PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — The slow process of starving Terri Schiavo to death in a hospice near St. Petersburg, Fla., began Oct. 15 with the court-ordered removal of her feeding tube. She is expected to die within 10 days to two weeks.

Schiavo is a 39-year-old Florida woman who collapsed in 1990 and suffered severe brain damage from lack of oxygen. Her fate has been the center of a years-long legal battle pitting her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, against her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler.

Since 1998, Michael Schiavo has asked the courts to remove her feeding tube, contending that Terri is in an irreversible “persistent vegetative state” and that she never wanted to be kept on life support. Terri's parents have disputed both those claims and believe she can partially recover if given the proper care.

At the time her feeding tube was removed, she could breathe on her own — without the help of a respirator — but could not speak. She was aware of her environment and often has responded to voices and objects, her family said. She was not in a coma.

A last-ditch effort — a recent federal suit that contained a friend-of-the-court brief filed by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's office in support of the Schindlers — was dismissed in court several days before Oct. 15, the day that her family has dreaded for years.

The Schindler family met with Gov. Bush, who was in Tampa at a dedication for new migrant housing, several hours before the feeding tube removal time. Bush instructed his legal staff to review options to block the ending of Schiavo's starvation death, said Jacob DiPietre, the governor's spokesman.

“The governor is very concerned by this situation and has the Schindler family and Terri in his prayers,” DiPietre said.

The removal of the tube should worry people concerned about the sanctity of life, according to Wesley Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.

“The message is that in law, as well as in medical ethics, we're making a disposable caste of people,” said Smith, who is also a lawyer for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. “We're creating invidious categories of discrimination based on cognitive capacity — what bioethicists call person-hood. If you do not pass muster and are not deemed to have a high-enough quality of life, then your right to life won't be protected.”

But Smith argued the Schiavo case goes even further. “You will not only not be given the right to life, but you will be denied the medical treatment that might improve your capacity so you don't need a feeding tube, which means this is not a right-to-die case. This is a no-right-to-live case.”

Burke Balch, director of the department of medical ethics at the National Right to Life Committee, said that what's happened to Terri Schiavo has been routinely occurring since shortly after the 1976 Karen Anne Quinlan case, “in virtually every state.

“Vulnerable people have been denied life-saving medical treatment, denied food and fluids routinely when they can't speak for themselves because the law has been that surrogates, guardians and family members can make these decisions,” he said.

“The presumption in our culture today is, if you are in a condition where you are not competent … if you have Alzheimer's, if you have severe or profound mental retardation, if you are you in a situation where you are believed to be irreversibly incompetent, the consensus is that you would be better off dead,” Balch said. “And that is a tragic reality of our contemporary culture. We are fighting against the mainstream in contesting this.”

Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla., who released a long-awaited statement on Terri's situation in mid-August in which he said removal of the tube was not justified at that time, also commented after the tube was removed.

He said his prayers were with Schiavo and her family and that he continued “to believe that such decisions should not be made in the court system but must be made on a case-by-case basis by families and/or other responsible parties at the clear direction of each one of us well in advance of a crisis.”

But the Schindler family and other Catholics have expressed concern about the general lack of support within the Church hierarchy to the family's cause.

In a statement, Mary Ann Kreitzer, president of the Catholic Media Coalition, said her coalition contacted every bishop in the country asking for their support for Schiavo and received only a “handful of replies.

“Most of those responding told us they would not take a stand,” Kreitzer said. “If the Catholic hierarchy fails to speak with authority, their silence will be construed as consent,” she added.

Meanwhile, Michael Schiavo has refused to talk to the media. But Terri's father, Robert Schindler, warned that his son-in-law will have to “live with this a lot longer than we will.

“That's his conscience and his girlfriend's conscience,” Schindler said, referring to Michael Schiavo's longtime girlfriend, who is pregnant with their second child.

Bob Schindler Jr., Terri's brother, said he was “overwhelmed” by the support his family has received, glancing at the more than 100 people who gathered outside the hospice that his sister has resided in. Many in the crowd held signs, which included “Starving the disabled is murder” and “You could be next!” Some prayed the rosary. At one point, they chanted “Let Terri live!” and “Therapy, not death!”

Food and Water Basic

One of the protesters was Peter Vere, a member of the International Order of Alhambra, a fraternal order of Catholic men dedicated to assisting people developmentally disabled by mental retardation.

“Canon law, which of course follows moral theology, is very clear: food and water are basic,” said Vere, a canon lawyer. “They're not extra means. They're basic rights of any individual. We have just started on the long road of involuntary euthanasia.”

At 2 p.m., the scheduled time for removal of the feeding tube, the crowd gathered around the Schindler family and began to pray. Msgr. Thaddeus Malanowski, a retired priest and family friend who has visited Terri almost every week for the past 2 years, led the prayer, saying:

“Oh, Lord, in your presence, help us believe that you are aware of our anxieties and you will do what is best for Terri and us. Give us the strength to trust you and put the present and future in your merciful hands. And so we recognize that we depend upon you for everything.

“The most precious gift is the gift of life which you have shared with each of our parents,” he continued. “So we pray for the parents of Terri. Give them the health and strength and courage to see this tragedy through so in the end they will be blessed and favored having their daughter with them.”

The Schindler family visited Terri in her room later that afternoon, along with Msgr. Malanowski, who administered the anointing of the sick and brought with him a relic of Blessed Mother Teresa — hoping for a miracle.

Carlos Briceno is based in Seminole, Florida.