US: Extinguishing a last glimmer of hope for the distraught parents of Terri Schiavo (41), a federal appeals court in Atlanta declined yesterday an emergency plea to have a new hearing on whether to reconnect the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube.
Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, told supporters outside her Pinella Pines hospice yesterday afternoon that she was weakening but, "I'm asking that nobody throw in the towel". Schindler friends and relatives who visited Terri Schiavo testified that she could still be saved.
A cousin, Betty Hughes, said: "Terri is very much with us, she was aware we are there." And a friend, Sherry Payne, commented: "If she just had a glass of water she would be fine." The Rev Jesse Jackson, who supports the family, met Florida governor Jeb Bush in Talahassee yesterday to press for emergency action, but Mr Bush has said he has exhausted all avenues to save her.
With Schiavo on her 13th day without food or water, doctors say reinserting the tube could now kill her.
Dr Sean Morrison, a professor of palliative medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said that if her kidneys had already shut down, reinserting the tube could hasten her death as the body might no longer be able to get rid of fluids.
It could "transform a peaceful death into one that can be very distressing for families and friends to witness", he told AP.
But the Schindler family doctor, Jay Carpenter, said Terri Schiavo could still be saved.
In its order on Tuesday night the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear new arguments about re-opening the case, though a deadline of March 26th had passed.
Several judges over the years have ruled in favour of Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, who maintains she would not to want to live in a vegetative state.
The Schindlers argued that a federal court in Tampa should have considered the entire state court record and not whether previous Florida court rulings met legal standards under state law.
They also claimed that the Atlanta court had earlier failed to consider whether there was enough "clear and convincing" evidence that Terri Schiavo would have chosen to die in her current condition. The wrenching Schiavo case had brought about unlikely alliances. The Rev Jesse Jackson, a Democrat, and Senator Rick Santorum, a Republican, have joined the protesters in Pinellas Park in the last two days.
Both say it is a moral and civil rights issue though most Americans in opinion polls say the government should not intervene.
The conservative New York Post called yesterday for Terri Schiavo to be allowed to die with dignity and in peace.
"The battle over her fate was mostly a noble one, and always a heart-rending one, but it has turned into a circus," the Murdoch-owned paper proclaimed. "Nothing anyone can do will alter the outcome now."