The parents of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose right-to-die case has ignited emotional and political furore across the United States, filed another appeal with the US Supreme Court on Thursday.
Schiavo’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, filed an emergency appeal in another 11th-hour attempt through the courts to force reinstatement of Schiavo’s feeding tube, news reports said.
The court, which has declined to intervene several times, can deny the stay, grant it or refer it to the entire court for a decision.
The appeal was filed hours after a federal appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia, again declined to hold another hearing on whether to reinsert the feeding tube.
The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals initially agreed to consider an emergency petition, but refused on Wednesday by a vote of nine-to-two to hear it or refer it to the federal district court for another review, broadcast media reports said.
Schiavo was entering her 13th day without food or water on Thursday.
The appeals court last week twice rejected the Schindlers’ petitions, but the latest was based on a new argument. It said the appeals court was required to hear the full arguments in the case and not just review past procedural rulings as it had done in previous hearings.
Doctors say Schiavo, who is in a persistent vegetative state, is not expected to live past this week, but the legal wrangling gave a faint glimmer of hope to the Schindlers that their daughter might be kept alive.
The 41-year-old woman, who has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, has been without hydration or nourishment since March 18. She left no document stating her desire should she ever
be incapacitated, and her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, has convinced the courts that his wife would not have wanted to live in her current state.
The Schindlers have waged a seven-year-long battle in the courts and before television cameras. But Michael Schiavo has consistently won court rulings, culminating in the removal of her feeding tube.
The Schindlers legal manoeuvres on Wednesday were a surprise because they had announced that they were giving up their court battle on the previous Sunday.
The emotional case has garnered intense media coverage, become a bully pulpit for ”pro-life” anti-abortion forces and led to intervention by the Florida and US congresses and President George W. Bush and his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who have sought unsuccessfully to intervene to keep Schiavo alive.
Schiavo’s family and friends said on Wednesday that she was fighting for her life.
”Under the circumstances, she looks darn good,” Robert Schindler said at a press conference outside the Pinellas Park, Florida, hospice where Schiavo is dying. ”I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw.”
The Schindlers, believing to be at the end of the legal road, urged protestors gathered outside the hospice to go home on the previous Saturday. But some supporters still lingered on Wednesday, including Jay Carpenter, who identified himself as a doctor who examined Schiavo several years ago.
Carpenter countered earlier speculation that reconnecting the feeding tube could actually harm Schiavo, then added: ”We are doing this to a person who has committed no crime. It is a travesty. We must stand up and show the world that in America, we do not dehydrate and starve to death handicapped people.”
Carpenter’s statements coupled with comments of politicians, celebrities and religious leaders served as testimony to the strong emotions swirling in the case.
The Reverend Jesse Jackson visited Schiavo’s parents on Wednesday, saying it was ”morally disgraceful and unjustifiable” that Schiavo was being denied food and water. But he also acknowledged that ”at every turn … various legal doors are being closed”.
Actor and director Mel Gibson, a devout Roman Catholic, called Schiavo’s case ”a prolonged and cruel execution”. In an interview with Fox News, Gibson said the situation represented a ”really dark, black day” for the United States.
”I think it is so wrong,” Gibson said. ”I’ve watched it appalled and stunned that we’ve come to this.” Earlier on Wednesday, First Lady Laura Bush said the government was right to have intervened in the Terri Schiavo case.
It’s a ”life issue that really does require government to be involved”, she said while en route to Afghanistan, according to media reports.
Just after Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed Congress rushed through a controversial law directing federal courts to hear Schiavo’s case and US President George W. Bush interrupted his vacation to sign it.
The US Supreme Court has already turned down hearing the Schiavo case at least three times, saying the matter was a state, not a federal, issue.
Terri Schiavo suffered devastating brain damage in 1990 when she suffered a heart attack that cut off oxygen to her brain. She did not have a living will, but Michael Schiavo has successfully argued in court that she would not have wanted to live in a persistent vegetative state.
The Schindlers, however, don’t agree with the doctors’ diagnoses that she is in such a condition. They argued that she reacts to their visits with moans and eye blinking, but physicians said those reactions are involuntary and part of her condition.
Relatives and friends continued to insist at Wednesday’s press conference with Robert Schindler that Terri Schiavo was following them with her eyes around her hospice room and was doing well.
”She is an amazingly strong woman,” one supporter said and another added, ”We’re with her and she is with us.” The case has led many Americans to go to their lawyers to draw up a living will — a document that lays out the medical treatments that can be taken when a person is incapacitated — and led to debates in public and within families about the right to die versus the right to life.
Laura Bush said she and her husband have signed living wills. — Sapa-DPA