Activists Pushing to Return Schiavo to Care of Parents

Supporters of efforts to keep Terri Schiavo alive vowed Sunday to train their sights next on Florida’s Legislature and governor to enact a law to return the woman to her parents’ care.

“If the federal legislation passes, which we believe it will, it is a stop-gap measure, because it still leaves Terri’s fate in the courts,” said Randall Terry, founder of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue, who has been asked by Bob and Mary Schindler to organize efforts to keep their brain-damaged daughter alive.

“We need Florida to pass legislation that will resolve this permanently, and restore her to her mom and dad so that they have guardianship and she can get the rehabilitation she needs,” Terry said.

Terry spoke outside the Woodside Hospice here on Florida’s west coast where Friday the tube that had been Schiavo’s sole source of food and water was withdrawn. At midday Sunday, Mary Schindler visited her daughter, who was being bathed.

“Terri was chipper, she laughed with her mom, she tried to talk,” said Terry, who also has been serving as a family spokesman. “Her mother came out feeling very good that the starvation and dehydration are not taking a toll on her yet.”

People who want Schiavo’s life to be preserved continued a vigil on the street in front of the hospice, praying, waving signs and singing as a Baptist minister played the guitar. They numbered perhaps 60 at the beginning of a sunny afternoon. News of the latest developments -- that Congress would be acting on Terri Schiavo’s case -- made their mood upbeat.

Asked if he was worried about objections to the unusual measure in Congress, Bob Schindler asked, “Who would object to saving a human life?”

Terry said that he and others were leaving for Tallahassee, Florida’s capital, to organize an evening candlelight vigil outside the office of Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, and a demonstration this morning.

On Thursday, the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature could not agree on action to block the court-ordered removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube, and the order by state Circuit Judge George W. Greer was carried out the following day.

Schiavo’s husband, Michael, had said that his wife never would have wanted to be kept alive by being fed through a tube, a position the Schindlers have vigorously contested. Terri Schiavo wrote no living will specifying her medical wishes in case she became incapacitated.

In a frenzy of legislative activity on the eve of the removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube, the Florida House passed a bill Thursday to prevent the withholding of food and water from patients who, like Schiavo, have been diagnosed to be in a persistent vegetative state and who left no specific instructions regarding their care.

The state Senate, though, defeated a somewhat similar measure, 21 to 16. In 2003, some state senators also expressed reservations about earlier legislation that was intended to keep Schiavo alive, and that ultimately was found to be unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court.

Terry said the activists now would focus on getting 10 of the state senators who voted against the measure last week to reverse their position.

A Tampa-area neurologist, William Hammesfahr, would be going to Tallahassee, Terry said, and bring with him a recording that showed Schiavo responding to commands and attempting to speak.

“Dr. Hammesfahr is going to tell them, ‘I can treat this woman,’ ” Terry said.

Terry said another possible legal avenue would be a state law stipulating that if the spouse of a disabled person cohabited with another person, the physically able spouse would forfeit the status of guardian conferred under Florida law.

Terri Schiavo suffered a chemical imbalance in 1990 that caused her to stop breathing temporarily, leading to brain damage. Michael Schiavo has since begun living with another woman; they have two children.

Action on the state level is necessary because the federal legislation that was considered Sunday by Congress could be interpreted in different ways by a federal judge, Terry said. He said the issue of restoring Schiavo’s food and water was important to social conservatives in judging the sincerity of Florida politicians who had sought their support while campaigning.