High court refuses to block Schiavo ruling
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.
Congress enters Schiavo fray
WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. Congress moved Thursday to intervene in the Florida right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo, who has been in a vegetative state for 15 years.
The U.S. Senate approved a measure Thursday that would allow Schiavo's parents -- who have battled her husband in court for some time to keep him from removing her feeding tube -- to pursue their case in federal court after the Florida Supreme Court allowed the tube to be removed Friday.
Her husband says that she would prefer to be allowed to die rather than live on life support in her persistent vegetative state.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said that it is important for lawmakers to move with haste.
"If we don't act there is a possibility that a women who is alive today ... will be starved to death," said Frist.
Critics of the move say that lawmakers are ignoring the impact of allowing legal issues traditionally left to the states to creep to the federal level while opening the door for a myriad of such requests.
Senate Ron Wyden, D-Ore., also noted that the Supreme Court is likely to declare the move unconstitutional.
Although the House approved its own measure Thursday, it was deemed too broad to gain Senate approval.
House panel approves minor abortion bill
WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- A House panel approved legislation Thursday making it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion without parental consent.
The Constitution subcommittee passed the measure, which would establish penalties of up to a year in prison for taking a minor to another state for the medical procedure without the consent of their guardian or a court in their home state.
Exceptions would be made in the case of medical emergency.
Penalties would also be established for the physician performing the procedure.
The bill is part of a broader attempt to move small, focused legislation to limit access to abortion. A companion bill has been introduced by GOP leaders in the Senate who called it one of their top legislative priorities for the year.
Drought continues in Northwest
WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- Federal meteorologists predict a dry summer in the northwestern United States because of snowpack at close to record lows.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast is better for the southwest, where unusually heavy rains have nurtured an unusually luxuriant display of desert flowers. But even there, scientists say, a heavy winter snow pack and the spring rains will not bring the largest reservoirs like Lake Mead and Lake Powell on the Colorado River back to their former levels.
In Washington, Oregon, Idaho and eastern Montana, this year's stream flows are expected to among the lowest in the past 70 years even with predictions of increasing precipitation. The drought is also expected to continue in the northern High Plains.
Elsewhere in the country, the NOAA says that spotty dry areas are not expected to spread in the south, while the situation in Puerto Rico depends on how heavy spring storms are.
Doctor examines health inequalities
LONDON, March 17 (UPI) -- The British doctor who chairs an international commission on health and society says that a new push is needed to deal with health inequality.
In an article in The Lancet, Sir Michael Marmot says that much is still unknown about the relationship between social policy and health. But he says that international contrasts are sharp.
For example, the average life expectancy at birth is 34 in Sierra Leone and almost 82 in Japan. The chance of a man dying between the age of 15 and 60 is 8.3 percent in Sweden, 46.4 percent in Russia and 82.1 percent in Zimbabwe.
While countries where life expectancy is low are poor, the relationship between wealth and health is not a straight-line one. Greeks, with average individual purchasing power half that of U.S. residents, tend to live slightly longer. Costa Rica and Cuba, relatively low-income countries, have average life expectancies in the late 70s.
