Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged American woman whose condition instigated a long-drawn-out legal struggle, died today at a Florida hospice, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed by a court order.
Representatives of both sides in a dispute over her fate confirmed the death shortly before 3pm GMT.
The death has concluded a court battle that had seen her husband, who wanted to take her off artificial life support, fight against her parents and siblings, who sought to keep her alive at all costs.
However, the death appears unlikely to halt the controversy of a right-to-life debate, which has lit the fire in anti-abortion debates among conservative religious groups against protestors who say there should be a "right to die" when the brain no longer functions.
Schiavo's death has came 15 years after she has a cardiac arrest, experiencing a loss of oxygen to the brain, which made her slip into a coma as a result of an eating disorder. She never regained consciousness and remained in what doctors called a "persistent vegetative state."
Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, had requested that a Florida judge on the 18th March last month remove the feeding tube through which she had been receiving nutrition and hydration.
Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, in response repeatedly called for intervention from Federal and State courts, the State and U.S. legislatures and the administrations of President Bush and his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
Congress responded by hurriedly passing an extraordinary new law, signed by President Bush shortly after 1 a.m. on 21st March, that transferred the case from State to Federal courts.
However, in a succession of heart-wrenching decisions, courts at the State and Federal levels refused to order the reinsertion of the feeding tube, and the U.S. Supreme Court then turned down the Schindlers' request to intervene in the case.
Schiavo, Roman Catholic by faith, was given last rites and Easter communion by priests in the hospice, and she received a drop of wine on the tongue and was anointed with holy oil.
The Schindlers then claimed that their daughter had attempted to say, "I want to live," before her feeding tube was removed. It was a desperate attempt to rebut years of diagnoses that she had suffered an irreversible loss of brain function and had no cognitive ability. A judge rejected this claim.
Political interference seemed to decline when polls showed that the American public overwhelmingly opposed Federal intervention in the case, and figures indicated that President Bush's rating nose-dived to an all-time low.
The poll also found that 70 percent of Americans felt it was out of place for Congress to get involved in the case.
Michael Schiavo had initiated a medical malpractice lawsuit against a doctor who had failed to diagnose Terri’s bulimia, and in 1993 he was awarded more than US$1 million -- US$750,000 for his wife and $300,000 for himself.
Following that judgment, a dispute surfaced between Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers, who sought to remove their son-in-law as Terri Schiavo's guardian.
Just one year later in 1994, Michael Schiavo deserted his previous belief that his wife could be rehabilitated, and in 1998 he petitioned a court to determine whether his wife's feeding tube should be removed. He stated that his wife had expressed a wish not to be kept alive in a vegetative condition and would choose to remove it if she could. The Schindlers, however, argued fiercely that the feeding tube should be kept in.
For years now, Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers have fought over the rights of Terri Schiavo, but now their fight has ended. However, most commentators now suggest that a new moral fight will truly begin with pro-lifers on one side and "right-to-die" supporters on the other.