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Schiavo Parents Consider Next Move

An autopsy that found Terri Schiavo suffered from severe and irreversible brain-damage has done nothing to sway her parents' position that she deserved to live and may have gotten better with therapy.

"Future legal action, we are at this point just examining every option and no decision has been made," said David Gibbs, the attorney for her family. "I've encouraged the family to just let time settle a little bit."

The autopsy report was thorough, about 5 times longer than normal, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod.

The long-awaited report Wednesday found Schiavo's brain had shrunk to about half the normal size for a woman her age when she died March 31 after her feeding tube was disconnected. The autopsy also determined she was blind.

Bob and Mary Schindler disputed the results, insisting their daughter interacted with them and tried to speak.

"She wouldn't recognize anybody's face, wouldn't recognize anyone's voice. wouldn't respond to stimuli in anything but a reflexive way," Dr. Douglas Miller, a neuropathologist, told CBS News. "They were seeing what they wanted to see, which is common and unfortunate in situations like this. It was just not possible."

The findings vindicated Schiavo's husband in his long and vitriolic battle with his in-laws that engulfed the courts, Congress and the White House and divided the country. Michael Schiavo and court-appointed doctors have said she had no hope of recovery. She died at age 41.
"We knew all along that Terri was profoundly brain damaged," said Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler. "We simply wanted to bring her home and care for her. It all goes back to this quality of life."

The autopsy also found no evidence that Terri Schiavo was strangled or otherwise abused before her sudden 1990 collapse — countering allegations by the Schindlers that she was abused by her husband.

Yet medical examiners could not say for certain what caused the collapse, long thought to have been brought on by an eating disorder.

George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, said the findings back up their contentions made "for years and years" that Terri Schiavo had no hope of recovery. He said Michael Schiavo plans to release autopsy photographs of her shrunken brain.

"Mr. Schiavo has received so much criticism throughout this case that I'm certain there's a part of him that was pleased to hear these results and the hard science behind them," Felos said.

The Schindlers fought their son-in-law in court over their daughter's fate for nearly seven years, battling to the end with conservatives at their side.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president was briefed on the autopsy, and the results do not change his stand on the case.
"The president is always going to stand on the side of protecting and defending life," McClellan told reporters, adding that the the administration's thought's are with Terri Schiavo's family and friends.

Mr. Bush and congressional allies pushed legislation giving federal courts jurisdiction in what is normally an issue left to state courts, reports CBS News Correspondent Peter Maer.

But at least one key congressional ally, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a medical doctor, appeared to back away after the report was released.

"I believe it does bring a very sad chapter to a close," Frist said Thursday on CBS News' The Early Show. "The diagnosis they made is exactly right. It's the pathology. I respect that. I think it is now time to move on."

The autopsy counters a widely seen videotape the Schindlers released of Schiavo in her hospice bed. The video showed Schiavo appearing to turn toward her mother's voice and smile. She moaned and laughed. Her head moved up and down and she seemed to follow the progress of a brightly colored Mickey Mouse balloon.

Schiavo's parents said that showed she was aware of her surroundings, but doctors said her reactions were automatic responses and not evidence of thought or consciousness.

"There's nothing in her autopsy report that is inconsistent with a persistent vegetative state," said Dr. Stephen J. Nelson, a medical examiner who assisted in the neurological portion of the autopsy.
The cause of death was dehydration from removal of the feeding tube, but the underlying reason for her brain damage was officially listed as "undetermined."

The autopsy included 274 external and internal body images and an exhaustive review of Schiavo's medical records, police reports and social services agency records.

Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin said that the autopsy produced no conclusion on what triggered the temporary heart stoppage that caused her collapse and brain damage. He said there was no evidence of drug use, though he cautioned that Schiavo was not tested in 1990 for every conceivable substance that could have been in her blood.

He said there was no proof she suffered from an eating disorder such as bulimia, which can disrupt the body chemistry with lethal effect. The main piece of evidence cited for an eating disorder — the low levels of potassium in her blood in 1990 — could have been caused by the emergency treatment she received at the time, Thogmartin said.

While she had lost more than 100 pounds since high school, Schiavo never confessed to an eating disorder, she did not take diet pills and no one had witnessed her purging food, the medical examiner said.

He discounted the possibility that she had overdosed on caffeine from drinking large amounts of tea in an effort to keep her weight down.

In addition, the autopsy found no traces of morphine in her system at her death, although she had been given two doses in the days before she died. The Schindlers had contended that morphine might have been used to speed their daughter's death.

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