Schiavo parents beg Florida Governor to intervene

Terri Schiavo's parents begged Florida Governor Jeb Bush to intervene  today as their brain-damaged daughter edged closer to death and federal courts again rebuffed their efforts to have tube feeding resumed.

"With a stroke of his pen, he could stop it immediately," said Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, suggesting that Bush could intervene in some executive capacity, although the governor has said he cannot.

"He's put Terri through a week of hell and I implore him to put a stop to this. This is judicial homicide and he has to stop it," he said.

Schindler and his wife, Mary, spoke to reporters soon after the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Florida federal court's denial of the parents request to resume the feeding.

That closed yet another door to the parents in a bitter seven-year legal feud with Schiavo's husband and legal guardian that has escalated into a highly politicized moral dispute over whether Schiavo should live or die.

The feeding was halted a week ago under an order from a state court that has long sided with Schiavo's husband, Michael. The court found she has been in a "persistent vegetative state" since a heart attack damaged her brain 15 years ago, and would not want to live in this condition.

The Schindlers have drawn passionate support from conservative Christians in their struggle to prolong their daughter's life. Their stance has drawn in the US Congress - which passed a special law to push the case into federal courts - President George W Bush, who interrupted a vacation to sign the law, and his brother, Jeb Bush.

Schiavo, 41, was expected to live up to two weeks without the tube feeding, but Schindler said his daughter was fading after a week and was "down to her last hours."

With few legal options open to the Schindlers, 11th hour intervention by Governor Bush also appeared unlikely.

Bush, who has energetically backed the Schindlers and this week tried unsuccessfully to get the state welfare agency to take custody of Schiavo, said on Thursday he could act only within his executive powers.

"I can't go beyond what my powers are," said Bush, who also tried this week to get the Florida legislature to pass a law to enable Schiavo to be kept alive.

Late on Friday, a three-judge panel at the Atlanta appeals court upheld an earlier ruling by US District Judge James Whittemore that denied an emergency order to have feeding restored.

The Schindlers could now appeal for a review by all 12 judges of the Atlanta court, or go straight to the US Supreme Court, which on Thursday turned away their appeal on an earlier request for a resumption of the feeding.

The parents also filed a new motion on Friday with Circuit Court Judge George Greer, the state judge who has presided over the case for years and who first ruled that Schiavo should be allowed to die five years ago. Greer said he would rule by noon on Saturday.

Outside the Pinellas Park hospice where Schiavo lay, dozens of protesters, dismayed by the Schindlers' waning legal hopes, sang Amazing Grace. Police arrested at least nine people who tried to enter the building with symbolic offerings of food and water.

The FBI arrested a North Carolina man for sending an email offering a bounty of US$250,000 ($352,261) dollars to anyone who would kill Michael Schiavo and US$50,000 for killing a judge who has ruled in favour of the husband in the case.

The man, Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview, North Carolina, was charged with solicitation of murder and sending threatening communications and could face up to 15 years in prison, said the US Attorney's office in Tampa, Florida.

Lobbied by the Christian right, which has felt emboldened since helping President Bush win re-election last November, the Republican-led Congress rushed through a law last weekend giving federal courts jurisdiction.

But the extraordinary move was unpopular with Americans. Polls this week showed a majority of people disapproved of Congress' intervention in a family dispute - and the Schindlers' efforts in federal courts have so far failed.

Commentators critical of the congressional move have praised the federal courts for rebuffing the push to circumvent state court rulings.

- REUTERS