Congress Announces Deal in Schiavo Case
1 hour, 22 minutes ago Politics - U. S. Congress
By SIOBHAN McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - Congressional leaders said Saturday they reached a compromise that would call on federal courts to decide Terri Schiavo's fate, as emotions swelled outside the hospice where the brain-damaged woman spent her second day without a feeding tube.
AP Photo
Four protesters were arrested after they symbolically tried to smuggle bread and water to Schiavo, and her mother pleaded for the 41-year-old woman's life.
"We laugh together, we cry together, we smile together, we talk together," Mary Schindler told reporters as supporters maintained a vigil outside the hospice where her daughter is cared for. "Please, please, please save my little girl."
Congressional leaders announced a compromise that would allow the brain-damaged woman's case to be reviewed by federal courts that could restore her feeding tube. The legislation may be considered as early as Sunday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said.
"We should investigate every avenue before we take the life of a living human being," said DeLay, R-Texas. "That's the very least we can do for her."
The measure would effectively take Schiavo's fate out of Florida state courts, where judges ordered the feeding tube removed on Friday, and allow Schiavo's parents to take their case to a federal judge. DeLay said that would likely mean restoration of the feeding tube "for as long as this appeal endures."
Bush spokesman Jeanie Mamo said the White House remains "supportive of the efforts by congressional leaders."
The development was the latest in an epic right-to-die battle between Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and her husband, Michael Schiavo, over whether she should be permitted to die or kept alive by the feeding tube.
Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist who is acting as a Schindler family spokesman, described the parents as "hopeful" that the congressional compromise would succeed. He said the parents also were concerned about the tight security in their daughter's room, which includes a police officer standing guard.
"They are so determined to kill her that they don't want mom or dad to even put an ice chip in her mouth," Terry said.
In Tallahassee, Gov. Jeb Bush's spokesman Jacob DiPietre said the governor applauded the actions in Congress and would work with legislative leaders "to adjust our laws in a similar fashion."
Passage of the measure would require the presence of only a handful of lawmakers. Congress is on its spring recess, making it more difficult to locate lawmakers.
President Bush (news - web sites), who has said he favors a "presumption of life" for Schiavo, would also have to sign the bill into law. Schiavo, 41, could linger for one or two weeks if the tube is not reinserted — as has happened twice before.
The attempted compromise would mark the latest wrinkle in the long-running legal battle over the fate of Schiavo, who doctors say is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery. Her husband has insisted she never wanted to live in such a condition.
"I am 100 percent sure," Michael Schiavo said Saturday on NBC's "Today." He did not respond to requests for an interview from The Associated Press.
Michael Schiavo was at his wife's bedside after the tube was removed and said he felt that "peace was happening" for her. "And I felt like she was finally going to get what she wants, and be at peace and be with the Lord," he said.
About three dozen supporters of Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, maintained a vigil outside the hospice where she lives. Four people, including right wing leader James Gordon "Bo" Gritz, were arrested on misdemeanor trespassing charges when they attempted to bring Schiavo bread and water, which she would be unable to consume.
"A woman is being starved to death, and I have to do something," said Brandi Swindell, 28, from Boise, Idaho. "There are just certain things that you have to do, that you have to try."
A spokesman for Schiavo's parents, Paul O'Donnell, later told reporters that they do not want supporters to engage in civil disobedience on their daughter's behalf.
"The family is asking that the protests remain peaceful," said O'Donnell, a Roman Catholic Franciscan monk.
Schiavo's parents have been attempting for years to remove Michael Schiavo as their daughter's guardian and keep in place the tube that has kept her alive for more than 15 years.
Schiavo suffered severe brain damage in 1990 when a chemical imbalance apparently brought on by an eating disorder caused her heart to stop beating for a few minutes. She can breathe on her own, but has relied on the feeding and hydration tube to keep her alive.
Court-appointed physicians testified her brain damage was so severe that there was no hope she would ever have any cognitive abilities.
Republicans on Capitol Hill were rebuffed by state and federal courts Friday when they tried to halt the tube's removal by issuing subpoenas for Schiavo, her husband and caregivers to appear at congressional hearings.
