PINELLAS PARK (USA), March 28: Terri Schiavo’s parents appealed desperately to Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Monday to intervene as their brain-damaged daughter slipped toward death 10 days after her artificial feeding was halted by court order. But the last-ditch effort by the parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, seemed unlikely to succeed as Bush has already ruled out such action. Their appeal came after the Schindlers ran out of judicial options over the weekend in their bitter seven-year legal fight against Schiavo’s husband to prolong her life.
“Bob and Mary Schindler are begging Governor Bush to step in and take custody of Terri,” said Father Paul O’Donnell, a Franciscan monk who is a spiritual adviser to the parents.
“We’re begging the governor to step in, to be a man of courage and to put an end to this barbaric practice that’s taking place in Florida,” he told reporters outside the Florida hospice where Schiavo is being cared for.
The parents’ case has become a cause for Christian conservatives and drawn in the US Congress, President George W. Bush and his brother the Florida governor.
But Jeb Bush, who tried unsuccessfully last week to get the state welfare agency to take custody of Schiavo and to push the state legislature into intervening, has made plain he does not have the power to do anything more to prolong Schiavo’s life although he remains an active supporter of the Schindlers.
“From a personal perspective it just breaks my heart that we have not erred on the side of life,” Bush said on CNN.
Doctors have said that Schiavo would survive up to two weeks after the removal of the feeding tube that has sustained her since a cardiac arrest in 1990 deprived her brain of oxygen.
“We’re begging, governor, do something, today, now. Don’t join the culture of death and be writing this woman’s obituary,” O’Donnell said. After the feeding tube was removed on March 18 by order of a state court that has ruled Schiavo would want to die, the Republican-controlled US Congress scrambled to intervene, rushing through legislation to push a case that has long been decided into state courts into federal courts.
But the law, which President Bush interrupted a vacation to sign, was both unpopular with Americans — opinion polls have shown a large majority of people disapprove — and also failed to achieve its aim of getting feeding restored.
Federal courts all the way up to the US Supreme Court rejected the parents’ request to reinsert the feeding tube.
‘STILL FIGHTING’: In recent days, the parents or their spokesmen have described their daughter both as near death and battling to live, apparently wanting to stress there is still a chance to intervene to stop her dying.
“From what her parents are telling me, she is doing remarkable ... She’s still alert. She still interacts with them when they go in the room and she’s fighting for her life,” O’Donnell told NBC’s “Today” show.
The parents have long insisted that their daughter responds to them and could improve with treatment.
But the medical opinion accepted by courts is that in her condition, sounds and movements she makes are reflexive and she is not aware of her surroundings.
The Schindlers have been backed by an array of supporters from conservative Christians through disabled rights groups and anti-abortion activists broadly joined in their belief in a “culture of life.”
The Christian right, emboldened by its role in re-electing President Bush last November, lobbied Congress for action on Schiavo. But polls have shown a majority of Americans believe she should be allowed to die.
On Sunday, which was Easter, Schiavo was given communion by Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, who placed a drop of wine on her tongue. She had been given last rites on the day her feeding tube was removed.
Malanowski, who has visited Schiavo at the hospice in Pinellas Park for many years, later celebrated Mass for more than 100 demonstrators who knelt on the lawn outside.
“Terri we love you,” the crowd sang softly. “We won’t give up. We will fight to the end,” Malanowski said during the service.
A crowd ranging from a few dozen to more than 100 has kept vigil for days outside the hospice and grew restive on Sunday as their hopes faded that Schiavo would be kept alive.—Reuters
