Terri Schiavo's Parents Look to Void 2000 Court Order
In the latest effort to keep a severely disabled 41-year old woman alive, a lawyer for the parents of Terri Schiavo argued Friday that she should have been represented by her own attorney throughout the legal proceedings.
In the latest effort to keep a severely disabled 41-year old woman alive, a lawyer for the parents of Terri Schiavo argued Friday that she should have been represented by her own attorney throughout the legal proceedings.
While Terri Schiavo’s husband, Michael, wants to have his wife's feeding tube removed, her parents—Bob and Mary Schindler—have struggled to keep her alive in a court fight that has continued for more than seven years and involved scores of court decisions and appeals.
Since Terri Schiavo collapsed at her home in 1990, she has been in what some doctors consider a persistent vegetative state, and is currently fed through a feeding and nutrition tube twice a day to maintain her life. For nearly a decade her husband has sought the removal of her tube, claiming she did not want to be kept alive artificially.
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However, the Schindlers argue that even if their daughter had said before that she would not want to be kept alive artificially—as her husband claims—as a Roman Catholic, she would have changed her mind, after hearing Pope John Paul II say last year that removing a feeding tube from a patient like Terri would be “euthanasia by omission.”
The parent also argued that their son-in-law was trying to rush their daughter’s death so he could inherit her estate and marry his live-in girlfriend with whom he has fathered two children. According to reports Michael Schiavo never mentioned his wife's wishes until after the couple was awarded more than $1 million in medical malpractice claims. He stood to inherit that money if his wife died, though after years of litigation most of it is gone.
To date, Michael Schiavo has twice been granted permission to remove the feeding tube that keeps her alive, and twice has had her death interrupted by legal maneuvers.
Most recently, the Schindlers were dealt a loss when the U.S. Supreme Court last Monday refused to reinstate "Terri's Law"—the measure pushed by Florida’s governor in 2003 to protect Terri Schiavo’s right to life after the courts had cleared the way for her death in 2000.
With the Schindlers' legal options dwindling, attorney David Gibbs on Friday asked a judge to let him proceed with a motion arguing that Terri Schiavo's due-process rights were violated by never having her own attorney.
On that basis, Gibbs wants the judge to void the 2000 order giving Michael Schiavo permission to remove the tube.
According to the Associated Press, the judge gave Gibbs until Feb. 7 to submit more written legal arguments. He said he would decide a few days later whether the court would proceed with the issue.
