Civil rights leader urges Terri Schiavo be kept alive

Reverend Jesse Jackson pleaded yesterday for Terri Schiavo to be kept alive as the brain-damaged Florida woman at the centre of a bitter family and political dispute slipped toward death.

"She is being starved to death, she is being dehydrated to death. That's immoral and unnecessary," the civil rights leader told reporters after meeting Mr Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, near the hospice where she is being cared for.

Ms Schiavo's feeding tube was removed on March 18 after a protracted court battle between Ms Schiavo's husband, who is her legal guardian, and the Schindlers that galvanised many US religious conservatives.

The case prompted the Republican-led US Congress to pass a special law pushing the case into the federal courts, and President George W. Bush cut short a vacation to sign it.

Mr Bush's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, has also intervened in the case.

But recent polls have shown most Americans felt Congress should have stayed out of Ms Schiavo's case, and that the government should stay out of families' life and death decisions. A CBS poll last week found that 82 per cent of Americans felt Congress should have stayed out of the case.

The Schindler's invited Mr Jackson to visit to boost their effort to keep their daughter alive against court orders and her husband's wishes. Michael Schiavo believes his wife, 41 and severely brain-damaged for 15 years, would never have wanted to live in this state.

"This is one of the profound moral issues of our time," said Rev. Jackson, adding he was in touch with members of the Florida legislature to try to get them to intervene.

"We ask today for some hard hearts to be softened up."

But last-ditch action by state lawmakers appeared highly unlikely after a flurry of efforts by supporters of the Schindlers failed to get a reversal of the state court order for Ms Schiavo's feeding tube to be removed.

Ms Schiavo's artificial feeding was halted under order from a state court that has long sided with Michael Schiavo in ruling that a 1990 cardiac arrest left her in a persistent vegetative state from which she would not recover, and that she would not want to live in this condition.

Doctors have said Ms Schiavo, 41, would likely live up to two weeks without the tube.

Rev. Jackson was spending time with the Schindlers near the Pinellas Park hospice, but was not going to visit Ms Schiavo. His urgings to the Florida legislature came after state lawmakers failed to pass a law to intervene despite being urged to do so by Governor Bush. Governor Bush also failed in an effort to be allowed to have the state welfare agency take custody of Ms Schiavo and has stressed he believes there is nothing more in his powers he can do to prolong Ms Schiavo's life.

Bob Schindler has veered in recent days between saying his daughter is near death and battling for life.

"She's failing. She still looks pretty darn good under the circumstances," he said yesterday. "Her body functions are still working and she's alert. It's not too late to save her."