Death With Indignity

By Tim Padgett

Michael Schiavo has long insisted that what he wants for his wife Terri is a dignified death. But a flurry of legislative maneuvering late last week showed how the predicament of one severely brain-damaged Florida woman--who has been in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state since 1990--is in danger of getting lost in the clash of political agendas. In an effort to head off the scheduled removal of Schiavo's feeding tube, the House of Representatives, led by Republican Tom DeLay, took the extraordinary step on Friday of issuing a subpoena for Schiavo herself, along with her doctors and family. The move was rebuffed by Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who said there was "no cogent reason" for Congress to intervene. The tube was taken out Friday, but a day later the House and Senate were crafting a measure that would allow Schiavo's parents to take the case for keeping her alive to federal court.

As protests continued to fill the airwaves and the streets outside Schiavo's Florida hospice, even some conservatives wondered whether the unusual tactics spearheaded by legislators in Washington went too far. In Florida, there were revealing cracks in the state's conservative cohort, as some Republican pols who usually side with Governor Jeb Bush (who backs efforts to keep Schiavo alive) broke ranks. Powerful state senator Dennis Jones helped defeat eleventh-hour attempts in the Florida legislature last week intended to save Schiavo, telling TIME it was "the wrong vote." Some Florida Republicans say they winced when DeLay insisted that keeping Schiavo and patients like her alive was more important than "the sanctity of marriage"--a concept, of course, at the core of the Christian right's agenda on issues like gay marriage. Whatever Terri Schiavo's fate, the continuing debate promises to be anything but dignified. --By Tim Padgett. With reporting by Perry Bacon Jr. and Michael Peltier

With reporting by Perry Bacon Jr., Michael Peltier