By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
In a shocking display of disrespect for human life, an episode of The Family Guy airing during prime time on Fox featured a satire mocking the life and death of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who was starved to death in 2005 after a lengthy court battle.
According to a press release from The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, the episode aired on March 20 and was titled “Terri Shiavo: The Musical.” In the sketch, Terri is mocked and the suffering she endured after her feeding tube was removed was ridiculed. The show inaccurately depicts her as being on life support, and refers to her as a vegetable. The episode ends with the characters calling for doctors to “pull the plug.”
Terri’s brother, Bobby Schindler stated: “My family was astonished at the cruelty and bigotry towards our beloved sister, and all disabled people that we witnessed in this show. My first thought was how this attempt at satire must have been enormously difficult and painful for my mother.
“After further thought, I realized that using my deceased sister as fodder for satire also validates what our family has been saying for many years. There is growing, deep-rooted prejudice against people with brain injuries and other cognitive disabilities. This sort of bare-faced bigotry is dehumanizing to those with disabilities and cruel to those who work tirelessly to ensure that people with disabilities are provided the proper care, protection and respect. People are not vegetables.”
As he pointed out, Terri was not kept alive on mechanical life support. She made use of a feeding tube after some doctors determined it safer for her than swallowing food and fluids on her own.
“The depiction of Terri in The Family Guy episode on March 21 is not only inaccurate,” states Schindler, “it seems to take the position that certain people are simply not worthy of receiving medical care because they are viewed as burdens on the health care system.”
Schindler also believes it is not a coincidence that this terrible prime time skit took place 10 days prior to the five year anniversary of Terri’s death (3/31/05), and just weeks before the foundation’s first ever Terri’s Life and Hope Concert featuring Randy Travis and Collin Raye, slated for April 11th in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The Foundation is calling on all disability rights organizations and pro-life organizations to join them in admonishing the producers and writers of The Family Guy. It will also begin pursuing the sponsors and advertisers of The Family Guy, urging them to stop advertising in this program.
The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation was established by the surviving family members of Terri Schiavo to protect the rights of people with disabilities. It has communicated and supported with more than 1,000 families since Terri’s Death – families who have loved one’s living with brain injuries.
Complaints can be sent to the network at http://www.fox.com/familyguy
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