Fla. Family Can't Visit Disabled Woman
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The family of a disabled woman now under treatment by orders of Gov. Jeb Bush is barred from seeing her because her husband won't allow it, the family's attorney said Tuesday.

Michael Schiavo is Terri Schiavo's official guardian, and can designate who is allowed to see his wife. She had gone without food and water for six days under a court order that allowed her husband to remove the feeding tube that kept her alive for more than a decade.

Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday, acting under a hastily approved law by the Florida Legislature, ordered Terri Schiavo taken to a hospital where doctors could begin the process of rehydrating and eventually feeding her.

Attorneys for parents Bob and Mary Schindler said Terri Schiavo's brother, Bob Schindler Jr., was turned away Tuesday night when he attempted to see his sister. It was not clear what condition Terri Schiavo was in Wednesday morning, about 12 hours after she was moved from a Pinellas Park hospice where she was dying to Morton Plant Hospital in nearby Clearwater.

"They have been told Terri can have no visitors under Michael's order," said Tom Brodersen, a paralegal who is a member of the Schindler's legal team that has waged a years-long court battle to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

George Felos, the attorney for Michael Schiavo, did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday morning.

The fight over Terri Schiavo's life took a dramatic twist Tuesday with Bush's intervention in the decade-long legal battle between the Schindlers and their son-in-law.

Michael Schiavo says his wife never wanted to be kept alive artificially and doctors have testified she is in a persistent vegetative state. The Schindlers dispute she had such wishes and say their daughter has enough functioning ability to laugh, cry and react to them.

Felos called the reinsertion of the tube "an absolute horrible tragedy for Terri Schiavo."

"The governor of the state of Florida does not have the right to trump a patient's personal choice," he said.

Felos said that on Tuesday, Terri was showing signs of massive organ failure and that the reinsertion of the tube is just prolonging her death. He said he did not know her condition Wednesday.

"She was literally absconded from her death bed in the middle of her dying process," he told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Observers wondered whether the Legislature and the governor overstepped constitutional boundaries by ramming through legislation that overruled the courts.

"It presents a new legal issue that I've never heard of," said former Florida Supreme Court (news - web sites) Justice Stephen Grimes.

The feeding tube was removed last Wednesday after a court refused to intervene. Doctors said the 39-year-old woman would die within a week to 10 days without nutrition and water.

On Tuesday, an ambulance took Schiavo from a Pinellas Park hospice to Morton Plant Hospital after Bush issued his order to resume feeding her. A crowd cheered outside as she left. A hospital spokeswoman on Wednesday said she could not release any information on Schiavo.

Hours earlier, the Senate voted 23-15 for legislation to save Schiavo. Within minutes, the House voted 73-24 to send the bill to Bush. The governor signed it into law and issued his order about an hour later.

"It's restored my belief in God," said Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler.

Michael Schiavo, meanwhile, was "deeply troubled, angry and saddened that his wife's wishes have become a political pingpong," Felos said. "He, as many others, is absolutely stunned at the course of events."

Suzanne Carr, the woman's sister, called the lawmakers' action "a miracle, an absolute miracle."

Felos scrambled to try to stop Bush's order. He filed a request for an injunction, but Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer denied it on technical grounds. Felos refiled the request and State Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird also refused to grant it.

"We won. Terri won," her father said after the ruling.

Felos said he believes the legislation is unconstitutional. It is Terri Schiavo's right under the Florida Constitution to not be kept alive artificially, and the courts have affirmed that, he said.

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe said the action by Bush and the Legislature "violates the core principles" of a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The court ruled in a Missouri case that Nancy Cruzan, who had been fed through a tube for seven years, could be permitted to die if "clear and convincing evidence" proved that was what she wanted. Her parents had fought for the right to remove the tube.

Schiavo never signed a living will, which lets people exercise their right to die should they become comatose. But her husband says she told him she would never want to be kept alive artificially; her parents said she never told them of the wish.

"I've never seen a case in which the state legislature treats someone's life as a political football in quite the way this is being done," said Tribe.

Felos will have five days to file additional arguments with the judge and the state will have five days after that to respond. The judge will then hold another hearing.

"It is simply inhumane and barbaric to interrupt her death process," Felos said. "Just because Terri Schiavo is not conscious doesn't mean she doesn't have dignity."

Court-appointed doctors have described Schiavo as being in a vegetative state, caused when her heart stopped in 1990 from a suspected chemical imbalance.