WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday refused to block a lower-court order permitting the removal of life support from Terri Schiavo in Florida.
Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, have been in a long legal fight with their son-in-law, Michael Schiavo, who wants to remove his wife's feeding and hydration tubes because he says that is what she would have wanted.
A lower court ruling would allow her life support to be removed at 1 p.m. EST Friday, her parents said.
A series of courts have found Terri Schiavo to be in a "persistent vegetative state" since a medical emergency seven years ago. She has been on life support since then.
But the Schindlers say their daughter is responsive to visits and interacts with them.
A Circuit judge in Pinellas County, Fla., issued an order Feb. 25 allowing the life support to be removed and state appeals courts rejected a stay.
