Court Strikes Down 'Terri's Law'

The Florida Supreme Court has struck down a law that blocked Terri Schiavo's husband from removing the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube.

Terri Schiavo, 40, suffered brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped beating, a condition brought on by an eating disorder. She left no written instructions in the event she became incapacitated.

Schiavo can breathe on her own but relies on a feeding tube to live. Some medical experts have declared she is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.

Her husband has argued that she would not want to be kept alive in this way. But her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have disputed that and argued that she could someday regain some of her faculties.

After the lower court judge ruled that there was convincing evidence that Schiavo would not have wanted to be kept alive artificially, Michael Schiavo withdrew the feeding tube last October.

But in a remarkable week of emotion and political activism by her parents' supporters, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush pushed "Terri's Law" through the Legislature and forced the reinsertion of the tube. The law was narrowly drafted to give the governor authority to issue such an order.

Later, Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird ruled the law wrongly allowed Bush to intervene in a matter of personal privacy and was improperly used by the governor to override a court decision with which he did not agree.

The governor appealed that ruling and the case was bumped immediately to Florida's high court.

The tube is in place in the meantime.

"If the Governor asks the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved in this case, there is no guarantee the Justices would do so. As a general rule state supreme courts are permitted to have the last say in interpreting state statutes," says CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen.

"The Florida Supreme Court says this is a separation of powers case; that the Florida legislature had no right to overturn the courts when judges declared that the patient here could be taken off life support. That is an argument that ought to have some resonance at the Supreme Court, even if several of the Justices believe in strong legislative powers and weaker judicial authority," says Cohen.

In a crucial hearing in August, Justice Charles Wells said he was troubled because he had to conclude the law was designed to sidestep a trial court ruling that found there was "clear and convincing evidence" Terri Schiavo would not want to be hooked up to the tube.

But Bush attorney Ken Connor said the court's order that the tube be removed was honored. The fact that the tube was reinserted six days later by order of the governor last fall doesn't alter the removal order, Connor said.

"It wasn't like an order that said so-and-so shall be hanged by the neck until dead," Connor said.

A lawyer for Schiavo's husband and guardian, Michael, has challenged the constitutionality of the law, which the Legislature passed last October and was in effect for just 15 days.

George Felos, representing Michael Schiavo, told the justices the fundamental issue was "who is entitled here to make a decision on a matter so personal and private as whether one would want artificial life support?"

In addition, Felos said the law violates the separation of powers because Bush used it to circumvent a properly issued court ruling reached after more than six years of litigation, scores of hearings and an appeals court review.

Bush has said he thinks the case may help spark a national debate about the ethics of sustaining life, which becomes "more and more important as technologies change to be able to sustain life."