Schiavo parents seek new chance in court

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The parents of the brain-damaged Florida woman Terri Schiavo renewed a request for a hearing before a full appeals court in their fight to have their daughter’s feeding tube reinserted, CNN reported on Wednesday.

CNN said the parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, filed the last-minute request with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which previously rejected a petition from them and then denied them a hearing before the court’s full 12-judge bench.

Officials at the court could not be reached for comment and no orders or other documents relating to the latest case had been posted on its Web site shortly after midnight EST.

The chances of a favorable court order were unclear 12 days after Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed, turning a seven-year legal feud between the Schindlers and Schiavo’s husband, Michael Schiavo, into a highly politicized national drama over the right to die.

It also was not clear if it would be medically safe to reinsert Schiavo’s feeding tube after so many days. Doctors had said she was likely to last up to two weeks without nourishment.

The feeding tube was removed on March 18 under a state court order.

State courts have ruled that Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state since cardiac arrest starved her brain of oxygen 15 years ago and accepted testimony from Michael Schiavo and others that she would not want to be kept alive artificially.

The Schindlers dispute that, and on Tuesday they won support from prominent civil rights campaigner the Rev. Jesse Jackson in making an 11th-hour appeal for intervention to the Florida legislature.

Politicians in the state capital Tallahassee had held out little hope of that.

The Schindlers had also previously said they would not be seeking any further court orders after being repeatedly rebuffed by state and federal courts since the feeding tube was removed.

They were able to try and circumvent the state court rulings by taking their case to federal court after the U.S. Congress, pressured by the Christian right, passed a special law for them.

One of the Schindlers’ final arguments before the courts last week was that they had new testimony from a neurologist that Schiavo might have been misdiagnosed, and might be in a state of minimal consciousness instead of in a persistent vegetative state. 

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