Lawmakers Can’t Agree on a Way to Save Schiavo

Lawmakers in Washington and Florida failed Thursday to agree on legislation to block the court-ordered removal today of the feeding tube that has kept a severely brain-damaged woman alive for 15 years.

Lobbied hard by social conservatives, both chambers of Congress passed bills that would have shifted the case of Terri Schiavo, 41, to the federal courts for review. But despite a day of intense negotiations, neither was willing to accept the other’s legislation.

The House recessed Thursday evening to begin a two-week spring break, although Republican lawmakers said the House Government Reform Committee planned to issue subpoenas today to try to block the removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube, and that the Senate would investigate as well.

In Tallahassee, the two houses of Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature also could not agree on joint action, with the state Senate voting down a somewhat different bill than one approved by the Florida House.

Under an order issued by state Circuit Judge George W. Greer, the gastric tube that has been the sole source of food and water for Schiavo since 1990 is scheduled to be withdrawn at 1 p.m. today.

On Thursday, Greer denied a motion from the state Department of Children & Families to delay the action.

Schiavo is being cared for in a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., north of St. Petersburg. Fifteen years ago, she stopped breathing temporarily because of a chemical imbalance brought on by an eating disorder. Starved of oxygen, her brain suffered massive damage. She can breathe on her own but cannot speak or eat.

“She has a destroyed cerebral cortex, the part of the brain with which one is a person and with which one feels,” Dr. Walter Bradley, chairman of the neurology department at the University of Miami’s school of medicine, said in an interview Thursday.

Deprived of nutrition and hydration, Bradley said, Schiavo likely would die of heart failure in five to 10 days.

Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have been battling for years to keep her alive. Terri Schiavo did not leave a will, and her husband, Michael, says that she told him she never wanted to be kept alive by artificial means.

Although doctors have said that Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state, with no hope of recovery, the Schindlers maintain their daughter has been misdiagnosed and could improve with therapy.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a physician, said that after reviewing videotapes of Schiavo, he was convinced that “the facts upon which this case was based are inadequate.” It was evident to him, he said, that Schiavo “does respond” to outside stimulus.

“If we don’t act, there’s a good chance that a living human being would be starved to death in a matter of days,” Frist said.

Senators from both parties objected Thursday to what they felt were the overly broad provisions of the House bill passed by voice vote Wednesday night.

And key House members, led by Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), refused to accept the Senate bill, which was tailored specifically for the Schiavo case.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas issued an angry statement Thursday, blaming Senate Democrats for creating an impasse “as Terri Schiavo lies in Florida, one day away from the unthinkable and unforgivable.”

Senate Democrats said House Republicans were at fault.

“I am pleased that Sen. Frist and I were able to pass the bill that protects the life of Terri Schiavo by allowing her parents to go to federal court,” said Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the minority leader. “If the House Republicans refuse to pass our bipartisan bill, they bear responsibility for the consequences.”

In a statement, President Bush said that “in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life.”

The president did not side with the House or the Senate.

The lead sponsor of the Senate bill, freshman Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, said he never expected his first piece of legislation would be dealing with an issue so sensitive and so politically fraught. In a floor speech, he pleaded with his colleagues for support.

All he was seeking, Martinez said, was to require a “federal judge to give one last review, one last look to know that we did all we could” for Schiavo.

But Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told his colleagues they were being asked to weigh in on “the most gut-wrenching decision that an American family can ever face, without a single hearing.”

He warned that either the House or Senate bill could open the door to families across the country to turn to Congress to intervene. Congress, Wyden said, could end up playing “medical czar” in thousands of cases similar to Schiavo’s.

In Florida, House lawmakers approved, 78 to 37, a bill blocking the withholding of food and water from patients in a persistent vegetative state who didn’t leave instructions about their care. But hours later, the state Senate defeated a similar bill, 21 to 16.

Chances of a compromise seemed to be waning. “As far as we’re concerned, we don’t want anything to change the existing law,” said state Sen. Jim King, one of nine Republicans in the upper chamber who voted against the bill.

Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, had called on lawmakers in his state to find a formula to preserve Schiavo’s life.

“We have a responsibility to act, to deal with this issue,” Bush said. “It breaks my heart we’re in a situation where it’s possible this woman could starve to death.”

The Schindlers filed an emergency motion at the Supreme Court on Thursday to stop removal of the feeding tube so lower courts could consider whether their daughter’s religious freedom and other rights had been violated. But the court declined to step in.

Greer ruled in 2000 that Michael Schiavo had the right to remove his wife’s feeding tube. He did so in 2001, but it was ordered reinserted after two days.

The tube was removed again in 2003, but state lawmakers passed Terri’s Law, which empowered Gov. Bush to order the device reinserted. He did so six days after it was disconnected.

Terri’s Law was thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

As Florida lawmakers were seeking a way to block removal of the tube, Schiavo’s husband made a rare television appearance. He accused the governor and Legislature of interfering in the most private of decisions.

“Are they going to start pushing legislation for removing ventilators?” Michael Schiavo, a nurse, asked during an interview on ABC’s “Nightline” on Tuesday. “Are they going to start forcing people to take chemo against their wishes?”

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Curtius reported from Washington and Dahlburg from Miami.