PINELLAS PARK, Fla., March 31 (UPI) -- Terri Schiavo's body was loaded into a white van Thursday and taken to the Pinellas County, Fla., medical examiner's office for an autopsy.
Schiavo's parents and her husband agreed to the autopsy to try to show whether she was in a permanent vegetative state.
Her parents fought for seven years to keep their daughter alive, but her husband, Michael, said she would want to be allowed to die rather than kept alive by artificial means.
With the authority of several court orders, Schiavo's feeding tube was removed March 18 and she died Thursday morning.
Doctors are divided over how far the autopsy would go to settle the dispute. Many say it is not expected to do much more than confirm what brain imaging has already shown.
Others say it could provide more details about how much damage the 41-year-old woman suffered when she experienced cardiac arrest 15 years ago.
There may be preliminary findings in a day or two, but a complete autopsy report could take as long as three weeks.
