Terri Schiavo death ends the ongoing battle

Terri Schiavo, on her 14th day without food or water, has died at a Florida hospice. Her parents had requested to be at her bedside for her death.

David Gibbs, Schindler family Attorney: “Boby Schindler Jr., Terri’s brother and Father Pavone were with Terri up until 10 minutes before she passed.”

The spokesman for the Schindler family says the siblings were told to leave the room to allow a medical assessment and to allow a visitation from her husband, Michael Schiavo. After Schiavo had passed away, they were allowed to return to her side.

Michael Schiavo has not issued any statement since his wife’s death. For 7 years, Schiavo’s parents battled her husband to keep their severely brain-damaged daughter alive. That fight grew more intense when doctors removed her feeding tube under a state court order and the US Congress intervened.

Schiavo’s parents spent her last weeks in and out of court arguing their daughters feeding tube should be reinserted. In the end, state courts, federal courts and even the US Supreme Court, who refused to review the parents appeal, sided with Schiavo’s husband.

Michael Schiavo insisted his wife did not want to live in the persistent vegetative state doctors had diagnosed. Outside the hospice, there were prayers and tears. Terri Schiavo did not put her wishes in a living will, turning her family’s private fight into a very public feud.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined for the sixth time to intervene on behalf of her parents, who were seeking to re-attach their daughter’s feeding tube.

In 1992, Michael Schiavo won a malpractice lawsuit that accused doctors of misdiagnosing his wife. A jury awarded more than more than 700,000 dollars for her care, and Michael Schiavo received an additional 300,000 dollars.

The following year, he and the Schindlers had a falling out over how the money ought to be spent, setting in motion a nonstop battle in the Florida courts and legislature, then the US Congress and federal courts, over Terri Schiavo’s fate.

Michael Schiavo had long maintained that his wife never wanted to be kept alive by artificial means. His position was consistently upheld in the courts.

Her parents had asked a court to allow Terri Schiavo to be buried in Florida with her body in tact. But the judge refused to intervene in Michael Schiavo’s plans to have Terri cremated and interred in their native Pennsylvania.

The Schindlers also wanted to take photographs and video of their daughter before she died, but Michael Schiavo opposed it and a judge agreed with him.

George Felos, the attorney for Michael Schiavo, said this week that the chief medical examiner for Pinellas County had agreed to perform an autopsy. He said Michael Schiavo wants definitive proof showing the extent of the brain damage.

Terri Schiavo’s parents and her husband did reach rare agreement on one point before her death. An autopsy will be performed on Terri Schiavo now that she is dead. Both sides in the dispute say they believe an autopsy could provide final proof of their respective claims in the case.