Brain-Damaged Terri Schiavo Dies

Mrs Schiavo had gone without food or water for 13 days

March 31, 2005
BBC

Photo: An undated family photo shows Terri Schiavo before she suffered catastrophic brain damage. (AP)

Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman at the heart of a bitter legal dispute, has died.

Mrs Schiavo's feeding tube was disconnected on 18 March, following a seven-year battle through the courts.

Her husband Michael Schiavo had said his wife would not have wanted to live in her current condition.

The 41-year-old's parents fought to the highest level of the US courts system to keep their daughter alive.

The legal battle went as far up as the US Congress, and President George Bush rushed through an emergency bill to send the case back to the federal courts soon after the feeding tube was disconnected.

But the US courts at every level supported Michael Schiavo's case and rejected requests by Mrs Schiavo's parents to have her feeding tube reinserted.

The case divided the country, with a majority of people agreeing her feeding tube should have been disconnected.

But it fanned the flames of a fierce debate over whether life should be preserved at all costs, the BBC's Lesley Curwen in Washington says.

'Killing'

Mrs Schiavo died on Thursday at the Pinellas Park hospice, where she lay for years while her husband - who was her legal guardian - and her parents fought over whether to keep her alive or let her die.

Her parents and their two other children were with her up to 15 minutes before she died.


TERRI SCHIAVO CASE

Feb 1990: Terri Schiavo collapses
May 1998: Mr Schiavo files petition to remove feeding tube
Oct 2003: Florida lower house passes "Terri's Law", allowing governor to order doctors to feed Mrs Schiavo
Sept 2004: Florida Supreme Court strikes down law
18 Mar 2005: Florida court allows removal of tube
22 Mar 2005: Federal judge rejects appeal
23 Mar 2005: Appeals court backs federal ruling
29 Mar 2005: Federal court grants parents leave to appeal
30 Mar 2005: Federal court and Supreme Court reject parents' appeal
31 Mar 2005: Terri Schiavo dies

A few minutes before she died, they were told to leave the room by Michael Schiavo, their spokesman said.

They were allowed back into the room after she died.

Father Frank Pavone, national director of the organisation Priests for Life, accused Mr Schiavo of "heartless cruelty".

"This is not only a death, this is a killing," he said. "We grieve that our nation has allowed such an atrocity as this."

Mrs Schiavo collapsed after her heart stopped beating temporarily in 1990.

Court-appointed doctors had said she was in a permanent vegetative state and would not recover, but her parents had said she could.

The case galvanised activists from both sides of the euthanasia debate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4398131.stm