CLEARWATER, Fla. — Terri Schiavo supporters were dealt another setback Oct. 22 when the judiciary turned down another request for a rehearing in the case of the 40-year-old disabled woman.
Pinellas Circuit Judge George W. Greer in Clearwater dismissed a new argument that Terri, a practicing Roman Catholic, would want to adhere to a newly publicized teaching by the pope that the removal of a feeding tube is against church teachings, and its removal would violate her right to religious freedom.
In a statement made last March, Pope John Paul II condemned the removal of a feeding tube of a patient in a “persistent vegetative state,” while at the same time decrying the classification of a human being as a “vegetable” in any description.
The 40-year-old disabled woman at the center of the legal debate, Terri Schiavo, has been in what some doctors consider a persistent vegetative state since 1990 when she collapsed under suspicious circumstances in her home.
Her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, who has fathered two children with his live-in girlfriend, has sought the removal of his wife’s feeding tube for nearly a decade.
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