Judge finds Governor Bush's law unconstitutional

The long running legal battle to permit Mrs Terri Schiavo to die took another turn last week when Pinellas County Circuit Judge W Douglas Baird ruled on 6 May that Governor Jeb Bush's so called “Terri's law,” enacted to permit reinsertion of the patient's feeding tube, which had been removed, was unconstitutional.

Mrs Schiavo, aged 40, had been the focus of a bitter legal battle since her cardiac arrest in 1990 followed by persistent vegetative state (BMJ 2003;327:949, 1010).

In his 23 …