Eleanor Clift is a panelist on The McLaughlin Group, which she called "a televised food fight."

Newsweek editor speaks at UMKC:

Clift wrote about one death while watching her husband die

By: Jessie Burche

Posted: 10/15/07

Eleanor Clift came to UMKC to discuss the Terry Schiavo case, not because it is still relevant, but because while Schiavo lay dying in the hospital, Clift's husband was also dying.

Clift gave her speech as part of a partnership between the Carolyn Benton Cockefair Chair in Continuing Education and the Center for Practical Bioethics. She spoke at 7 p.m. Oct. 9 in Pierson Auditorium.

Clift is well-known as a Newsweek contributing editor and a panelist on The McLaughlin Group. She often reports on political issues.

Clift discussed how she came to decide to report on the Schiavo case.

"I followed the advice of every journalism teacher I had," Clift said. "'Write what you know.'"

Clift's husband, Tom Brazaitis, was diagnosed with metastatic kidney cancer five years before he died. Brazaitis died the day before Schiavo. Clift joked her husband was very competitive.

"He had the journalistic good sense to die the day before Terry Schiavo," Clift said.

Clift's husband was in a hospice when he died. She was thankful to the hospice staff for their help.

Clift spoke about the Schiavo case and the role it has in the book she is writing, "Two Weeks of Life." The book is about her husband's death and the Schiavo case.

Terry Schiavo was in a vegetative state for 15 years. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, was trying to remove her feeding tube for the third time. The previous two times he ordered it taken out, Schiavo's parents went to court and gotten the feeding tube put back in.

When the case went to Congress, the media focused attention on it. Clift said Congress was shocked to find the U.S. population didn't think they should be deciding the case.

"Eighty-two percent of Americans thought Congress shouldn't get involved [in the case]," Clift said.

She pointed out her book will not be political. It portrays Schiavo's parents and brother sympathetically.

She said the main issue in the Schiavo case was who decided what would happen to Schiavo: her husband or her family.

Schiavo's husband won the case when he presented enough evidence to indicate his wife wouldn't want to live in a vegetative state.

Clift was grateful she wasn't at the center of the media attention.

"I didn't have anyone questioning my judgment about handling my husband's last days," she said.

Clift said western culture has a hard time dealing with death. She said death would also be the subject for her next book.

"What I want the take-away [what readers will take away from her book] to be is that I'm lifting the curtain on death and dying," Clift said.

jburche@unews.com