PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — After six days of court-ordered dehydration, the life of Terri Schiavo, a severely disabled Florida woman, was preserved Oct. 21 by an emergency bill of the Florida Legislature and a rapidly enacted executive order by Gov. Jeb Bush.

However, the last-minute action did not resolve the long legal dispute between Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, who has sought to have her feeding tube removed, and her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler.

The Schindlers claim that Michael Schiavo, who is Terri's legal guardian, denied them visiting rights after she was rushed to Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater to be rehydrated, and then did not tell them when she was returned to a nursing home in Pinellas Park on Oct. 22. They were allowed to visit her in the nursing home and reported to LifeNews.com that the feeding tube was in place.

The law passed by the Florida Legislature, called “Terri's Bill,” is believed to represent the first time a state legislative body has overruled a court in a “right-to-die” case. Pro-life groups see it as a decisive step toward pushing back a medical trend toward causing the death of severely ill or disabled patients through dehydration.

“This is a tremendous victory,” said Lori Kehoe, a spokeswoman for the National Right to Life Committee's department of medical ethics. “No one who's been active in the pro-life movement could believe this has happened in such rapid fashion. People have been starved to death just for being handicapped for the past 20 years, so this is a great reversal.”

Susan Carr, Terri's sister, told the Associated Press that the sudden change in circumstances was “a miracle, an absolute miracle.”

George Felos, a lawyer for Michael Schiavo, who obtained the court order to have the feeding tube removed, called the bill “absurdly unconstitutional.”

Even lawmakers who voted for the bill expressed reservations about meddling in a case that had been through the courts over the past five years. “If we are to err, then let us err on the side of caution,” Senate president Jim King told the Tampa Tribune. “I just hope to God we've done the right thing.”

In signing the bill, Bush acknowledged the unusual precedent it may set but said that “any life or death decision should be made only after careful consideration of all related facts and conditions.”

Michael McCarron, executive director of the Florida Catholic Conference, told the Register that the bill and Bush's executive order fulfilled almost exactly the conditions called for by the state's bishops in a statement two months ago.

The bishops said that the presumption in disputed cases should be to provide nutrition and hydra-tion, and asked that more time be taken to determine more clearly Terri's medical condition and the possibility for her eating on her own.

“Of course, the bishops did not expect the unusual way in which things came about,” said McCarron. “This case has been through four courts, and the Legislature has undone that whole process, and we're not totally comfortable with that. But we do recognize the urgent nature of this case.”

“Terri's Bill,” passed with heated debate by the state's two legislative bodies, gave Bush authority to order the replacement of Schiavo's feeding tube, which had been removed Oct. 15 by a ruling of Florida Circuit Judge George Greer.

Soon after Bush issued his order, the 39-year-old Schiavo, who suffered brain damage after falling unconscious of undetermined causes in 1990, was rushed by ambulance to the hospital from the nursing home in Pinellas Park, where she had been living for years.

The dramatic actions raised a number of medical, ethical and legal questions and marked a new chapter in the prolonged legal battle between Schiavo's husband and her parents. Michael Schiavo has sought since 1998 to have his wife's feeding tube removed, and filed a motion to have Bush's order blocked before it went into effect.

In opposing their son-in-law in court over the past five years, the Schindlers have pointed out that their daughter is not on a respirator or any other life-support machine and can breathe on her own. They have shown video clips of Terri apparently responding to her mother's voice and moving her eyes to follow the path of a balloon as evidence that she is conscious and capable of improvement with the proper therapy. (The video clips can be viewed at www.terrisfight.org.)

Michael Schiavo released a statement Oct. 20 in which he outlined the extensive therapy and testing he had provided for his wife in the years immediately after she fell ill. “I tried desperately to find a cure for her,” he wrote. “I went from one doctor to another. Almost all of them told me there was no possibility she would recover.”

Summarizing the testimony he had given in court that his wife told him “on several occasions before this happened that she would not want to live in her current condition,” Schiavo stated that he had no recourse but “to carry out her wishes. … In fact, it is the hardest thing I have ever done. In the end, I did what I believe Terri would have wanted me to do.”

The Schindlers issued a statement challenging Schiavo's assertions and sincerity.

Possible Abuse?

In another development, the state-sponsored Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities filed suit Oct. 21 for a court injunction to keep Terri alive until the agency could investigate charges of abuse and discrimination against Terri.

Bush had intervened in the case twice before, when he sent letters to Judge Greer asking him to reverse his decision so that more facts about Terri's condition could be ascertained.

His decision to push the state Legislature to vote on the case came after weeks of intensive lobbying and e-mail campaigns by pro-life groups and individuals. The Legislature was in the state capital of Tallahassee for an emergency budget session when the governor urged it to open debate on the Schiavo case. The House approved “Terri's Bill” late on Oct. 20 and the Senate passed a slightly amended version the next day, which the House then approved minutes later.

The narrowly drawn bill gives the governor authority “to issue a one-time stay” to prevent the withholding of nutrition and hydration if the patient has no written advance directive, has been found by a court to be in a “persistent vegetative state,” and a member of the patient's family challenges the withdrawal of a feeding tube. Once the stay is issued, the chief circuit court judge is empowered to appoint a guardian ad litem for the patient to make recommendations to the governor and the court.

David Demeres, chief judge of Pinellas County Circuit Court, ordered lawyers for both side Oct. 23 to reach an agreement within five days to designate an independent guardian. The new guardian would become Terri Schiavo's advocate in legal proceedings, but Michael Schiavo will remain the decision-maker.

The Schindlers have sought to have him removed as guardian, claiming that he is not acting in Terri's best interest. Schiavo is living with another woman who has given birth to one child and is pregnant with a second. The Schindlers also claim that he has not used funds from a $1 million court settlement related to her illness for her rehabilitation.

The Schindlers and their supporters also say that Michael Schiavo instructed staff and guards at the nursing home to stop a priest from giving her viaticum Oct. 18, the final Communion before death.

Stephen Vincent is based in Wallingford, Connecticut.