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Jon Eisenberg on the State of Schiavo: Not Good

The news is not encouraging from Florida on the most significant end-of-life case of the year.

Gov. Bush, the Schindlers and their supporters are now taking a two-pronged approach to forestalling the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube despite the Florida Supreme Court's decision, and so far they have achieved success on both fronts.

In the Florida Supreme Court case, Gov. Bush has obtained a 30-day stay
of the court's decision in order to to give him time to ask the United
States Supreme Court to take the case and issue a further stay.

Meanwhile, the Schindlers filed a motion in the trial court asking the
judge to hold a retrial on the issue of Terri Schiavo's wishes in light
of the Pope's recent statement regarding tube feeding of PVS patients.
According to the Schindlers, Terri, who was Catholic, would take the
Pope's statement to mean she must remain on tube feeding. The judge
denied the motion, citing a prior appellate court determination that
Terri "did not regularly attend mass or have a religious advisor who
could assist the court in weighing her religious attitude about
life-support methods." However, the judge also issued an emergency stay
of the feeding-tube removal until December 6, 2004, to give the
Schindlers time to appeal this order. No doubt the Schindlers will file
an appeal and ask for a further stay from the state Court of Appeal
court pending the decision on the appeal.

Thus, there are now two temporary stays in place. I think it doubtful
that the Supreme Court will take the case and issue a stay, but I think
it likely that the Court of Appeal will issue a stay pending its
decision on the Pope motion, which will likely last for the better part
of a year or longer.

Labels: Bush, Catholicism, end of life, Florida, Schiavo, Schindlers, Supreme Court, the Pope, US Circuit Court of Appeals