Gov. Bush Appeals Schiavo Case to U.S. Supreme Court
In a life-or-death case, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush asked U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to allow him to keep a brain-damaged woman alive despite the objections of her husband to remove her feedings tubes.
In a life-or-death case, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush asked U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to allow him to keep a brain-damaged woman alive despite the objections of her husband to remove her feedings tubes.
Bush wants the Justices to overturn the Florida Supreme Court ruling striking down a law that allowed him to intervene on behalf of Terri Schiavo, who needs feeding tubes to remain alive after an incident 15 years ago left her brain damaged.
Schiavo’s husband Michael had been fighting to remove her tubes, alleging she told him before her condition that she would never want to be kept alive through artificial means. In Oct. 2003, Michael was successful in the court battles and her feeding tubes were removed.
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But through “Terri’s Law,” which was quickly passed by Florida lawmakers, her tubes were reinserted six days later by the order of Bush.
On Sept. 23, Florida’s high court ruled the law an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers before the legislative and judicial branches.
"Unless the State of Florida retains the power to protect the rights of its most vulnerable citizens to due process and equal protection of the laws, the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantees will apply only to those who are capable of defending them on their own," Bush’s attorney Ken Connor wrote in the filing.
Attorney George Felos, representing Michael Schiavo, doesn’t think the Justices will hear the case and said it had “no real arguable basis for federal jurisdiction.”
A state order allows the feeding tubes to remain intact pending the appeals.
Terri Schiavo's parents Bob and Mary Schindler, meanwhile, are arguing in a separate case that Schiavo, a Roman Catholic, would have wanted to follow the Pope's proclamation on euthanasia and remain alive.
