During a January 2000 court battle in which Bob and Mary Schindler sought to wrest Terri's guardianship from Michael Schiavo, the Schindlers repeatedly conceded that their daughter's brain damage was extreme. ''We do not doubt that she's in a persistent vegetative state,'' Pam Campbell, then the Schindlers' lawyer, told the court. Later, Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos, asked Mary Schindler, ''Is Terri in a vegetative condition now?'' to which she replied, "Yes. That is what they call it.'' ... Michael Schiavo has also been cast by detractors as an adulterous, heartless husband who wanted to remove Terri's feeding tube in order to access her trust fund. But testimony from court files documenting the 12-year struggle over Terri Schiavo's fate tells a far more complex story. Beyond accepting that their daughter was in a vegetative state, the Schindlers had, years earlier, encouraged Michael to date. When the Schindlers later accused Michael of greed, he offered to donate Terri's entire trust fund to charity. Up until a bitter falling out in 1993, Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers were united in efforts to rehabilitate Terri. They moved in together after Terri's collapse in February 1990, and Michael called the Schindlers ''Mom and Dad.'' A year later, the Schindlers encouraged their son-in-law to get on with his life and date. They even met some of the women he saw. ''I looked at that as maybe he was starting to take a step in the right direction and get his life back together,'' Bob Schindler said in a 1993 deposition. "He's still a young man. He still has a life ahead of him.'' The Schindlers later said that they urged Michael to see other women because they ultimately hoped to gain guardianship of their daughter. ... [T]he Schindlers ... said he wanted to kill Terri for her money. But in 1998, when one of Terri's court-appointed guardians noted this conflict of interest, Michael offered to donate Terri's estate to charity, as long as the Schindlers stopped fighting his decision to remove Terri's feeding tube. The Schindlers rejected this proposal. All but $50,000 of the award has since gone to Terri's care and court costs.
If an incapacitated or developmentally disabled patient has not executed an advance directive, or designated a surrogate to execute an advance directive, or the designated or alternate surrogate is no longer available to make health care decisions, health care decisions may be made for the patient by any of the following individuals, in the following order of priority, if no individual in a prior class is reasonably available, willing, or competent to act: ... (b) The patient's spouse ... (d) A parent of the patient[.] Any health care decision made under this part must be based on the proxy's informed consent and on the decision the proxy reasonably believes the patient would have made under the circumstances. If there is no indication of what the patient would have chosen, the proxy may consider the patient's best interest in deciding that proposed treatments are to be withheld or that treatments currently in effect are to be withdrawn. [A] proxy's decision to withhold or withdraw life-prolonging procedures must be supported by clear and convincing evidence that the decision would have been the one the patient would have chosen had the patient been competent or, if there is no indication of what the patient would have chosen, that the decision is in the patient's best interest.