Terri Schiavo Case Moves to Atlanta's 11th Circuit Court of Appeals

UPDATE 3.31.05: Terri Schiavo has died, according to a family spokesperson at the Florida hospice where the severely brain damaged woman resided. This controversial case will come to an end, but the right-to-die issues that the case raised will continue to be hotly debated.

3.30.05: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will once again be at the center of yet another "final" appeal filed by the parents of Terri Schiavo to keep their severely brain damaged daughter alive. They seek a court order to have their daughter's feeding tube reinserted immediately, 12 days after it was removed. This time, they want the Atlanta court to look at the entire state case file, specifically the evidence, and not just declare whether the state of Florida procedurally was within the law. The lawyers for Terri Schiavo's parents claim there is a Supreme Court precedent that requires the Atlanta court to act in such a manner.

The controversial and hotly debated case of Terri Schiavo has moved to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Atlanta. The 41 year old Florida woman has been diagnosed as being in a "persistent vegetative state" with little to no hope for recovery. Schiavo's husband wants to allow his wife to die, which he insists is what she would want. Her parents bitterly disagree, saying she could improve with proper treatment. There was no living will, which complicates matters. The case has been in and out of the courts for years.

The state of Florida, with Governor Jeb Bush's full support, created a law specifically for Schiavo's case, called "Terri's Law", which required her feeding tube to be reinserted in 2003, but it was ruled unconstitutional the next year, which sparked the events that led to the most recent removal of her feeding tube in March 2005.

Congress entered an extraordinary session over the weekend just to address the Schiavo case, and transfer the issue to the federal courts. President Bush signed the bill, but the federal court in Tampa refused to order the reinsertion of the tube, stating that Schiavo's "life and liberty interests" had been protected by the court system of Florida. Lawyers representing Schiavo's parents immediately filed an appeal with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.