By Maya Bell and Etan Horowitz,The Orlando Sentinel

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. – Shortly before 2 p.m. Friday, a chaplain, a doctor and other health-care workers prayed in Terri Schiavo’s room, gave her Holy Communion through her feeding tube and then tearfully disconnected the life support that has kept her alive for 15 years.

The emotional service held behind the tranquil walls of the hospice where Schiavo has lived for five years belied the extraordinary drama that played out in Washington, Tallahassee and courtrooms on both sides of Tampa Bay.

It pitted Congress against Florida’s state court system, religious beliefs against long-standing right-to-die laws and a distraught husband against his grief-stricken in-laws.

Through it all, the severely brain-damaged woman, who doctors say could take up to two weeks to die, was unaware of the firestorm her plight has ignited.

“It was a very calm, peaceful procedure, of course, with a degree of emotion,” said Michael Schiavo’s lawyer, George Felos, announcing that the tube was withdrawn at about 1:45 p.m.

Terri’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, left the Woodside Hospice without comment, Mary Schindler’s face pressed against the back window of the car carrying the family away. She was crying.

“The family is heartsick,” said their attorney David Gibbs.

Friday’s extraordinary events began when the Republican-controlled Congress issued subpoenas and legally binding invitations demanding that Terri and Michael Schiavo and their care-givers appear at committee hearings next week.

The clear intention was to forestall the removal of the feeding tube, but it succeeded only in drawing the ire of legal experts and Felos.

“It was an attempt to intimidate and coerce the treating physicians in this case and the health care workers in this case and Mr. Schiavo … from carrying out the lawful court order,” Felos charged.

Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer, who has consistently ruled that it was Terri Schiavo’s wish not to be kept alive artificially, quickly agreed. As the clock ticked past his 1 p.m. deadline for the tube’s removal, he rejected the U.S. House’s request to intervene.

“I have had no cogent reason why the (congressional) committee should intervene,” Greer told attorneys in a conference call Friday, adding that last-minute action by Congress does not invalidate years of court rulings.

By late afternoon, the Florida Supreme Court backed the judge, dismissing the House’s appeal.

Joseph Little, a University of Florida law professor, said Congress has great discretion in issuing subpoenas, but in this case he called it “an abuse of the process.”

“If someone else were doing it, besides Congress, it would be a punishable offense,” he said.

Also early Friday, Terri Schiavo’s parents filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tampa, asking a federal judge to step in. Again, the clear intention was to halt their daughter’s feeding tube, and again, it did not succeed.

By the time U.S. Circuit Judge James S. Moody denied the Schindlers’ appeal, their daughter’s feeding tube had already been withdrawn – for the third time in five years.

For seven years, the Schindlers have fought their son-in-law’s efforts to allow his wife to die. He says – and the courts have agreed – that she made it clear in casual conversations that she would never want to live in a void, completely unaware of her surroundings and dependent on others for her every need.

Her parents vehemently disagree, disputing the court rulings that their daughter is in a persistent vegetative state and insisting she could recover if they could only bring her home, and provide her the rehabilitative therapy their son-in-law long ago decided was futile.

So twice before, they won what they considered miracles, one in 2001, when another judge ordered their daughter’s tube reinserted hours after its removal, and again in 2003 when the Florida Legislature passed “Terri’s Law,” empowering Gov. Jeb Bush to set aside a court ruling and order the tube’s re-insertion. After a six-day hiatus, it was.

That law, however, was eventually struck down as unconstitutional, leaving the Schindlers’ hopes with legislators in Washington and Tallahassee who have been struggling for two weeks to cobble together a law that would keep Terri Schiavo alive.

Gibbs said he hoped lawmakers in Washington or Tallahassee could come to agreement.

“I’m hopeful these men and women can get a strategy, get a focus, because we’re running out of time,” Gibbs said.

Acknowledging that’s where the next battle lies, Felos would not predict what could happen.

“We don’t know whether we’re at the end of this situation,” he said. “The fact is opponents of Mrs. Schiavo’s rights are continuing in every way they can to defeat them.”

He urged Americans who want to retain their right to make their own medical decisions to initiate a counteroffensive, inundating Congress with calls, letters and e-mails demanding them to stay out of the Schiavo case.

Those are the same tactics the Schindlers’ supporters, a loose coalition of religious conservatives and disability advocates, have successfully used to bring Terri Schiavo’s case – and with it the emotional issue of withdrawing artificial hydration and nutrition – to the national forefront.

And they plan to redouble that effort now. Randall Terry, a longtime anti-abortion activist helping the Schindlers organize their campaign to save their daughter, warned Congress that it had better help.

“The conservative people of this country did not work their tails off for the past 10 years to get conservatives in both houses so they could give us a song and dance,” Terry said. “We put you in power so you can deliver. Here’s an opportunity for you to deliver on the life of an innocent woman.”

But in Tallahassee on Friday, the state Senate declined for the second straight day to pass a measure to keep Terri Schiavo alive, all but dooming an effort by state lawmakers to get involved in the case.

One of nine Republican senators to shoot down a measure a day earlier, Sen. Nancy Argenziano, a Republican, wept openly and quoted the Bible as she explained her vote.

“Sometimes modern medical technology doesn’t prolong life, it only delays death. When that is the case we may actually be trying to do something God has not willed,” Argenziano said. “I don’t want to keep anyone from getting to Heaven.”

In Pinellas Park, the area around the hospice was heavy with religious symbols, signs and about 80 to 100 prayerful protesters, most of them hoping to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

A white car with a trailer hitch drove by the hospital pulling about a 4-foot statue of Jesus on a cross. A group of young adults and children bore red tape over their mouths, with the word “Life” written on it.

Many openly attacked Greer.

“He deliberately ordered the removal of this tube so this dear woman could be starved to death during Holy Week,” said Patrick Mahoney, the director of the Christian Defense Coalition. “This shows the heart of Judge Greer.”

Shortly after word circulated that the tube had been removed, there was a visible increase in the security. Several workers from Pinellas Park public works department arrived to hammer new poles into the ground to expand orange barricades.

In the midst of the demonstrators were Ann and Timothy Miller, who had loaded their six children into a car and driven from Ohio to Florida.

“We want to show our children how prayers can be answered and how the political process works,” said Ann Miller, as her kids played on a grassy field. “And we hope not to be disappointed.”

The Millers home-school their children and said they have to get home by Sunday so they could tend to their farm’s cows, horses and chickens.

“We didn’t pack enough clothes because we trusted the government would do the right thing,” she said.

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(Orlando Sentinel correspondents David Damron and Sean Mussenden contributed to this report.)

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AP-NY-03-18-05 2151EST

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