Terri Schiavo 'at peace'

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — The long, sorrowful struggle over Terri Schiavo's life ended on Thursday morning when she died in her hospice bed almost two weeks after the removal of her feeding tube, her parents and siblings absent, the husband they reviled at her side.

The enmity that defined the case over seven years persisted even in the final minutes before Schiavo's death, as her brother, Bobby Schindler, sought to stay at her bedside but her husband, Michael, told him to leave.

Her death, just after 9 a.m., brought a swell of emotion from the encampment outside the hospice, the state Capitol, the White House and even the Vatican.

In brief statements, Schindler and his sister, Suzanne Vitadamo, hinted at their anger toward Michael Schiavo but mostly thanked supporters who had rallied around them for years.

"After these recent years of neglect at the hands of those who were supposed to protect and care for her," Vitadamo said of her sister, who was 41, "she is finally at peace with God for eternity."

Schiavo stayed out of sight but his chief lawyer, George Felos, said he had cradled his wife as her breathing ceased and her limbs grew cold, while his older brother, his lawyers and some of the hospice workers who tended to Schiavo for years looked on.

"Mr. Schiavo's overriding concern here was to provide for Terri a peaceful death with dignity," Felos said in an afternoon news conference. "This death was not for the siblings, and not for the spouse and not for the parents. This was for Terri."

In recent weeks, the polarizing fight over Schiavo produced a wrenching national conversation about the rights of incapacitated people and when their lives should end if they left no specific instructions.

It drew religious conservatives and abortion opponents who adopted the Schindlers' cause, saying no life should end prematurely. And just as the case of Karen Ann Quinlan prompted a debate nearly 30 years ago over the "right to die," the Schiavo case seemed to focus as much on the "right to live."

In Washington, where Schiavo's plight prompted an extraordinary effort by Congress to intervene to save her, President Bush expressed sympathy "to Terri Schiavo's families" and called on the nation to "build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected."