Terry Schiavo Dies

The debate is over. The lawsuits are over. The new congressional law is now moot. Terri Scahivo has shuffled off her mortal coil.

Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman who became the centerpiece of a national right-to-die battle, died Thursday morning, nearly two weeks after doctors removed the feeding tube that had sustained her for more than a decade. Brother Paul O'Donnell, a spokesman for Bob and Mary Schindler, Schiavo's parents, said the couple was with their daughter's body and praying. Wednesday, the Schindlers lost what their lawyer described as their "last meaningful legal appeal" in their desperate battle to have their brain-damaged daughter's feeding tube reinserted. The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday refused once again to hear an emergency appeal from the Schindlers.

Of course, this is not the end of the story. There will be a battle over the body. And the political fallout has just begun. The Federal government was shown to be impotent. Jeb Bush was shown to be impotent. And the courts were shown to be dictatorial. This likely will mean the start of a new movement to funtamentally change our government. Who knows where this will go?