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(Merged) Terri Schiavo passes


Thiebear

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rather than repost.

its sad that so many people tried to gain from this situation. They really do need to fix this.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/31/schiavo/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman who became the centerpiece of a national right-to-die battle died Thursday morning, nearly two weeks after doctors removed the feeding tube that had sustained her for more than a decade.

Brother Paul O'Donnell, a spokesman for Bob and Mary Schindler, Schiavo's parents, said the couple was with their daughter's body and praying.

Wednesday, the Schindlers lost what their lawyer described as their "last meaningful legal appeal" in their desperate battle to have their brain-damaged daughter's feeding tube reinserted.

The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday refused once again to hear an emergency appeal from the Schindlers.

Their lawyer, David Gibbs, heard the high court had rejected the appeal during a news conference outside the Pinellas Park, Florida, hospice where Schiavo is receiving care.

"It appears that that will be the last meaningful legal appeal unless something comes up," Gibbs said. "Fundamentally, the decision of the Florida courts will remain unchanged and the federal courts have declined to get involved."

Thursday morning, O' Donnell said that Schiavo was in her final hours of life, and police have prohibited her blood relatives from spending time with her.

O'Donnell, one of the family's spiritual advisers, said that her parents and siblings were "begging to be at her bedside...but are being denied."

Michael Schiavo was Terri's guardian and controlled who may visit her and when.

Pasco-Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer in Clearwater, Florida, ordered the feeding tube removed March 18 at Michael Schiavo's request. He has said that his wife wouldn't have wanted to live in her condition -- what Florida courts have deemed a "persistent vegetative state."

The parents felt otherwise and had sought to take guardianship of their daughter from her husband. Their bitter court battles began in 1998.

"I don't understand why Michael Schiavo at some point didn't walk away," Gibbs said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has jurisdiction over Florida, Georgia and Alabama, and could have ruled on the petition on his own, referred the appeal to the entire Supreme Court at 10:40 p.m. Wednesday.

There was no breakdown of the vote, and the high court issued no explanation for its decision. The petition had been filed earlier in the night.

It was the second time in a week the high court refused to hear the case, and the sixth time since 2001.

The Schindlers "can know they have done everything possible under the law in letting government know that they wanted to fight for the life of their daughter," Gibbs said.

In his Supreme Court filing, Gibbs and other lawyers for the parents wrote that removing the tube represented "an unconstitutional deprivation of Terri Schiavo's constitutional right to life."

The Supreme Court's rejection came hours after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, rejected the parents' petition 9-2. That court denied three similar requests from the parents last week.

In a concurring opinion of the Atlanta court's latest ruling, Judge Stanley Birch said Congress "chose to overstep constitutional boundaries" by passing a law to force the Schiavo case into federal courts.

Judges Gerald Tjoflat and Charles Wilson dissented, with Tjoflat writing that the Schindlers deserved a hearing on the merits of their argument.

On March 21, three days after Schiavo's feeding tube was removed, Congress passed a bill transferring jurisdiction of the case from Florida state court to a U.S. District Court, for a federal judge to review. President Bush signed it into law the next day. But federal courts refused to overturn the state courts' decision.

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I'm glad for her, glad that the suffering is finally over. I had to make this exact decision for my mother just last month (though it was a respirator, not a feeding tube) and I can tell you that, despite my instincts to try and keep her alive at all costs, it was the best thing for her.

Let's just hope that the right-to-lifers (who threatened to kill the husband :doh: ) can someday understand this.

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"What a dick her husband is. How that **** can sleep at night is beyond me." I see you buy into the propaganda the family and supporters have been spewing this whole time. Do some research and find out the facts.

May they all find peace now!!!

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Originally posted by jenmdixon

No offense, but can we please have ONE thread about this poor woman without it becoming a thread about spewing hate? :(

It is a sad state of affairs when the mother and father of a child have no say in this matter. Furthermore saying that is not hate speech...

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