Both sides accused each other of being motivated by greed over a $1 million medical malpractice award from doctors who failed to diagnose the chemical imbalance.
The Schindlers also said Michael Schiavo wants their daughter dead so he can marry his longtime girlfriend, with whom he has young children. They have begged him to divorce their daughter, and let them care for her.
The case has encompassed at least 19 judges in at least six different courts.
In 2001, Schiavo went without food and water for two days before a judge ordered the tube reinserted when a new witness surfaced.
When the tube was removed in October 2003, the governor pushed through "Terri's Law," and six days later the tube was reinserted. The Florida Supreme Court (news - web sites) ruled in September 2004 that Bush had overstepped his authority and declared the law unconstitutional.
Florida Woman's Husband Attacks Congress Intervention
Sat Mar 19,11:00 AM ET Top Stories - Reuters
By Robert Green
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (Reuters) - As a severely brain-damaged Florida woman lay dying on Saturday, the husband who has long fought for her right to die assailed Republican congressmen for their last-minute attempts to keep her alive.
Michael Schiavo spoke out against the maneuvers in Washington a day after doctors followed a court order and removed the feeding tube that has kept Terri Schiavo alive for the last 15 years.
"They should be ashamed of themselves," he said in an interview with the CBS "Early Show." "Leave my wife alone. Leave me alone."
Intervening in the highly public right-to-die case, Republican congressional leaders sought in recent days to block the court order and keep the tube in place by subpoenaing Terri Schiavo to appear before hearings and committees later in the month. The move would have granted her protection as a witness in a congressional inquiry.
But the Florida state judge in the case, Circuit Judge George Greer, rebuffed the effort and said his order for the tube to be removed on Friday should go ahead.
Schiavo has been fed through a stomach tube since a heart attack starved her brain of oxygen in 1990, leaving her in what the courts declared was a permanent vegetative state. The dispute between Terri Schiavo's husband and her parents, who believe she should be kept alive, galvanized activists on all sides of the right-to-die issue.
Lying at the Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, Terri Schiavo, 41, was expected to survive for up to two weeks without the feeding tube.
"I have a sense of relief for Terri," Michael Schiavo told CNN. "I feel that this is her time. This is going to work for Terri. She's going to finally be at peace."
LAST-MINUTE APPEALS
Congressional lawyers appealed Greer's decision before the Florida Supreme Court (news - web sites), which rejected it. Later Friday, the House Committee on Government Reform made an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) to have Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted, but that application was denied.
House and Senate Republican leaders vowed to work through the weekend on new legislation to keep Schiavo alive.
House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay called removing the feeding tube "an act of barbarism" and said it was a moral obligation to protect her from the "fate premeditated by the Florida courts."
But Michael Schiavo, who said he spent Friday with his wife and planned to go back to her side on Saturday, said members of Congress were "stepping into my personal life and they're getting in the middle of something they know nothing about."
"It's sad what this government's doing. And if they do it to me they'll do it to everybody in this country. If they don't like the decisions, they're going to step right in."
Michael Schiavo, who is his wife's legal guardian, has long argued she would not want to live in her condition, and he won court permission to remove the feeding tube. That order has been sustained against numerous appeals.
Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, say she responds to them and could improve with rehabilitation, and lobbied lawmakers to intervene.
"Our family's intention from the beginning ... has been one and one thing only --and that's to bring Terri home and make her part of the family and take care of her again," Robert Schindler, Terri Schiavo's brother, told CNN on Saturday.
If she were allowed home, he said, "people would see how alive Terri is -- how alert she is and that we are going to starve a human being to death that is simply disabled."
Dozens of protesters gathered on Saturday outside the Pinellas Park hospice. Some said they planned to risk arrest during the day by trying to bring food to her -- something that was likely to be blocked by police guarding the entrance.
Twice before, Terri Schiavo's feeding was halted and then resumed. In 2003, Florida lawmakers hastily passed a law that allowed Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush (news - web sites)'s brother, to order the feeding tube reinserted six days after it was withdrawn. The law was later overturned as unconstitutional.
(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington)