The United States Supreme Court on Thursday refused to issue an emergency order to restore a feeding tube to Terri Schiavo, effectively exhausting all legal remedies in a right-to-life case that has transfixed the US.
In the one-sentence decision, the court offered no explanation for its refusal to yield to emotional pleas on live television from Schiavo’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, to restore nutrition to their severely brain-damaged daughter.
It was the fourth time since last January that the court has refused to intervene in the struggle between the Schindlers and their son-in-law, Michael Schiavo, who has argued that Terri would not have wanted to go on living in such circumstances.
The decision dismayed Christian conservatives, and Republican leaders who have openly discussed the importance of Schiavo’s case in cultivating the support of the religious right.
From Washington, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, weighed in with a statement deploring the court’s refusal to re-examine the case.
”I’m saddened by the decision of the court to reject Terri Schiavo’s case for life despite a compelling case for re-examination of the medical evidence,” he said. ”It is a sad day for her loving family and for their innocent and voiceless daughter.”
The congressional majority leader, Tom DeLay, said he believes ”the court erred in reaching its conclusion, and that once again they have chosen to ignore the clear intent of Congress”.
But the White House made it clear again on Thursday that it believes it has done all it can to prolong Schiavo’s life.
The word from the White House and Thursday’s decision from the Supreme Court leaves the Schindlers and the scores of activists camped outside Schiavo’s Florida hospice with one last source of hope: an extraordinary intervention from the state Governor, Jeb Bush.
Unless that happens, Schiavo looks set to continue the slow death that began a week ago on Friday, when a Florida judge ordered the removal of the feeding tube that has sustained her since she suffered a heart attack and slipped into a persistent vegetative state 15 years ago.
Doctors expect that she could live for as long as two weeks without food or water.
”Terri is peaceful,” George Felos, the attorney for Schiavo, told reporters. ”She’s resting comfortably. She’s dying. She’s in her death process. She’s being attended to by a team of wonderful and compassionate professional health-care workers at a hospice who are well-trained to see that her physical needs are met and she be able to die with dignity and with peace.”
Pat Mahoney, a Christian activist who has maintained a vigil outside the hospice, told CNN: ”Governor Bush is now the only practical hope here for Terri Schiavo.”
The governor has long championed the Schindlers’ cause. However, it appeared on Thursday that he too was running out of legal options. On Wednesday, he tried yet another intervention, dispatching social services officials to remove Schiavo from her hospice and reinstitute feeding.
That course of action was disallowed by the Florida courts on Thursday, seemingly leaving Bush with no other lawful means of intervention. — Guardian Unlimited Â