Schiavo appeal cites 'disability'

By BILL VARIAN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 17, 2001

TAMPA -- Attorneys for Terri Schiavo's parents announced new appeals Thursday as they claimed a judge's order to remove her feeding tube violated their daughter's rights as a disabled adult.

The attorneys say Mrs. Schiavo, who suffered severe brain damage in 1990, deserves the same protection as someone in a wheelchair under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"You cannot execute a mentally disabled person just for being mentally disabled," said Patricia Anderson, one of the attorneys representing Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. "Her only crime is that she is mentally disabled.

"And so the battle continues," she said.

Pinellas-Pasco Probate Judge George Greer ordered Aug. 7 that Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube be removed by 3 p.m. Aug. 28. He subsequently denied her parents' requests to let doctors evaluate Mrs. Schiavo before removing her feeding tube, and to remove himself from the case.

Anderson filed the one-paragraph notice in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court Thursday that the Schindlers intend to appeal each decision to the state 2nd District Court of Appeal. The filing was followed by a news conference at the federal courthouse in downtown Tampa.

Anderson was joined by the Schindlers, a half-dozen sign-waving supporters and local representatives of Not Dead Unit, an organization that opposes euthanasia, and Florida Right to Life, a group active in the abortion debate.

The announcement Thursday was the latest maneuver in a nationally publicized family feud that dates to Feb. 25, 1990, when Mrs. Schiavo collapsed from a heart attack in her St. Petersburg home and was deprived of oxygen for five minutes.

Doctors for the Schindlers' son-in-law, Michael Schiavo, say his wife is in a persistent vegetative state and he has said she would not have wanted to be kept alive. The Schindlers think her condition can improve.

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