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The Terri Schiavo Case

Schiavo case invokes pope

The lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents argues that the stricken woman would not defy her faith.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
Published July 21, 2004

ST. PETERSBURG - Terri Schiavo's immortal soul is in jeopardy.

That's what an attorney for her parents says in court papers filed Tuesday seeking to reverse a Pinellas-Pasco judge's ruling that said Mrs. Schiavo would not want to be kept alive by artificial means.

A motion by attorney Pat Anderson says statements made in March by Pope John Paul II saying it is morally wrong to withhold food and water from someone in a vegetative state make clear what Mrs. Schiavo's wishes would be today.

As a devout Catholic, the motion says, Mrs. Schiavo would not want anything done that runs counter to church doctrine.

"Terri has now changed her mind about dying," the motion says. "As a practicing Catholic at the time of her collapse ... Terri does not want to commit a sin of the gravest proportions by forgoing treatment to effect her own death in defiance of her religious faith's express and recent instruction to the contrary."

Any order to remove Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube violates her "free exercise of her religious beliefs ... and, in fact, imperil her immortal soul."

George Felos, an attorney representing Mrs. Schiavo's husband, who wants his wife's feeding tube removed, called those arguments ridiculous.

Felos said the pope's comments are not an official religious pronouncement banning the removal of a patient's feeding tube.

"According to the logic in this motion, all practicing Catholics who are now incapacitated have had their living wills invalidated by the pope," Felos said. "It's simply not the law. We're not a theocracy."

Anderson, attorney for Mrs. Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, said the pope's words spoke directly to Mrs. Schiavo's case and that, if she could, "I think Terri would express her gratitude to the Pope."

"To pretend that Terri wants her feeding tube removed is to conclude she has completely abandoned her religious training and upbringing and is willing to defy the pope," Anderson said.

Mrs. Schiavo has been in what her husband says is a vegetative state since she collapsed 14 years ago from what doctors believe was a chemical imbalance that might have been caused by bulimia.

Her husband, Michael Schiavo, has sought to have her feeding tube removed, saying she cannot recover. He has been opposed by Mrs. Schiavo's parents, who say she could regain some brain function with therapy.

Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube was removed for six days last October before state lawmakers passed "Terri's Law," which allowed Gov. Jeb Bush to order doctors to reinsert the tube.

The law's constitutionality is now on appeal before the Florida Supreme Court.

[Last modified July 20, 2004, 23:13:25]