Posted on 03/26/2005 4:12:10 PM PST by wagglebee
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) - After another round of losses in the courts, Terri Schiavo's parents kept watch over their dying daughter Saturday, seeking permission to give her Easter communion as their attorneys acknowledged the fight to reconnect the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube was nearing an end.
Attorneys for Bob and Mary Schindler decided not to file another motion with a federal appeals court, essentially ending their effort to persuade federal judges to intervene - something allowed by an extraordinary law passed by Congress.
But at least three more appeals loomed by the Schindlers and Gov. Jeb Bush. Schindler attorney David Gibbs III appealed an unfavorable ruling Saturday with a last-ditch plea to the Florida Supreme Court to get the feeding tube reinserted.
"Time is moving quickly and it would appear most likely ... that Terri Schiavo will pass the point that she will be able to recover over this Easter weekend," Gibbs said. He filed an emergency petition arguing that a Pinellas County judge ignored new evidence of Schiavo's wishes and her medical condition.
Paul O'Donnell, a Roman Catholic Franciscan monk, said the family is urging Schiavo's husband to allow his wife to receive the sacrament of communion at sundown Saturday, when Catholics begin celebrating their holiest feast of the year. Schiavo, who cannot swallow, would have a minuscule piece of bread and a drop of wine placed in her mouth.
Earlier, Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer rejected the family's latest motion. The family claimed Schiavo tried to say "I want to live" hours before her tube was removed, saying "AHHHHH" and "WAAAAAAA" when asked to repeat the phrase.
Doctors have said her previous utterances weren't speech, but were involuntary moans consistent with someone in a vegetative state. Greer agreed.
Scott Schiavo, the brother of Schiavo's husband, Michael, said the family was pleased to see the Schindlers' efforts nearing an end.
"He knows in his heart he is doing the right thing, he is doing what Terri wanted," Scott Schiavo said. "He's having a hard time understanding why people are fighting him on this, why they are calling him a murderer. It's very tough on him."
Michael Schiavo has said she has no hope for recovery and wouldn't want to be kept alive artificially. The Schindlers believe their daughter could improve and say she laughs, cries, responds to them and tries to talk.
Doctors have said she would probably die within a week or two of her feeding tube being pulled, which was done March 18 after Greer sided with her husband. Her body wracked by dehydration, attorneys for her parents said she may not last through the weekend.
"She's doing remarkably well under the circumstances," said Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, after visiting her inside the hospice Saturday afternoon. "She has put up a tremendous battle to live. She's not throwing in the towel."
Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, denied reports by the parents' attorneys that her tongue and eyes were bleeding.
"She is calm. She is peaceful. She is resting comfortably," Felos told reporters Saturday as four sheriff's deputies stood by to protect him.
Terri Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler, called that "absurd" and challenged Felos to allow videos and photos to be released, so the public can see Terri's condition. "They're mischaracterizing the condition today, just as they have been ... It's sick. It's heinous," he said.
Felos said earlier that allowing videos to be recorded inside Terri Schiavo's room during her death process would violate her privacy rights.
Outside the hospice, about 60 protesters maintained a subdued vigil and, like her parents, hoped for a miracle. Some said they believed it was not a coincidence that the woman would lay dying during the Easter weekend.
"Things are all done in God's timing," said David Vogel, a 47-year-old Steubenville, Ohio, musician who was arrested for trespassing last week when he tried to enter the hospice to take water to Terri Schiavo. "Does he have his hand upon this? Oh, yeah. The parallels are there with what happened to Jesus Christ. He was condemned to death, an innocent man. She's an innocent woman."
A group of 22 protesters bearing wooden crosses arrived by bus from a Christian community in Augusta, Ga., to join the fray.
"It's the most significant weekend for Christians, and God wants us to be aware of the preciousness of life," said one of the coordinators, Louis Hymel, 52. "God calls us always to the cross, and this is an example of us taking up our cross."
Schiavo was reared in the Roman Catholic church, and her parents have made heavy use of her faith as the basis for the numerous appeals to reinsert the feeding tube that was removed more than a week ago.
The Schindlers have argued, for instance, that she should be spared based on statements by Pope John Paul II that people in vegetative states have a right to nutrition and hydration. They say Terri would have obeyed the pope and would not choose to have her tube removed. That argument was rebuffed in the state courts.
Terri Schiavo has been without food and water longer than she was in 2003, when the tube was removed for six days before Gov. Jeb Bush pushed through a law to have it reinserted. The law was later thrown out by the state Supreme Court.
Many supporters of the Schindlers say Bush could simply ignore the courts and take emergency custody of Schiavo. But Bush, himself a convert to Roman Catholicism, has said he's not willing to go beyond the boundaries of his powers.
Bush and the state have two appeals pending in their fight to support the Schindlers. But the challenges are before the state 2nd District Court of Appeal, which has rebuffed previous efforts by Bush in the case.
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. She left no living will.
Are there any lawyers or judges out there who wonder why they are considered lower than dirt?
No decent nation would knowingly allow a disabled woman to be starved to death unless it were known to a CERTAINTY (1) that she wanted this, and (2) that she is in a permanent vegetative state (PVS).
Neither is even known, must less to a certainty.
Yet she is being killed nonetheless.
If enough people cared, we wouldn't have odious "I see nothing, I hear nothing" judges running this country under the guise of interpreting our laws.
They don't care. That is as much an indictment as anything.
I am 190% Eastern Orthodox and I am totally ticked off about this.
Although her heart still beats, her soul is gone.
Ha! Jeb has what he wants. He has the power of the governor's office and a dishonest wife who tries to smuggle goods into the country illegally. Isn't he the lucky one!
No decent person wearing a uniform would carry out that order.
Some of the people wearing those uniforms aren't decent.
I have a flag hanging in my window and because all of this I am going to take it down. I was wondering if I should turn it upside down and hang it that way. Won't do it tomorrow because my parents are coming over. What should I do?
I am a lawyer and I am ashamed of the fecal matter that now comprises the edifice of the American legal sytem.
True and we will beat them over their cone shaped heads with it in '06 and again in '08.
Please read my last sentence in the post you responded to. This is not the place for doctrinal debates, discussions, etc. It just isn't.
They should at least let her have Holy Communion. This is unconscionable to deny her Communion at Easter.
Actually Catholic belief is that the Host is the body of Christ and that the Body of Christ is food for our soul.
Subtle point though.
Jesus wept...
Follow your conscience and work for justice. I doubt that a token gesture with a flag will have any affect.
Give them an inch... ---> just kidding! Mine knows what I want done because I am a Catholic, so it's pretty easy. He's just sick of hearing about it on TV, we actually haven't talked about it much. I know when to keep my mouth shut!
How do we know that?
Don't think that starvation and dehydration is not painful and agonizing should ask any Naval veteran who had to spend days or weeks in an open raft in the Pacific Ocean in WWII after their ship or plane went down.
Or ask a survivor of the Nazi Death camps about it, or a survivor of the Jap POW camps.
They'll tell you something entirely different from what the JERKS say, and I trust the veterans they've experienced it and lived to tell about it.
I always think of the faithful Lutheran minister who wrote the poignant "First they came for the Jews and I said nothing... etc., etc. -- you know what I mean but I can't remember the rest of it.
Maybe you are right, maybe there can be a new law that applies to situations where such deep disputes exist within family.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.