Public Opinion and Activism
The seven-year case generated a great deal of public attention and activism. There was extensive media coverage and both sides courted public opinion. In 2000, the Schindlers created the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation to garner support. During the weeks when Schiavo's feeding tube was removed in 2005, activists kept up an around-the-clock vigil outside her hospice. The protests were described as loud but non-violent. There were dozens of arrests, with most being for crossing a police line with water for Schiavo.
Two polls conducted shortly after Schiavo's feeding tube was removed for the final time in 2005 showed that a large majority of Americans believed that Michael Schiavo should have had the authority to make decisions on behalf of his wife, Terri, and that the United States Congress overstepped its bounds with its intervention in the case. However, other polls seemed to favor the Schindler family's position, and questions were raised about the wording of all the polls.
Read more about this topic: Terri Schiavo Case
Famous quotes containing the words public opinion, public and/or opinion:
“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal! How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking! How often are the laurels worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end.”
—Abigail Adams (1744–1818)
“It is my opinion that time brings all things to fruition; by time all things are made plain; time is the father of truth.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)