Lawmakers launch last-ditch effort to save brain-damaged woman’s life

WASHINGTON – Working against the clock, House lawmakers vowed to continue their efforts to prevent doctors in Florida from removing the feeding tube today from a severely brain-damaged woman.

In a two-pronged approach, a House committee was issuing congressional subpoenas ordering the doctors to halt, while an attorney for the parents of the woman, Terri Schiavo, said he would ask a federal judge in Tampa to block the removal and review the actions of state courts.

Such habeas corpus appeals seek to require the government to justify its actions.

Police, meanwhile, readied for the hundreds of protesters expected to show up outside Schiavo’s hospice before the scheduled 10 a.m. PST removal of her feeding tube.

Schiavo suffered severe brain damage in 1990, and her husband, Michael Schiavo, says she told him she would not want to be kept alive artificially. Her parents dispute that, and say she could get better, but a court ordered the tube removed.