The 11th Circuit, after raising their hopes at the 11th hour, has once again rejected the appeal of Terri Schiavo’s parents.
Schiavo Appeal Rejected Again in Atlanta (AP)
With time running out for Terri Schiavo, a federal appeals court Wednesday rejected her parents’ latest attempt to get the brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube reconnected. The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to consider an emergency bid by Bob and Mary Schindler for a new hearing in their case, raising a flicker of hope for the parents after a series of setbacks in the case. But the court rejected the bid 15 hours later the fourth time since last week the court ruled against the Schindlers. “Any further action by our court or the district court would be improper,” wrote Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., who was appointed by former President Bush. “While the members of her family and the members of Congress have acted in a way that is both fervent and sincere, the time has come for dispassionate discharge of duty.”
Birch went on to scold President Bush and Congress for their attempts to intervene in the judicial process, by saying: “In resolving the Schiavo controversy, it is my judgment that, despite sincere and altruistic motivation, the legislative and executive branches of our government have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers’ blueprint for the governance of a free people our Constitution.”
As those who’ve followed my commentary on this case know, I agree one hundred percent. At the same time, raising Terri Schiavo’s parents’ hopes at this stage only to dash them yet again seems incredibly cruel.
