Parents keep up fight despite judge’s refusal

AS Terri Schiavo’s health waned, a judge yesterday refused to order the reinsertion of her feeding tube, thwarting another legal move from the brain-damaged woman’s parents.

The parents quickly appealed the ruling.

For a second time, Judge James Whittemore ruled against the parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who had asked him to grant their emergency request to resume their daughter's nourishment while he considers a lawsuit they filed.

Bob and Mary Schindler also held onto the slim hope that state Governor Jeb Bush would somehow find a way to intervene.

But Mr Bush warned he was running out of options.

"We're minute by minute right now. But it doesn't look like we have much left," said Suzanne Vitadamo, Ms Schiavo's sister.

Ms Schiavo, 41, had been without food or water for almost seven days and was showing signs of dehydration flaky skin, dry tongue and lips, and sunken eyes, according to lawyers and friends of the Schindlers.

Doctors at the hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, have said she would probably die within a week or two of the tube being pulled.

Her husband, Michael Schiavo, says his wife would not want to be kept alive artificially, and he has been backed by years of court rulings affirming doctors' diagnoses that she lives in a persistent vegetative state.

"It's very frustrating. Every minute that goes by is a minute that Terri is being starved and dehydrated to death," said her brother, Bobby Schindler, who said seeing her was like looking at "pictures of prisoners in concentration camps."

Michael Schiavo's brother, Brian, disagreed with that assessment, saying Terri "does look a little withdrawn" but insisting she was not in pain. He added that starvation is simply "part of the death process".

A lawyer for Michael Schiavo said he hoped the woman's parents and the governor would finally give up their fight. "We believe it's time for that to stop as we approach this Easter weekend and that Mrs Schiavo be able to die in peace," George Felos said.