“Think about the chilling effect you would have, for people to say, to know that yes, everything that happens in the guardianship is confidential, but after you die, at some point, it could all be put in the public,” Hamden Baskin said.
