Thread: Terri Schiavo passes away

How truly sad. My heart goes out to her parents and brother





http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7293186/?GT1=6305



Terri Schiavo passes away
Death comes after courts repeatedly ruled against parentsBREAKING NEWS
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 11:24 a.m. ET March 31, 2005PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - Nearly two weeks after a court ordered her feeding tube removed, and after multiple, failed attempts by her parents to get the order lifted, Terri Schiavo passed away on Thursday at the age of 41.

Schiavo died at the Pinellas Park hospice where she lay for years while her husband and her parents fought over her fate in the nation’s most bitter — and most heavily litigated — right-to-die dispute.

The family battle over whether to keep her alive galvanized the nation over the last month, with even President Bush and Congress weighing in. The case focused national attention on living wills, since Schiavo left no written instructions in case she became disabled.

The case had spent seven years winding its way through the courts, with Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, repeatedly on the losing end.

They have been at odds with their son-in-law, Michael Schiavo, who consistently won legal battles by arguing that his wife would not have wanted to live in her condition.

Schiavo suffered severe brain damage in 1990 after her heart stopped because of a chemical imbalance that was believed to have been brought on an eating disorder. Court-appointed doctors ruled she was in a persistent vegetative state, with no real consciousness or chance of recovery.