Florida bill keeps coma victim alive

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Lawmakers sent Gov. Jeb Bush a bill Tuesday that will give him the power to order a feeding tube reinserted into a brain-damaged woman who is at the center of one of the nation's longest and most bitter right-to-die battles.\nBush said he will immediately sign the legislation -- a victory for Terri Schiavo's parents, who have been fighting for several years to keep her alive. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, says she would rather die.\nSchiavo's feeding tube was removed last Wednesday after a court ruling in Schiavo's favor. Doctors have said the 39-year-old woman will die within a week to 10 days without food and water.\nLawmakers were already called to the Capitol for a special session on economic development when they decided to intervene in the case.\nBush said he did not think lawmakers were motivated by politics.\n"This is a response to a tragic situation," Bush said. "People are responding to cries for help and I think it's legitimate."\nSen. Tom Lee said Schiavo would "essentially starve ... to death" without intervention from lawmakers and the governor.\n"It's a pretty awful way to go," said Lee, a Republican.\nOpponents said government was stepping in where it had no business to do so.\n"I do not believe the governor of Florida should be making a decision of life and death rather than the next of kin," said Sen. Steven Geller, a Democrat.\nThe House approved the bill 73-24 after the Senate passed it 23-15.\nGeorge Felos, a lawyer for the woman's husband, asked a judge to stop Bush even before he received the bill. A hearing was scheduled for Tuesday.\nEarlier in Tampa, U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday denied a request by an advocacy group that Schiavo be kept alive so it could investigate whether removal of the tube was abusive.\nMerryday wrote that federal courts -- other than the U.S. Supreme Court -- are forbidden from interjecting themselves into matters already decided by state courts. He also said the group failed to provide enough evidence to support its request.\nThe bill sent to Bush was designed to be as narrow as possible. It is limited to cases in which the patient left no living will, is in a persistent vegetative state, has had nutrition and hydration tubes removed and where a family member has challenged the removal.\nCourt-appointed doctors have described Schiavo as being in a vegetative state, caused when her heart stopped in 1990 from a suspected chemical imbalance.\nBush last week promised the woman's parents that he would help them if he could find a way.\nThe Florida Supreme Court has twice refused to hear the case, and it also has been rejected for review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Last week, a Florida appeals court again refused to block removal of the tube.\nFelos said he thinks the legislation would be unconstitutional. It is Terri Schiavo's right under the Florida Constitution to not be kept alive artificially, and the courts have affirmed that, he said.\nPat Anderson, the attorney for the parents, said she was "dumbfounded" by the Legislature's action, although the family had hoped for such help in the wake of continued court defeats.\nDuring a two-hour debate in the House, several Democrats argued that the Constitution does not let the Legislature give the governor the power to overrule the courts.\n"This bill so oversteps our role it ... turns democracy on its head," said Rep. Dan Gelber, a Democrat.\nBut many Republicans and some Democrats said they need to be involved in dire cases where judges might be wrong.\n"The Constitution is supposed to protect the people of this state," said Rep. Sandy Murman, a Republican from Tampa. "Who is protecting this girl"