Schiavo attorney ministers to church

Lindsay Sandham

The Liberty Baptist Church in Newport Beach held a special patriotic

service Sunday, in honor of the Fourth of July weekend, featuring

guest preacher David Gibbs III.

Gibbs, the son of the man who founded the Christian Law Assn. in

1969, recently came under the national spotlight as the attorney for

Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s parents.

Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman who received her food and

water through a plastic tube for the last 15 years of her life, died

March 31 after the tube was removed.

The removal of the tube was sought by her husband, Michael

Schiavo, who maintained that’s what Terri would have wanted.

The case went to trial in 2000, with Terri Schiavo’s parents

fighting to keep her alive, in the belief that they were also acting

on behalf of Terri’s wishes.

The Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit Court judge in the 2000 case

ruled in Michael Schiavo’s favor and ordered the feeding tube

removed.

The case went through various levels of the judicial system for

five years, until finally the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the

case. The initial ruling was ultimately upheld.

As an attorney for the Christian Law Assn., Gibbs takes cases with

a biblical undertone free-of-charge. The association is funded by

Christian churches.

Gibbs led the morning sermon that followed a patriotic medley from

the Liberty Baptist Church choir.

He touched lightly on the Schiavo case, but focused more on the

state of religion in the United States today.

Terri Schiavo’s case was a focus of national media for several

weeks. Because of its complexity and Gibbs’ proximity to the case,

the church devoted the entire afternoon service for him to share his

experience with the congregation. Gibbs was in the room when Terri

Schiavo died.

“Clearly, this was a decision to end a life,” he said of the final

court ruling that Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube be removed. “That’s a

pretty savage way for any person to die.”

The first time Gibbs visited Terri Schiavo was in 2003, and he

was nervous and unsure of what to expect.

“What I saw completely blew me away,” Gibbs said. “Terri Schiavo

was as alive as any person sitting here.”

He said Terri recognized people, andhe believes she could feel

things and had emotions and therefore she was not in a vegetative

state, as Michael Schiavo believed.

The Schiavo case seemed to be coming to an end in late 2004 when

it was evident the feeding tube would be removed, Gibbs said.

Then Congress and President Bush stepped in to try and get

Congress to reverse the state court’s ruling, thus prolonging Terri’s

life and turning the case into a protracted international media

event.

“It was unbelievable the amount of media attention worldwide,”

Gibbs said. “Tragically, it kind of turned into a deathwatch.”

Despite attempts made by the president and Congress to reverse the

state court’s ruling, the feeding tube was removed on March 18.

Gibbs said Terri Schiavo didn’t look too bad in the first couple

of days after the removal of the tube.

“There was the moment she kind of clicked and you could tell she

was getting sick,” he said.

He then described the day he went to see her with Mary Schindler,

which was the last time Schindler saw her daughter alive.

“Walking in, it was striking,” Gibbs said. “Terri had definitely

taken a very bad turn.”

He said her breathing had turned into a “death pant,” she looked

skeletal, had dark circles under her eyes, her skin was flaky and

spotted from dehydration and her mouth was dry.

He described how painful it was to watch her mother cradling her

daughter and telling her not to fight it, while crying.

“That is something no mother should ever have to see,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said he saw Terri turn her head toward her mother, open her

eyes and start crying herself.

“On March 31 of this year, Terri Schiavo stepped into eternity,”

Gibbs said.

Gibbs said he hopes other cases will be ruled in favor of the

disabled person’s right to life.

Gibbs preaches most weekends, and since the Schiavo case, he said

that is what most people want him to talk about.

“Nobody got to go into the room,” he said, referring to the

heightened security that kept the media from documenting Schiavo’s

health. “I feel like there’s an injustice in that the media and

America never got to see what I got to see.”