CLEARWATER, FL May 10, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In yet another bizarre twist of the Terri Schiavo case, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Schindler, were informed that they must now pay a fee for “security” each time they want to visit their daughter. The parents of the 40-year old woman, who have been in a legal fight with her estranged husband Michael Schiavo for over a decade to ensure he does not withdraw her food and fluids, have been denied visits to Terri for over a month now. On Wednesday, May 5, 2004, Deborah Bushnell of Dunedin, an attorney representing Michael Schiavo, Terri’s estranged husband who has two children with his new fiancé, faxed a letter to attorneys representing the parents. In her communication, Ms. Bushnell recommended that Ms. Schiavo’s parents could be permitted to visit their disabled daughter if they would agree to hire an off-duty policeman to accompany them.
Currently, Ms. Schiavo has an off-duty policeman, paid for by Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, assigned to her on a 24 hour a day basis.
The attorney for the parents commented, “By recommending that the financially-strapped Schindlers may only visit Terri if they pay yet another off-duty police person to accompany them, is an effort to inhibit them from freely seeing their own daughter . . . No mother should have to pay an admission fee to see her child on Mother’s Day. Perhaps Ms. Bushnell has forgotten how most people spend Mother’s Day.”