TAMPA, Fla. – Michael Schiavo had decided at the last minute to give up his fight to remove his brain-damaged wife’s feeding tube, but his attorney persuaded him not to, Schiavo says in a new book.

Schiavo had been hounded by protesters and received death threats, he says in “Terri: The Truth,” which was released Monday. And his longtime fiancée was worried about the safety of the couple’s two children.

But attorney George Felos “reminded me that we had to realize that it wasn’t just about Terri anymore,” Schiavo wrote. “It was about the rest of the people who didn’t want the government telling us how we could die and when we were allowed to decide that we didn’t want further medical treatment.

“And it was about who has the right to make decisions between a husband and wife.”

Michael Schiavo fought Terri Schiavo’s parents in court for eight years over removal of his spouse’s life support, arguing she would not have wanted to be kept alive in what most doctors called a persistent vegetative state. Her parents insisted she retained some level of consciousness.

Terri Schiavo died in her husband’s arms on March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube was removed.

The bitter end-of-life battle reached Gov. Jeb Bush, the Supreme Court, Congress, the White House and even the Vatican.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, Schiavo said it did not take much for Felos to persuade him to continue the case.

“It was bigger than I ever dreamed it would become,” he said. “But my parents raised me to be a fighter and go out and do what I believe in. And I was there to do what Terri wanted, and I wasn’t going to give it up.”

The 360-page book, written with author Michael Hirsh, chronicles Terri and Michael Schiavo’s lives together before and after she collapsed in 1990 and entered a nursing home.

Terri Schiavo’s brother took a dim view of the book.

“By defaming our family, Michael Schiavo is somehow trying to vindicate himself and justify what he did to Terri,” Bobby Schindler said.