Legal battle over Terri Schiavo survives another year

By Vickie Chachere, The Associated Press, Dec. 29, 2004

TAMPA, Fla. - On a recent Sunday, scores of people who have never met Terri Schiavo in person gathered in a park to mark her 41st birthday and another year of life.

They celebrated with a birthday cake and a cookout, some traveling from as far as Iowa and Nebraska. A priest prayed for her and a musician who has written songs in her honor traveled from California to perform.

For those strangers gathered with her family, the event caps another remarkable year of legal wrangling that has kept Schiavo, severely brain damaged since 1990, alive and at the center of a fierce court battle.

Cheryl Ford, a former nurse turned Schiavo activist who organized the party, the fight for Terri Schiavo has a larger implications for the rights of the disabled.

"Tube feedings, where I am from, never were considered life support," Ford said. "We have an entire population of people out there, stroke patients, who are on tube feedings."

For now, Terri Schiavo lives under the protection of a Pinellas County Circuit Court stay that prevents her husband Michael from removing the feeding tube while appeals continue.

Meanwhile, the battle to sustain her life is being fought on two fronts: attorneys for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene while her parents wage a separate campaign to prove their daughter does not want to die.

"She's a strong girl, she's been fighting to live for 14 years," said Barbara Weller, an attorney at the Gibbs Law Firm in Clearwater who took up parents Bob and Mary Schindlers' legal battle this year. "If she really wanted to die, she wouldn't be fighting to live."

Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, only sees the past year as another one in which his wife's wishes have not been carried out, said George Felos, the husband's attorney. And there is no end in sight, said Felos, who's involved in the court fight against "Terri's Law," but is no longer responding to the separate court battle being waged by Terri Schiavo's parents.

Felos has told the 2nd District Court of Appeal that he's not responding to the latest appeal from the Schindlers. The parents want a new trial based on recent statements from Pope John Paul II, who declared the withdrawal of food and water from a disabled person a sin. They believe their daughter, who was raised Catholic, would no longer want to be removed from the tubes given the pope's statements.

"There is no prospect of finality," Felos said. "They (the appeals court) allow the Schindlers to attack the judgment no matter how frivolous. The only way the case can end is if the Schindlers stop attacking the final judgment or the court says no more stays. Until then we are just going to be on this revolving door."

Terri Schiavo collapsed in 1990 after her heart stopped beating due to an eating disorder. She can breathe on her own, but relies on the food and hydration tube to live. Michael Schiavo never mentioned his wife's wishes not to be kept alive artificially until after the couple were awarded more than $1 million in medical malpractice cases involving the doctors who treated her before her collapse.

Michael Schiavo first sought to disconnect the tube in 1997. Michael Schiavo has twice removed his wife's tube only to have it reinserted by a judge in 2001 and then by the governor in 2003.

In September, the Florida Supreme Court struck down the law Bush pushed through in October 2003 to keep Schiavo alive. The law had been drafted, signed and enacted during six days of high drama after Michael Schiavo removed the feeding tube and his wife was in the process of dying.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled Bush violated the separation of powers by essentially overturning a judge's decision that Terri Schiavo did not want to be kept alive artificially and has a right to have her husband carry out her medical wishes.

But Bush's attorneys are now arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court that the governor did not overstep his bounds. In filings earlier this month, attorneys Ken Connor and Robert Destro argued that Bush acted only after the judge's order had been carried out to protect a disabled woman who never had adequate representation in court.

The attorneys also argue that Terri Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state and that her husband, who has moved on with his life and now has two children with his fiance, has a conflict of interest in seeking to end her life.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the case early next year.

Separately, the Schindlers continue to press their case to keep their daughter alive and have sought discussions with Michael Schiavo in hopes of resolving the case outside of court, Weller said. But the negotiations have not be "fruitful," she said. She would not elaborate what offers or counteroffers have been made.

"The Schindlers would just love to get Terri back and take care of her," Weller said. "They don't want anything in return."

Felos said there's nothing Michael Schiavo can offer to guarantee the Schindlers that their daughter would not be disconnected from the feeding tube, even if he were to divorce her and step down as her guardian.

A judge has ruled - and appeals courts have upheld - it was Terri Schiavo's wish not to be kept alive artificially. Whomever serves as guardian is now legally obligated to carry out the tube removal. Only a new trial - which is what the Schindlers are seeking - could create a new final judgment, Felos said.

"Terri is not chattel. She is not merchandise or goods that can be transferred from one person to another," Felos said. "She retains her dignity as a human being and she retains her constitutional rights."

ON THE NET:

Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation: http://www.terrisfight.org

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