Terri Schiavo died Thursday morning, 13 days after she was taken off a feeding tube that had been keeping her alive.
Despite the massive amount of media attention Schiavo's case and her subsequent death received, few people actually see Schiavo as a person. Instead, she was seen as merely an object in the middle of a horrid, and ultimately fatal, custody battle.
Like the rest of us, Schiavo never anticipated a tragic circumstance which would prevent her from making her own decisions. And that is what the heart of this argument has fallen back upon.
In 1990, Schiavo went into cardiac arrest, which deprived her brain of oxygen and subjected her to severe brain damage. Since then, the courts had ruled Schiavo to be in a "persistent vegetative state, with no real consciousness or chance of recovery," according to the Associated Press.
There were no instructions written on her behalf in the event she became disabled.
Needless to say, it eventually opened a nearly seven-year legal battle between Schiavo's husband, Michael, and her parents, Mary and Bob Schindler.
It became a matter that some argue should never have came to be: A situation that went from a family's personal struggles to Congress' top priority. In fact, nearly 40 judges in six courts were involved with the case at some time during its duration, according to the AP. It sparked the nation's attention by questioning how far the government can go with life-and-death decisions.
All the while, Terri Schiavo became a poster child for this nation's legal system and the bitterness that can exist between two feuding parties, a feud that continued even in the final moments of her life.
Schiavo's siblings were not allowed to be at her side when she died, and her parents were not yet at the hospice. With hoards of media personnel congregated outside, Terri died while holding a stuffed animal under her arm, and cradled by her husband, George Felos, his attorney, said.
NBC News correspondent Mark Potter told MSNBC.com that "if there was any [peace at the time of her death], it wasn't evident to us."
Even in the final moments of her life, Terri's families failed to find common ground.
Schiavo became an issue that split not only her family, but a nation. That's not how it should have been.
In the end, it should not have been about the legalities and politics. It should have been about Terri Schiavo, the individual.
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