Schiavo Parents Await Word from Supreme Court
The emergency Supreme Court filing states that Terri Schiavo faces an unjust and imminent death and that her due process and religious freedom rights have been violated
Terri Schindler Schiavo’s parents filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday, asking the nation’s highest court to save their disabled daughter from starvation.
In their latest appeal to the high court – their fifth since the years-long right-to-life battle began – Bob and Mary Schindler say their daughter faces an unjust and imminent death. Terri’s tube was removed on Friday upon the request of her husband, who claims his wife did not wish to be kept alive “artificially”. Terri did not leave a written directive to support the claim.
The emergency Supreme Court filing also alleges constitutional violations of due process and religious freedom, according to AP. Terri’s parents have long argued that their daughter, as a Roman Catholic, would not have consented to the removal of the feeding tube since that is considered a “mortal sin” in her faith. The lower courts have rejected those arguments in the past.
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According to the AP, there was no immediate word when the justices might act on the new filing, but with their daughter “fading away” from the lack of hydration and nutrition, the Schindlers made heart-wrenching pleas for “someone out there” to let Terri live.
"When I close my eyes at night, all I can see is Terri's face in front of me, dying, starving to death," Mary Schindler said Wednesday outside the Pinellas Park hospice where Terri resides. "Please, someone out there, stop this cruelty. Stop the insanity. Please let my daughter live."
"She has to start getting hydration. Because if she doesn't, she's not going to be with us much longer," Bob Schindler told Fox News Channel on Wednesday night outside of the hospice.
The Schindlers' request goes first to Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, who has the option to act on the petition alone or refer it to the entire court.
On the last emergency request involving Schiavo, Kennedy referred the case to the entire court; the justices voted to deny the previous request.
This filing, however, unlike arguments presented before, also argues that Congress intended for Schiavo’s tube to be reinserted – at least temporarily – when it passed the bill last weekend that gave federal courts authority to fully review her case.
The measure was passed with a voice-vote in the Senate on Sunday, and passed by the U.S. House on Monday. President Bush flew into Washington an hour later for the purpose of signing the extraordinary bill that would apply only to the Schiavo case.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Republican Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Mel Martinez of Florida filed a friend-of-the-court brief late Wednesday that sided with Schiavo's parents.
Meanwhile, Gov. Jeb Bush and the state social services agency filed a petition to take custody of Schiavo and in an attempt to possibly save her life. The petition cites new allegations of neglect, and challenges the diagnosis that Terri is in a “persistent vegetative state.”
Bush’s request was made before Judge George Greer, the same judge who ordered Terri’s tube removed. Greer said he would decide by noon Thursday on whether the case could go forward.
Meanwhile, heads of several Christian denominations spoke out against what they called a “cruel and inhuman means of ending Terri’s life.”
“Society has done a better job in protecting the rights of animals and criminals than those of a helpless disabled woman,” declared Rev. Austin Adler, head of the International Charismatic Episcopal Church.
Adler noted that while he affirms “a person's right to refuse exceptional measures of medical intervention through a living will,” he does not “accept that the provision of food and water should be considered as exceptional means.”
The President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the nation’s largest evangelical Lutheran denomination with some 2 million members, agreed that food and water “belong in the realm of ordinary care” and should not be withheld from the disabled.
“Removing Terri's feeding tube will not allow her to die, since she is not dying. Removing her tube will, in fact, cause her to die,” the Synod’s president Gerald B. Kieschnick said.
According to doctors, Terri is likely to die within two weeks of no hydration and nutrition.
