Terri Schiavo, the severely brain damaged woman at the centre of a right-to-die controversy in the United States, died on Thursday in a Florida hospice almost two weeks after her feeding tube was cut off, a spokesperson for her parents said.
Schiavo (41) died as her husband Michael Schiavo and parents Bob and Mary Schindler argued over whether the parents should be at her bedside when she died.
The two sides fought in court for more than seven years over whether the stricken woman, who suffered crippling brain damage following heart failure 15 years ago, should be left to die.
”It is with great sadness that it has been reported to us that Terri Schiavo has passed away,” Paul O’Donnell, a Franciscan monk who acts as spokesperson for the parents, told reporters.
He said the parents and other close family had been allowed into the room after the woman’s death.
”They’ve been requesting, as you know, for the last hour to try to be in there. And they were denied access by Michael Schiavo,” O’Donnel said.
The death came hours after the Supreme Court refused the Schindlers’ request, for the sixth time, to look at the case.
The US Congress had also sought to pass legislation to have her feeding tube reinserted. — Sapa-AFP