After defeats Schiavo parents tell supporters to go home

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - Terri Schiavo's parents suffered more court defeats this weekend, leaving them with dwindling hopes as their brain-damaged daughter passed her eighth day without food and edged toward death.

Bob and Mary Schindler, both practicing Catholics, urged dozens of supporters gathered outside the Florida hospice where Schiavo is being cared for to go home for Easter.

"The family would request that everyone go home, be with your children, hold them close and share every moment you have with them," said Brother Paul O'Donnell, a Franciscan monk who is a spiritual adviser to the Schindlers.

It was not clear if the Schindlers had finally abandoned all legal avenues in their fight to restart their 41-year-old daughter's feeding, a cause that embroiled the Florida legislature, the US Congress and President Bush.

But their message to end the vigil outside the hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, came after Circuit Judge George Greer, who has presided over their seven-year legal dispute with Schiavo's husband and guardian, Michael, rejected a petition that alleged Terri had tried to say that she wanted to live.

The Schindlers appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, as they have done in vain several times before, but its justices once again declined to become involved.

They called on Michael Schiavo to allow their daughter to be given Easter communion. She has already received the last rites.

After visiting his daughter, Bob Schindler, who a day earlier had said she was "down to her last hours," told reporters Terri was "putting up a tremendous battle to live."

'FIGHTING LIKE HELL'

"She is fighting like hell to stay alive," he said. "I want the powers that be to know that. It's not too late to save her."

Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos, painted a wholly different picture of Schiavo at peace and still some days from dying. Doctors say patients in her condition appear to feel little or no discomfort when deprived of nutrition and water.

"She is calm; she's peaceful; she's resting comfortably; her lips are not chapped; they're not bleeding; her skin is not peeling," Felos said, flanked by burly sheriff's deputies to protect him from threatened assassination attempts.

"Frankly when I saw her ... she looked beautiful. In all the years I've seen Mrs. Schiavo, I've never seen such a look of peace and beauty upon her. Mrs. Schiavo's death is not imminent by any means," he said.

The Schindlers have drawn passionate support from conservative Christians, right-to-life and anti-abortion activists in their struggle to prolong their daughter's life. Lobbying from the Christian right prompted the US Congress to pass a special law to push the case into federal courts.

Terri Schiavo suffered a cardiac arrest that deprived her brain of oxygen in 1990 and has been in what the courts accept is a persistent vegetative state ever since.

Michael Schiavo says his wife would not want to live like that, a position upheld by the courts. Opinion polls show most Americans agree with his stance to let her die in peace. The Schindlers say their daughter responds to them and could improve with treatment.

Schiavo was expected to live for up to two weeks after her feeding tube was removed on March 18.

In the past week, the Schindlers have filed a blizzard of petitions in state and federal court and been rebuffed. The US Supreme Court has declined to get involved.

The parents tried again to sway Judge Greer on Friday, presenting an affidavit from Barbara Weller, one of their attorneys, who said she told Schiavo the controversy over her life could stop if she would just say "I want to live."

Weller said Schiavo responded with the sounds "Ahhhhhhh" and "Waaaaaaaa."

In his latest ruling on Saturday, Greer said the Schindlers could have presented Weller's affidavit at an emergency hearing three days ago, but did not, and therefore "waived their right to raise Terri Schiavo's alleged verbalization."

Outside the hospice, a half-dozen protesters carried large wooden crosses and marched in a slow procession, singing hymns and praying for divine intervention.

"We're praying for conversion of the heart of all the judges and the husband," said Nicole Klarkowski, from Wisconsin.

- REUTERS