"With the problems in our health-care system, they looked at Terry as someone who couldn't give anything back," and was simply taking up badly needed space in a hospital, Schindler said.

Schindler is the younger brother of Schiavo and one of three siblings in the Schindler family. He is touring North America to publicize the family's new book, A Life that Matters (Time-Warner), about his sister's story.

Schiavo died last spring after doctors removed a feeding and hydration tube that was keeping the 41-year-old Florida woman alive. She had been impaired for 15 years, diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. Though she could breathe on her own, she required nutrition and water through a tube.

Schiavo's fate became a public controversy when her husband, Michael Schiavo, tried to have doctors remove her gastric tube, which inevitably would lead to her death. It became a cause celebre in the courts and even Vatican officials weighed in on the morality of ending what many considered necessary care.

Bishop Elio Sgeccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that the Catholic Church does not support keeping people alive at all costs, but that Schiavo's case amounted to "direct euthanasia," which the church opposes.

However, not all bioethicists agreed, with even some Catholics arguing that nutrition and hydration for Schiavo was in fact extraordinary care considering that few doctors thought her condition would ever improve.

Schindler told about 75 people at the Hamilton conference that his family was only trying to care for Schiavo, but was constantly thwarted by the courts and a "very powerful and well-organized pro-death movement."

He said the Schindler family had been very close throughout his youth. Even after he went off to university, the family remained in close contact with each other. After his graduation he followed the family to Florida.

His sister married Michael Schiavo, "the first person Terri ever dated." He said he never felt close to his brother-in-law.

Schindler said people who read his family's book "will be astonished at what our family went through. I think people will come to the same conclusion we did" about what to do with his sister.

Schindler was one of several speakers at the weekend conference. Among the other speakers were Wesley J. Smith, author of several best-selling books on euthanasia including The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, and Joseph Sinasac, publisher and editor of The Catholic Register.