Feeding tube case heads to US court Congress votes to let judge decide; Bush endorses bill

WASHINGTON -- Congress early today voted to grant a federal court the power to review the case of Terri Schiavo, clearing the way for the brain-damaged Florida woman to have the feeding tube that has kept her alive replaced.

The House, meeting in an extraordinary overnight session that began on Palm Sunday, voted 203 to 58 at about 12:35 a.m. to empower a federal judge to rule on Schiavo's case. The vote followed by several hours a voice vote that approved the bill in the Senate, and President Bush flew back to Washington from his Texas ranch yesterday specifically so he could immediately sign the bill.

The moves, backed by House and Senate Republican leaders, appear likely to extend the lengthy political and legal saga involving Schiavo, who has been incapacitated for 15 years. Lawyers in Florida were poised to rush to court as soon as Bush's approval was finalized to ask a judge to order the feeding tube that was removed Friday to be reinserted, ensuring that Schiavo will be alive to have her case reviewed.

''The Florida courts are enforcing a merciless directive to deprive Theresa Marie Schiavo of her right to life," said House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican. ''No right is more sacred than the right to life."

Just three senators, all Republicans, were present for the Senate vote. But the House vote was delayed by nearly 12 hours by Democrats who objected to the measure being taken up without debate, and several Democrats continued to argue against the action on the House floor.

Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton, warned that Congress is ill-equipped to make medical decisions, and said Republicans were setting a precedent when families across the country will turn to Congress when they disagree over end-of-life decisions.

''The caption tonight ought to be, 'We're not doctors -- we just play them on C-SPAN,' " Frank said. ''This is a terrible, terrible personal situation. I cannot think of one less suitable for intervention by 536 elected officials -- the president of the United States, the Senate, and the House."

Democrats noted that judges in Florida have consistently sided with Schiavo's husband in ruling that she wanted to be allowed to die. Doctors have described Schiavo's condition as a ''persistent vegetative state," which has continued for 15 years.

''Congress, if we act, would be thumbing our nose at what was the final wish of one dying woman," said Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida. ''We are not doctors. We are not medical experts. We are not bioethicists. . . . We're not God, and we're not Terri Schiavo's husband, sister, brother, uncle, or cousin."

The action in Congress was done amid a flurry of moves across the country on Schiavo's behalf, as she went a third day with her feeding tube removed in accordance with a judge's ruling. In Pinellas Park, Fla., Schiavo's parents notified her hospice to prepare to reinsert the feeding tube, in anticipation of an order by a federal judge that could come just minutes after the measure giving federal courts jurisdiction becomes law.

Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler, lobbied Democratic congressional members at the Capitol on his sister's behalf, distributing an audio recording he said proved that his sister is trying to speak. President Bush cut short a scheduled vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, so he could be at the White House as soon as Congress takes final action.

''His view is that our society and our laws and our courts, in a case like this, ought to err on the side of life," Scott McClellan, Bush's press secretary, said aboard Air Force One.

On one level, the extraordinary scene playing out in Washington, Florida, and elsewhere was about a single woman whose family has long clashed about her wishes for medical care. Schiavo suffered severe brain damage after a heart stoppage in 1990, and her nutritional tube was removed and replaced twice previously -- in 2001 and 2003 -- amid judicial and political wrangling.

But the case also has broader implications for long-running debates about euthanasia and abortion, with Republicans characterizing their support for her case as a ''right-to-life" issue. A one-page, unsigned memo circulated among Senate Republicans over the weekend characterized it as a ''a great political issue" that has the potential to energize the party's ''pro-life base."

Publicly, Republicans sought to distance themselves from such sentiments yesterday, saying they were acting only to help a defenseless woman.

''I have never seen the memo, I did not authorize the memo, and I condemn the content of the memo," said Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee. ''The interest in this case by myself -- and the many members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle -- is to assure that Mrs. Schiavo has another chance at life."

Schiavo's husband has testified in court that she told him that she did not want to be kept alive artificially. Court rulings have sided with Michael Schiavo, but her parents maintain that her husband wants her to die so he can marry another woman. The parents say she continues to respond to their presence, and they want her kept alive via a feeding tube.

The bill, which is narrowly written to apply only to Schiavo, would give a federal district court in Florida the power to review all aspects of her case.

Frist said that review would include fresh examination of her medical condition, the possibility of her being rehabilitated, and the statement her husband said she made communicating a desire not to be kept alive on a feeding tube.

If the bill becomes law, a federal judge would almost certainly order the feeding tube reinserted while that review occurs. It does not, however, guarantee that federal courts would come to a different conclusion than state courts in Florida regarding the appropriate path.

Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.