'Don't let me starve'

Law | A recovered stroke victim joins the fight to save Terri Schiavo | Lynn Vincent

On Oct. 27, 2003, Schiavo and his lawyer, George Felos, chatted across the table with Larry King on the talk-show host's famously glossy, back-lit set. Six days earlier, the Florida legislature had passed—and Gov. Jeb Bush had signed—Terri's Law, a measure that enabled the governor to order reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Acting on Mr. Schiavo's court-sanctioned orders, doctors had removed Mrs. Schiavo's lifeline on Oct. 15, launching a slow starvation death.

Had the government not stepped in, Mr. King wanted to know, would Mrs. Schiavo's passing have been "a terrible death"?

"No," Mr. Schiavo said. "It's painless and probably the most natural way to die." He later told a caller, "It is a very easy way to die."