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 News from Around the Americas | March 2005 
US Supreme Court Rejects Schiavo Appeal
 NBC, MSNBC and News Services
Washington - The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by Terri Schiavo's parents to order resumption of nourishment for the severely brain-damaged woman.
The decision, announced in a terse one-page order, marked the end of a dramatic and disheartening four-day dash through the federal court system by Bob and Mary Schindler.
The justices did not immediately provide legal reasons for the decision, and no justice issued a written dissent with the ruling.
In their emergency appeal filed Wednesday night, the Schindlers had said their 41-year-old daughter faces an unjust and imminent death based on a decision by her husband to remove a feeding tube without strong proof of her consent. They alleged constitutional violations of due process and religious freedom.
The filing also argued Congress intended for Schiavo's tube to be reinserted, at least temporarily, when it passed an extraordinary law last weekend that gave federal courts authority to fully review her case. Previously, only Florida state courts had ruled, and always in favor of Michael Schiavo, who as Terri Schiavo's husband argued that she told him that she would not have wanted to live in her condition.
Schiavo's feeding tube was removed last Friday and doctors have said she likely would die within a week or two at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., where she is being cared for.
Even before the ruling, the filing was seen as a long shot. The Supreme Court had declined other opportunities to get involved in the Schiavo case and legal experts said there was little reason to believe justices would intervene this time.
Republicans Joined Appeal
Republican leaders in Congress refused to give up entirely Wednesday. In legal papers prepared for filing at the Supreme Court, they argued that a federal appeals court that ruled against the parents earlier this week had "failed to adhere to the plain meaning" of the emergency legislation.
The legislation required that a new, independent evaluation of her case be made, according to papers. It also required the courts to "ensure that desperately needed nutritional support" is provided to Schiavo while the review is conducted, the papers stated.
Lawyers for Michael Schiavo said in their Supreme Court filing that Terri Schiavo would want to die. The filing said Congress violated the Constitution when it passed a bill allowing federal court review of her case, because that tried to overturn state court rulings in favor of Michael Schiavo.
"That is not an exercise of legislative power, but trial by legislature. ... Any law that suspends, nullifies, or reverses a final court judgment is an exercise of judicial, not legislative power," the filing said.
The late-night appeal followed rapid-fire developments in the case.
In Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush tried to build support for Schiavo's parents by saying new evidence suggests her condition was misdiagnosed, even though doctors have said for years that Schiavo is severely brain-damaged and in a persistent vegetative state.
Republicans in the Florida Senate tried to pass a law that would prohibit patients like Schiavo from being denied food and water if they didn't express their wishes in writing, but their effort was defeated.
The flurry of activity came as President Bush suggested that Congress and the White House had done all they could to keep the woman alive.
'Please Let My Daughter Live'
Supporters of Schiavo's parents have become increasingly dismayed, and 13 protesters were arrested Wednesday outside her hospice for trying to bring her water.
"When I close my eyes at night, all I can see is Terri's face in front of me, dying, starving to death," Mary Schindler said outside the hospice. "Please, someone out there, stop this cruelty. Stop the insanity. Please let my daughter live."
Jeb Bush and Florida's social services agency filed a petition in state court to take custody of Schiavo and, presumably, reconnect her feeding tube. It cites new allegations of neglect and challenges Schiavo's diagnosis as being in a persistent vegetative state. The request is based on the opinion of a neurologist working for the state who observed Schiavo at her bedside but did not conduct an examination of her.
The neurologist, William Cheshire of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, is a bioethicist who is also an active member in Christian organizations, including two whose leaders have spoken out against the tube's removal.
The long-shot custody request by Bush was made before Judge George Greer, the same judge who has presided over the case for several years and issued the ruling last month that allowed the feeding tube to be removed. Greer planned to decide by noon Thursday on whether the case would go forward.
But Ronald Cranford of the University of Minnesota, a neurologist who was among those who made a previous diagnosis of Schiavo, said "there isn't a reputable, credible neurologist in the world who won't find her in a vegetative state."
Supreme Court Background
While the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case previously in appeals from state court rulings, what made it different this time was that the appeal would come from a federal ruling.
The Supreme Court's history on right-to-die cases is pretty thin. It ruled in 1990 that a terminally ill person has a right to refuse life-sustaining treatment. In its next term, it plans to consider whether the federal government can prosecute doctors who help ill patients die.
Between those cases, the court has chosen to allow states to decide the issue.
Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped briefly from a chemical imbalance believed to have been brought on by an eating disorder. Court-appointed doctors say she is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.
Her parents argue that she could get better and that she would never have wanted to be cut off from food and water. |
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