Terri Schiavo

As Terri Schiavo received nourishment through a new feeding tube Wednesday, debate raged about whether Gov. Jeb Bush and state lawmakers had done the right thing, or the politically expedient one, in preventing the brain-damaged woman's death. "The courts should be deciding such cases, not a legislature jumping in," said Bill Allen, professor of bioethics and law at the University of Florida. "It would be like the Colorado Legislature deciding whether Kobe Bryant is guilty or not based only on what they have seen on TV. " But Denise Kuhn, a staff member for Republican state Rep. Sandra L. Murman of Tampa, said the thousands of e-mails received by her office in Tallahassee were running 9 to 1 in favor of intervening to keep Schiavo alive, including "lots of thank yous" for the unusual law passed Tuesday.

Patricia Heaton 's rush to support Rush Limbaugh this week shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has closely followed her rise as one of the most successful comedic actresses in Hollywood. Heaton, a Twitter power-user who dubs her more than 69,000 followers "Tweatons," used the social media platform to join Limbaugh in blasting Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke for speaking out in favor of President Obama's proposal that health insurance provide free birth control . A sample of Heaton's Tweets, since deleted: "Hey G-Town Gal: If your parents have to pay for your birth control, maybe they should get a say in who you sleep with!

Re "Florida Gov. Orders Feeding Tube," Oct. 22: I am outraged that the Florida Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush have been able to exploit a married couple's personal tragedy for political purposes. Terri Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state for 13 years; for five years her husband fought to have a feeding tube withdrawn, claiming that she would not have wanted to be kept alive in that condition. A woman's right to self-determination has been violated; her husband's right to protect her interests has been trampled on; and an appeals court decision has been set aside by legislative fiat.

Here's a no-brainer: People who are alive have more mental capacity than people who are dead. They are more aware of their environment, they have more personality, they have more capacity for emotion, and they have more working memory. These findings, reported in a recent study published online by the journal Cognition, are hardly surprising. But here's the twist: The dead scored higher in these traits than people who are in a persistent vegetative state. That's right. In interviews with researchers about hypothetical car-accident victims, study participants (on average)

Michael Schiavo's book about the fight to let his brain-damaged wife die, called "Terri: The Truth," is to be released today, the day before a book by Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, "A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo, a Lesson For Us All," is released. Friday will be the first anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed.

The remains of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman who died March 31 after her feeding tube was removed, were interred in a Clearwater cemetery, her husband's lawyer said. Two days after her death, Schiavo's body was cremated and her husband, Michael Schiavo, was given possession of her remains. He had said her ashes would be buried at a family plot in Pennsylvania. But Monday his lawyer, George J. Felos, said in a statement that the service and interment occurred in Clearwater.

Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and medical ethicist whose positions in thorny right-to-die cases drew both praise and vilification, has died. He was 65. Cranford died Wednesday at a hospice in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina after a 30-month battle with kidney cancer.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, acting under emergency authority approved earlier in the day, ordered a feeding tube restored Tuesday to a brain-damaged woman recently taken off life support at her husband's request. Bush's order came at the end of two days of rapid legislative and executive action in the case of Terri Schiavo, 39, who has been in a coma-like state since 1990. Critics said the law that authorized Bush's action might be unconstitutional.

For the final two weeks of Terri Schiavo's life, Jon B. Eisenberg was part of her husband's legal team. But he knew he wouldn't walk away with a fee. Instead, the California lawyer said, he spent $2,800 of his own money to travel to Washington when it looked as if the Supreme Court might agree to hear the case. "Flight, hotels, food, cab, Alka-Seltzer, coffee -- it all came from my pocket," said Eisenberg, an appellate attorney from Oakland.

Like many Christians, the Rev. Mark Brewer and his wife, Carolyn, disagree over what should happen to Terri Schiavo. Carolyn Brewer believes the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube should be reinserted. Although her husband agrees with her underlying principles, he wonders whether it is right to prolong Schiavo's existence in such an impaired state of consciousness. "We should always protect life, because God gives life," Brewer, the head pastor at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, said Sunday.

Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and medical ethicist whose positions in thorny right-to-die cases drew both praise and vilification, has died. He was 65. Cranford died Wednesday at a hospice in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina after a 30-month battle with kidney cancer.

Michael Schiavo's book about the fight to let his brain-damaged wife die, called "Terri: The Truth," is to be released today, the day before a book by Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, "A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo, a Lesson For Us All," is released. Friday will be the first anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed.

Re "Judge Halts Moussaoui Terror Trial," March 14 Is there anything the Bush administration can do correctly? Misleading Congress and the American public into this war by cherry picking intelligence; the Katrina disaster; passing laws in special congressional sessions that affect only one person (Terri Schiavo); warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. Now we have Zacarias Moussaoui, a known terrorist, on trial, served up on a silver platter. Slam dunk. And the federal prosecutors have jeopardized the case through incompetence and ineptitude.

Michael Schiavo, who fought for years to remove his wife, Terri, from a feeding tube that kept her alive, has turned his anger over Congress' intervention into political action. Schiavo announced Wednesday that he had opened TerriPAC to strike back at politicians who tried to keep his brain-damaged wife alive through legislation that he termed a "sickening exercise in raw political power."

Terri Schiavo's parents and siblings are writing a book about their struggle in the epic end-of-life case that captured the attention of everyone from Pope John Paul II to President Bush.

Re "Housing Boom Has Left Them Out in the Heat," July 22 With 200 billion taxpayer dollars spent on the war in Iraq and no end in sight, it is a national disgrace that 15 homeless people have died on the streets of Phoenix. I guess the homeless are not part of the "culture of life" that the president was so concerned about when he pushed the Terri Schiavo special legislation through Congress. Elena House Los Angeles

Fifteen years to the day after Terri Schiavo suffered severe brain damage, leaving her in a persistent vegetative state, a judge Friday ordered that the feeding tube keeping her alive be removed in three weeks. According to Pinellas Circuit Judge George W. Greer's instructions, Schiavo's husband, Michael, should disconnect the tube at 1 p.m. March 18. Schiavo contends that his wife did not want to live through artificial means.

Terri Schiavo's parents lost more legal challenges Friday, with her father saying that "the people who are anxious to see her die are getting their wish. It's happening." Bob and Mary Schindler also issued another appeal to Gov. Jeb Bush to get their brain-damaged daughter's feeding tube reinserted as she entered her eighth day without nutrition. "With a stroke of his pen, he could stop all of this," Bob Schindler said late Friday.

Florida's state attorney said there was no evidence Terri Schiavo's collapse 15 years ago involved criminal activity, and Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday declared an end to the state's inquiry. Bush had asked State Attorney Bernie McCabe to investigate Schiavo's case after her autopsy last month. He said he now considered the state's involvement with the matter finished.

The remains of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman who died March 31 after her feeding tube was removed, were interred in a Clearwater cemetery, her husband's lawyer said. Two days after her death, Schiavo's body was cremated and her husband, Michael Schiavo, was given possession of her remains. He had said her ashes would be buried at a family plot in Pennsylvania. But Monday his lawyer, George J. Felos, said in a statement that the service and interment occurred in Clearwater.