AIKEN - When Eva Edl learned that a judge had ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed, the 69-year-old Aiken widow panicked.
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Eva Edl, 69, of Aiken, is taken into custody by Pinellas County sheriff's deputies in Pinellas Park, Fla. She was arrested March 23 for trespassing at Woodside Hospice, where Terri Schiavo was a patient. Ms. Edl was trying to take water to her.
Associated Press
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She believed the brain-damaged woman faced a long, brutal death without food or water to sustain her.
A survivor of a Yugoslavian starvation camp, Ms. Edl was determined to do everything in her power to save Mrs. Schiavo from starving.
"I knew what it was like to be dehydrated; it was very painful," she said. "No matter what happened, I was going to try to help Terri."
Ms. Edl traveled to Pinellas Park, Fla., where her attempt to take water to Mrs. Schiavo was rebuffed by police officers outside Mrs. Schiavo's hospice.
"When they told me to leave," she said, "I dropped to my knees and said, 'Just let me in so I can wet her lips. What harm could that do?'"
Like more than 50 other protesters, Ms. Edl landed in jail and was fined $300 and banished from the area.
But the sentence didn't faze the avid activist, who has been jailed more than 40 times for blocking abortion clinic doors.
Her next stop was the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla., where she joined a throng of Mrs. Schiavo's supporters in prayer and urged Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene.
Despite the number of arrests, the mood among protesters outside Mrs. Schiavo's hospice remained mostly reverent during the 13 days she lived without her feeding tube, Ms. Edl said.
"There was a lot of weeping going on; they were praying," she said. "A lot of people in wheelchairs came by."
She said she wondered why the crowds weren't larger.
"With all the megachurches in the area, there were maybe only 150 to 200 protesters during the day, and maybe 50 at night," she said. "That is pitiful in a nation with so many churches."
She wondered why a judge had the power to decide Mrs. Schiavo's fate and why lawmakers couldn't do more to save the incapacitated woman.
"You can feed a person through the tube; you can make them comfortable; you can stroke them; and you can love them until their heart stops," she said. "Whether it's the judge or Congress, it was all their duty to spare her life."
Back at her Aiken home, Ms. Edl was contemplating how Mrs. Schiavo's death might affect similar cases in the future.
"I'm afraid a precedent has been set in the courts, and now we'll see this in mass numbers," she said. "This is now the Roe v. Wade of euthanasia."
Reach Krista Zilizi at (803) 648-1395, ext. 106, or krista.zilizi@augustachronicle.com.
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