High Court slams Governor Bush over tube-feeding order
Florida\'s highest court ruled unanimously that Governor Jeb Bush violated a cornerstone of American democracy when he overrode a court decision and ordered doctors to resume tube-feeding a severely brain-damaged woman, reports The Washington Post.
Chief Justice Barbara J Pariente, of the Florida Supreme Court, called Bush\'s actions in the case of Terri Schiavo an encroachment on the judicial branch that undercut the constitutionally protected separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The decision does not mean that Schiavo, who has been in a vegetative state since going into cardiac arrest 14 years ago, will be immediately removed from life-support systems, lawyers involved in the case said. But the emphatically worded opinion leaves a dwindling field of options for Bush, who has sided with Schiavo\'s parents in a legal battle to stop her husband from having her disconnected from the feeding tubes that are keeping her alive. Bush spokesperson Jill Bratina said the governor\'s legal team was reviewing options, including an appeal of the Florida Supreme Court decision and a possible appeal to the US Supreme Court. The governor remains concerned, Bratina said, that Schiavo and her parents may have been denied due process. Full report in The Washington Post