WASHINGTON (ABP) — The federal Supreme Court and a state judge in Florida appear to have put an end to the legal quest to prolong Terri Schiavo's life.
On March 24, the high court turned away, without comment or recorded dissent, a request to reinsert the feeding tube that had been keeping the severely brain-damaged Florida woman alive.
Later in the day, Pinellas County, Fla., Circuit Judge George Greer denied a request from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) to have Schiavo transferred to the custody of the state's Department of Children and Families. The move would have enabled the tube to be surgically reinserted — at least temporarily.
The decisions mean that Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, may be out of hope for prolonging the life of their daughter, whose feeding tube was removed March 18. Doctors say she will die of dehydration or starvation within one or two weeks of the tube's removal.
The tube was removed March 18 according to Greer's orders. The judge and other Florida jurists have repeatedly sided with Schiavo's husband, Michael, who says she would not have wanted to live in such a state. However, Terri Schiavo left no “living will” or other written orders indicating how such end-of-life decisions should be made for her.
Schiavo has been in what court-appointed physicians have diagnosed as a “persistent vegetative state” for the past 15 years, since a heart attack brought on by an eating disorder caused her to suffer significant brain damage. They have also said much of her cerebral cortex is essentially gone — replaced by spinal fluid — and that Schiavo's brain stem is reflexively maintaining the essentials of life, such as her heartbeat, breathing and digestive processes.
But the Schindlers are convinced their daughter is in some state of consciousness — even responding to some stimuli — and can be rehabilitated. Nonetheless, several state courts and state-appointed guardians have repeatedly rejected those claims.
In the latest state-court petition, the Department of Children and Families said new testimony by a physician from the Jacksonville, Fla., branch of the famous Mayo Clinic shed a different light on Terri Schiavo's condition.
In an affidavit attached to the department's motion to have Schiavo's custody transferred to the state, neurologist William Cheshire said he believed the woman was not in a persistent vegetative state but rather in a “minimally conscious state.” He offered this opinion on the basis of having reviewed Schindler's medical history and paying a visit to her bedside in the Pinellas Park, Fla., hospice where she has been living.
However, Cheshire acknowledged he had not formally examined her, unlike the court-appointed physicians. He noted that “Terri did not demonstrate during our 90-minute visit compelling evidence of verbalization, conscious awareness or volitional behavior,” but that, nonetheless, “the visitor has the distinct sense of the presence of a living human being who seems at some level to be aware of some things around her.”
Cheshire's curriculum vitae notes he is a fellow with the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, a group founded by Christian bioethicists. The group's website said he and his family are members of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Jacksonville.
According to the resume, Cheshire also has spoken and written repeatedly on both medical and religious topics to churches and conservative Christian groups, including an interview for a magazine published by the Colorado-based Focus on the Family and a guest opinion piece for the Florida Baptist Witness, the Florida Baptist Convention's newspaper. Both organizations have spoken strongly in favor of keeping Schiavo alive. In the Focus on the Family interview, Cheshire criticized many persistent-vegetative-state diagnoses as being made too hastily.
The Schindlers' cause has become a favorite among religious conservative and other pro-life groups. The political pressure they exerted caused Congress to pass, and President Bush to sign, an extraordinary bill in the wee hours of March 21 that granted federal courts the jurisdiction to hear the case. Republican leaders in both legislative chambers called Congress members back from their traditional two-week-long Easter recess to pass the bill.
President Bush rushed back to Washington from his Texas ranch specifically to sign the legislation. He added his signature less than 30 minutes after the House passed it on a 203-58 vote at 12:42 a.m. The Senate had approved the bill by voice vote just hours before, in a rare Sunday evening session.
Debate over the bill on the House floor the night of March 20-21 was often impassioned.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), arguing for the bill, said it was narrowly designed to protect Terri Schiavo's rights. “Mr. Speaker, protecting the lives of our innocent citizens and their constitutional rights is why we are all here,” he said.
“The phrase in the 14th Amendment capsulizes [sic] our entire Constitution,” Franks, a Baptist, continued. “It says: 'No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.' It is unconscionable that judges holding responsibility to protect Terri Schiavo's constitutional rights have chosen to abandon those responsibilities, so that now Congress has no honorable alternative but to respond as we are.”
But Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said that the Florida judges have studied the case much more extensively than Congress, and thus Congress should defer to them. “The state of Florida, through our court system, has acted deliberatively, with justice and with due care,” he said.
“The state of Florida, through our judicial system, has taken testimony from everyone in the family and from everyone who knew Mrs. Schiavo that was capable of giving it. The courts in Florida have received expert testimony from many of the most prominent neurosurgeons and neurologists throughout the entire country,” Wexler continued.
“The court system and the 19 judges in Florida have been unanimous — unanimous — in stating … by a standard of clear and convincing evidence, that it is Mrs. Schiavo's wish that she not be required to continue in a persistent vegetative state.”
Democrats accused Republican leaders of hypocrisy in pushing through a bill that raises serious constitutional separation-of-powers questions and that is at odds with traditional GOP deference to family rights and the autonomy of states.
Prior to the congressional vote, an unsigned memorandum was reportedly circulated to Republican lawmakers calling the Schiavo case “a great political issue” for Republicans — particularly as it concerns Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who will be up for re-election in 2006. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) denounced the memo.
It may not be as politically beneficial for Republicans as the memo's author hoped. An ABC News poll released March 21 showed large majorities of respondents favoring the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube and opposing congressional intervention in the case.
Even among Republicans' core constituencies — conservatives and evangelical Protestants — the poll showed slim majorities favoring the tube's removal. And conservative Republicans opposed the federal government becoming involved in the case by a 57-to-41-percent margin.
And 67 percent of the respondents said they think the officials trying to keep Schiavo alive are doing so more out of political expediency than principle. Only 19 percent took the opposite view.
Nonetheless, in a statement released by the White House press office, Bush couched his support for the bill in terms similar to those he has used to talk about abortion and euthanasia, which he opposes. “In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life,” the statement read. “I will continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities.”