Moral debate rekindles as Schiavo's life ends

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. -- After nearly two weeks without food or water, Terri Schiavo, 41, died yesterday with her husband cradling her in a hospice bed, a tranquil end to the life of a severely brain-damaged woman whose plight prompted Americans to weigh the sanctity of life against the right to die.

That anguished moral debate could lead to broad changes in the rights of the dying and disabled.

Social conservatives said they would press Congress when it returns next week from recess to pass legislation limiting the rights of spouses or relatives to end care for an incapacitated person like Schiavo. Activists also plan to lobby the Senate to bar filibusters against judicial nominees, so that President Bush can win confirmation for conservatives inclined to order life support continued in such cases.

For more than a decade, Michael Schiavo had argued that his wife, who had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, would have wanted to die. But her parents disagreed in a family feud that led to the most legal action of any such case in US history, ultimately drawing in all three branches of the federal government. The public saga ended when Terri Schiavo, clutching stuffed animals from her childhood, passed away at 9:05 a.m., 13 days after a state court permitted the removal of the tube that provided her with nutrition.

House leaders promised action on broad legislation to give federal courts jurisdiction in similar cases, a change the Senate has resisted. House majority leader Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, said: ''It's not a day we will forget. We will work as hard as we can to stop this from happening."

House Judiciary chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, said Terri Schiavo ''should serve as an inspiration and impetus for action."

Another legislative push is expected at the state level. At least 10 states have already approved new laws designed to block termination of life-sustaining care without written evidence of the patient's wishes and the conclusion of all court appeals.

Both sides of Terri Schiavo's family invoked religious faith in statements after her death.

''She's got all of her dignity back. She's now in heaven, she's now with God, and she's walking with grace," Michael Schiavo's brother, Scott, said at his home in Levittown, Pa.

Describing Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, their attorney David Gibbs III said: ''Their faith in God remains consistent and strong. They are absolutely convinced that God loves Terri more than they do."

President Bush offered condolences to all of her family members, saying they had shown ''grace and dignity."

''I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others," he said. ''In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life."

Despite involvement at the highest levels of power, the case was rooted in a long-running feud between the people closest to her. That divide persisted to the end.

About 15 minutes before her death, her two siblings, Bobby Schindler and Suzanne Vitadamo, were asked to leave her hospice room, over their vehement objections. It had been clear from the night before that Schiavo's death was near: Her breathing had grown shallow and labored, her skin cold and clammy, said family friends. The two siblings stroked her hair, held her hand, prayed, and then walked out.

Michael Schiavo, his attorneys, and several dozen hospice workers entered, and she died minutes later. After their departure, Schiavo's parents spent time with her body.

By midday, her body had been transported to the local medical examiner, where an autopsy will be performed at Michael Schiavo's request, in order to examine the extent of her brain damage, his lawyers said. Schiavo plans to cremate his wife and have her ashes buried in a Schiavo family plot in Pennsylvania. Her Catholic parents oppose the cremation.

Though Terri Schiavo's final weeks drew the world's attention, she had lived a quiet life, struggling with her weight as a teen, then finally finding the love she long sought in Michael Schiavo. She loved animals, romance novels, and teen-heartthrob pop singers. And she wanted children.

Her case, like no other in recent history, crystallized in tragic fashion difficult moral questions: When is life no longer worth preserving? Who should decide? No clear answers emerged, though Schiavo's case prompted many Americans to consider living wills and advance directives dictating how they should be cared for if incapacitated.

Her death drew a strong response from the Vatican in Rome, which had consistently decried the decision to remove a tube that provided nourishment and water.

''The circumstances of the death of Ms. Terri Schiavo have rightly disturbed consciences," said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. ''An existence was interrupted. A death was arbitrarily hastened because nourishing a person can never be considered employing exceptional means."

The drama that preceded Schiavo's death occurred as the medical condition of Pope John Paul II deteriorated in Rome.

But polls taken over the last two weeks indicated that a majority of Americans surveyed said they supported the decision to remove Schiavo's feeding tube. By even greater percentages, they disapproved of Bush and Congress's intervention in the case by adopting a special law that led to last-ditch, unsuccessful appeals by the Schindlers in the federal courts.

Yesterday was a day of drama and sadness at the Woodside Hospice. At 9:52 a.m., a somber Brother Paul O'Donnell, a Schindler family friend, announced to cameras, ''It is with great sadness that it has been reported to us that Terri Schiavo has passed away."

Dawn Kozsey, 47, a musician from Ocala, Fla., standing behind O'Donnell, broke into sobs. ''This is wrong, so wrong. They've killed her," she said. ''I've been praying every day for two years for Terri."

About 30 protesters, a much smaller number than in previous days, were near the hospice at the time. A young girl sat on a cot, hands over her face, weeping in front of a makeshift shrine. A group gathered in a circle, repeating aloud the Lord's Prayer and Hail Marys, several of them weeping. Elsewhere, protesters sang ''Amazing Grace" with a trumpet accompanying them.

''I'm devastated. Everything we've prayed so hard for is over. We lost," said Mary Ann McGuire, 51, of Scranton, Pa. ''But Terri is in heaven. There's no more pain. She's being comforted by Jesus."

Michael and Terri Schiavo had been married five years when, on Feb. 25, 1990, she collapsed of a heart attack and her brain was deprived of oxygen for nearly five minutes, causing devastating damage to her cerebral cortex, the portion of the brain responsible for thought and perception. She was comatose for two months, then awoke in what doctors would soon diagnose as a persistent vegetative state. She could breathe on her own. Her eyes would dart about, and her lips occasionally curl into a smile. But her doctors said those actions were involuntary reflexes.

For four years, Michael Schiavo put her through intensive physical therapy and experimental treatments. Nothing worked, and in 1994, after consulting with doctors, he decided that further medical treatment and nutrition should be withheld. Her parents were outraged, accusing their son-in-law of seeking some of the $750,000 from a malpractice lawsuit filed on Schiavo's behalf. In May 1998, Michael Schiavo petitioned a Florida court to have his wife's feeding tube removed. The Schindlers challenged him.

On Feb. 11, 2000, Judge George W. Greer of Florida's Sixth Judicial Circuit, the jurist most identified with the case, ruled in Michael Schiavo's favor, concluding from his testimony and that of two of his family members that Terri Schiavo would have wanted the tube removed.

In April 2001, the tube was removed, then reinserted by order of another Florida judge, who wanted to hear the Schindlers' appeal.

In June 2003, a Florida appeals court upheld Greer's decision to allow the feeding tube to be removed, and in October, it was removed for a second time. But in an extraordinary move, the Florida Legislature passed Terri's Law, ordering the tube back in after six days.

That year, a court-appointed specialist, Jay Wolfson of the University of South Florida, concluded the diagnosis of her condition was almost a ''medical certainty."

The appeals court passed the case to the Florida Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional in September 2004, and the US Supreme Court in January refused to hear the case.

Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed for the final time on March 18. But the political effort to reinsert it continued. Congress quickly passed a law, with virtually no dissent, that ordered a federal court review of the case, and Bush flew back from his Texas vacation to sign the bill in the middle of the night on March 21. But the very next day, a federal judge in Tampa refused to order the tube reinserted, and a federal appeals court in Atlanta agreed. Further appeals by the Schindlers also failed.

Summing the case up, George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, said: ''The court, through a grueling process . . . found that Mrs. Schiavo said, 'No tube for me. I don't want to live artificially.' "

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.