March 23, 2005 - 10:30 PM

Court rebuffs Schiavo parents

PINELLAS PARK, Florida (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court has denied a request for a full bench hearing on a bid by the
parents of brain-damaged Florida woman Terri Schiavo to have her feeding tube restored, a court official has said.

The judges of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta voted 10 to 2 not to grant a full hearing, the official said.

The decision closed another legal avenue to the parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who have fought their son-in-law for
seven years in the courts to prolong their daughter's life.

The Schindlers had asked the full appeals court to overturn a three-judge panel's refusal overnight, by a 2-1 majority, to
order a resumption of tube feeding that was halted under a state court order on Friday.

The parents' lawyers had argued in a written brief that a law passed by Congress over the weekend made clear a new
federal trial was in order, and that the only way to permit that was by keeping Schiavo alive.

"Although barbarically deprived of food and water now for six days, the status quo is that she still lives," they said.

Doctors say Schiavo was likely to remain alive for one to two weeks after her feeding tube was removed.

Schiavo, 41, suffered brain damage after cardiac arrest in 1990 and was left in a "persistent vegetative state." State
courts have sided with her husband Michael Schiavo's view that she would not want to be kept alive in that condition.

Her parents say she responds to them and could recover, and their determination to keep her alive has galvanized the
Christian right and anti-abortion activists, and won support from the Republican-led Congress and President George W.
Bush.

The law raced through Congress sought to circumvent years of state court rulings and push the case into federal court
for a new trial.

Its backers clearly assumed any federal judge given the case would first order feeding restored, but the federal appeals
court's three-judge panel stressed in its ruling that the law did not spell that out.

Opinion polls show most Americans oppose the Congressional intervention, and critics have assailed it as an assault
on federalism and civil rights, and as political meddling in a family dispute.

FROM COURT TO CONGRESS, AND BACK

But the parents' reinvigorated legal manoeuvres since Schiavo's feeding tube was disconnected were parried by U.S.
District Court Judge James Whittemore on Tuesday, who ruled Schiavo had not been denied due process in state courts.

The parents, Congress and President Bush were dealt another blow in the middle of the night when the federal court in
Atlanta rejected the first appeal of Whittemore's ruling.

In its ruling, the panel acknowledged the "absolute tragedy that has befallen Mrs. Schiavo." But it supported the lower
federal court in saying an emergency order to restore the feeding could not be issued as the parents had failed to show
their overall case would succeed at trial.

Rights activists applauded the panel's decision.

The Schindlers were also seeking help from Florida lawmakers, who in 2003 passed a special law allowing Gov. Jeb
Bush, President Bush's brother, to intervene when Schiavo's feeding tube was previously disconnected.

That law was eventually found to be unconstitutional and state senators last week rejected a new law, apparently under
pressure from elderly Florida constituents opposed to government interference in their "end-of-life" decisions.

The Senate was holding a session Wednesday afternoon at which a renewed attempt to pass legislation might occur.

Jeb Bush said he would "continue to call on the Florida Legislature to pass legislation to honour patients' decisions
about end of life care, protect all vulnerable Floridians, and spare Terri's life."

Mary Schindler has repeatedly appealed to state senators for help in recent days and did so again on Wednesday.