MIAMI, Feb. 22 -- One of the longest-running and most contentious right-to-die cases in U.S. history ricocheted between Florida courts on Tuesday as protesters gathered in suburban Tampa to pray that a severely brain-damaged woman's feeding tube would not be removed.
The legal to-and-fro prolonged the wrenching saga, and the life, of Terri Schiavo for at least a few more hours to give her parents another opportunity to argue at a hearing on Wednesday that her husband should not be allowed to remove the feeding tubes that have sustained her since she slipped into a vegetative state after suffering cardiac arrest 15 years ago. Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, are fast running out of options in a fight to keep their daughter alive that has roused the passions and the support of right-to-life groups and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R).
Bob and Mary Schindler, center, parents of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, walk past a demonstrator outside the Florida hospice where Schiavo is staying.
(Chris O'meara -- AP)
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Tuesday evolved in an all-too-familiar way in a case that has bobbed relentlessly from the trial and appeals courts in Florida to the U.S. Supreme Court and back again. First, a Florida appeals court refused to extend a stay that expired at 1 p.m. Tuesday and had been preventing Michael Schiavo from ordering doctors to end his wife's tube-feeding.
But half an hour later, Pinellas County Circuit Judge George W. Greer issued another stay, though a brief one, stalling Michael Schiavo until 5 p.m. on Wednesday to allow for another hearing.
The legal maneuvering took place as groups more commonly associated with antiabortion demonstrations urged their followers to hold prayer vigils and protests at Pinellas Park, where Schiavo lives at a hospice, and at neighboring communities. Activists with the antiabortion group Operation Rescue led demonstrations and promised "to pull out all the stops" to prevent Michael Schiavo from ending his wife's tube-feeding.
"We're not going to stand idly by while she is starved to death," said Troy Newman, an Operation Rescue spokesman. "This wouldn't happen to a dog; you wouldn't do it to your pet."
Newman's line of reasoning, a central theme among those opposed to stopping Schiavo's tube-feeding, is disputed by some of the nation's leading bioethicists. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said Tuesday that "what's getting mixed up in this is the metaphors."
"She isn't going to suffer," Caplan said. "She can't think, feel or sense."
The Schindlers maintain that their daughter can do all that. Their public relations push has focused on a videotape of their daughter appearing to smile and on the hope that alternative treatments could some day revive her -- something that Caplan and dozens of other bioethicists say is impossible because of the severity of her brain damage and the length of time she has been in a vegetative state.
Still, the Schindlers argue that there is hope, and they are asking Greer to strip Michael Schiavo of his authority by taking away his status as Terri Schiavo's guardian.
The Schindlers have also argued that their daughter as a practicing Roman Catholic would not want to go against church teachings. They have taken the rare step of asking the courts to apply the words of Pope John Paul II, who said last year that euthanasia "is a sin."
