A week after Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube was withdrawn, her anguished father warned Friday that she was “down to her last hours.”
And as time slipped away, Bob and Mary Schindler and their supporters directed their hopes, pleas–and anger–at Gov. Jeb Bush, the man once viewed by conservatives as the brain-damaged woman’s savior.
But Bush, who stayed in his office most of the day, said that although he wanted to help, there didn’t appear to be anything more he could do.
About two dozen demonstrators stood in heavy rain outside the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee. One carried a sign saying, “Jeb, You Shall Not Murder.” Other placards likened the governor to Pontius Pilate, suggesting that Bush was unwilling to intervene to help Schiavo.
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At the hospice in Pinellas Park where she is under care, relatives and others also were hoping for a miracle as several more people were arrested and charged with trespassing for trying to deliver water to her.
“I told her that we are still fighting for her, and she shouldn’t give up because we’re not,” said Bob Schindler, who visited his daughter late Friday. “But I think the people who are anxious to see her die are getting their wish. It’s happening.”
Earlier, Schindler said she was “weakening” and was “down to her last hours, so something has to be done and it has to be done quick.”
Doctors have said they expect the 41-year-old Schiavo to die within a week or two after the removal of her feeding tube, which took place March. 18. Dehydration has taken its toll on her, producing flaky skin, dry tongue and lips and sunken eyes, according to attorneys and friends of the Schindlers.
Family continues pleas
Meanwhile, the Schindlers made more pleas in court. On Friday evening, their attorneys tried to persuade Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer to have the feeding tube restored.
Attorney Barbara Weller told the judge that a week ago when she asked Schiavo to say, “I want to live,” the woman mouthed, “AHHHH WAAAAAAA.”
“We stand here quite honestly expecting Terri to slip into eternity over this Easter weekend,” added David Gibbs, an attorney for the Schindlers.
George Felos, the attorney for Schiavo’s husband, Michael, said the belief that the woman can speak was “crossing the line” into abuse of the legal system.
Doctors who have examined Schiavo have said her previous utterances weren’t speech, but rather involuntary moans consistent with someone in a vegetative state.
Greer, who had denied a request to recuse himself, was expected to announce a decision Saturday.
Earlier Friday, U.S. District Judge James Whittemore, for the second time in a week, denied a request to reinsert the feeding tube.
Attorneys for the Schindlers immediately appealed the ruling to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court in Atlanta which, along with the U.S. Supreme Court, has denied a previous request to restore her feedings.
In Michael Schiavo’s response to that appeal, his attorneys argued that the Schindlers have abandoned all pretense of the law and are simply making “a pure emotional appeal.”
On Friday night the Atlanta-based court again said no to reinserting the feeding tube.
Also Friday, FBI agents arrested a North Carolina man for soliciting the murder of Michael Schiavo.
According to the FBI, Richard Alan Meywes, said in an e-mail written Tuesday that a “bounty with a price tag of $250,000 has been taken out on the head of Michael Schiavo,” adding that “an additional $50,000 has been offered for the elimination of the judge who ruled against Terry [sic] in Florida.”
For Florida’s governor, who within Republican circles is seen as a possible future presidential contender, the Schiavo case has stirred up some harsh political crosswinds.
Bush has long relied on unswerving support from the party’s right, which gave him renewed praise for pushing the Legislature to act in 2003 to keep Schiavo alive.
But the 2003 law that allowed Schiavo’s feeding tube to be reinserted after six days was declared unconstitutional. And earlier this week, the state Senate rejected Bush’s latest plea that lawmakers approve legislation aimed at continuing sustenance.
So as each legislative and court option melted away, the focus narrowed to the governor.
Bush said Thursday that he has no intent to defy judicial rulings, despite criticism from conservatives.
“I understand they’re acting on their heart,” Bush said of those prodding him to act, “but I cannot go beyond what my powers are, nor would I want to.”
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Polls favor death
Doctors say Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, and courts have sided with Michael Schiavo, who said his wife would choose to end the feedings that have kept her alive. Her parents have consistently fought that action.
Polls earlier this week by ABC News and the BBC have found that Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, think Schiavo should be allowed to die and that government should not interfere. A new poll conducted for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel released Friday also found that 62 percent of likely voters in Florida say they would remove the feeding tube if they were Schiavo’s family member.