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.