A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a request from the parents of Florida woman Terri Schiavo to reinsert her feeding tube, dealing a blow to attempts by the US Congress and the White House to prolong her life. Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, immediately appealed to the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta as their daughter went for a fourth day without nutrition or hydration.
In a 13-page ruling issued at dawn, US District Judge James Whittemore acknowledged the gravity of the consequences in denying the request for an emergency order to restore the feeding tube. Doctors say Schiavo, 41, would likely remain alive for one to two weeks without it.
But Whittemore said he was obliged to follow the law and issue the order only if the Schindlers could show their overall case was likely to succeed in federal court, which they had not.
"This court concludes that Theresa Schiavo's life and liberty interests were adequately protected by the extensive process provided in the state courts," he said.
The feeding tube was removed on Friday under a state court order, but the Schiavo case was pushed into federal court by extraordinary intervention from Congress, which interrupted its Easter recess to pass a special bill.
President George W. Bush cut short a Texas vacation to sign the law early on Monday, intervening in a bitter dispute that has divided Schiavo's husband, Michael, and her parents, and which has become a cause for the Christian right, anti-abortion activists and now politicians.
Schiavo has been in what state courts have accepted is a "persistent vegetative state" since suffering a cardiac arrest that starved her brain of oxygen in 1990.
Schiavo's parents, who have fought for seven years in the courts to keep her alive, and their supporters reacted with anger and disappointment.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, travelling with Bush in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said, "We could have preferred a different ruling."
"We continue to stand on the side of defending life. This ruling was one step in the process and we will see what comes of future proceedings," McClellan said.