Parents beg to be with Schiavo

2005-03-31 17:12

Pinellas Park - The parents of a brain-damaged Florida woman at the centre of a right to die controversy are being blocked by her husband from being at her bedside during the final hours of her life, a family spokesperson said on Thursday.

"She may die within the next couple of hours," said Paul O'Donnell, a Roman Catholic Franciscan monk and a spokesperson for Bob and Mary Schindler, the parents of Terri Schiavo.

"Right now the family is requesting that they be allowed to be at Terri's bedside. They want to be at her bedside and they are being denied by Michael Schiavo. As you can imagine, they are very, very upset," O'Donnell added.

"They have told the police they would be willing to be in the room with Michael Schiavo and they are begging to go in and be with Terri," O'Donnell told reporters.

The Schindlers and Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, have been battling in court for more than seven years over whether the stricken woman should be left to die. The husband says Terri Schiavo told her she did not want to be left an invalid. The parents say she could improve with treatment.

Acting in the case for the sixth time, the US Supreme Court late on Wednesday spurned a petition from the parents for a temporary emergency stay that would have forced doctors to resume her artificial feeding while justices considered the case.

It was the sixth time case has been to the Supreme Court amid heated debate between supporters of what is being described as "a culture of life" and those who believed government should have no role in end-of-life issues. The court has each time refused to get involved.

Terri Schiavo has been in a "persistent vegetative state" since a 1990 cardiac arrest that severely damaged her brain and left her incapable of moving and communicating.

Her feeding tube was removed on March 18.

- AFP