First, under American law it is Mrs Schiavo's husband, not her parents, who is now responsible for her. Yet there are also hard facts to consider-facts that the decade of legal battles, encompassing 19 judges in six courts, seem only to have reinforced. As for her condition, Mrs Schiavo-whose heart suddenly stopped in 1990, cutting off oxygen to her brain-can breathe by herself, and her parents have also produced a video showing their daughter appearing to communicate with them. Her husband claims she told him that she did not want to be kept alive by artificial means but he did not reveal this immediately, and he has spent the past decade with another woman with whom he has started a family. Mrs Schiavo did not make a “living will”-ie, a statement of what she would like to happen if she were subsequently to fall desperately ill but be unable to make her own decisions.
What are the rights and wrongs of all this? The Schiavo case is especially difficult on two grounds: the patient's intent and her medical status. The Los Angeles Times calls the new law “a midnight coup”.
On the other side, Mr Schiavo has called Mr DeLay a “little slithering snake” and many liberal types have protested against Congress trampling over the legal system. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, calls removing the tube an act of “medical terrorism”. To the Schindlers and many religious Americans, Mr Schiavo and the Florida judges and doctors who have backed him are little short of murderers.
But, without nutrition, Mrs Schiavo will die after about ten days. The Schindlers duly filed a request to a federal court for the feeding tube to be reinserted, pending their appeal that their daughter's constitutional rights had been infringed but a federal district judge and an appeal court have both already turned this down, unpersuaded that their case stood a chance of success. George Bush flew back from Texas to sign it at 1.11am on Monday. Yet in a frantic weekend's politicking, which underlined the power of the religious right, the Republican Congress came back from holiday to pass a highly unusual bill giving Mrs Schiavo's parents the chance to appeal to a federal court. This represented a victory (if such a word can be used) for her husband, Michael, who insists she should be allowed to die, over her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who think she can recover. On March 18th, a state court in Florida finally ordered that a feeding tube be removed from Terri Schiavo, a woman who was severely brain-damaged in 1990. EVEN by the desperate standards of a family tragedy that has now lasted for 15 years, the past week has been tumultuous.
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