Suzanne Vitadamo (C) sister of Terri Schiavo, celebrates with her father Bob Schindler (L) and husband Michael (R) outside Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla. (AFP/Robert Sullivan)

President Bush signed legislation early Monday morning that will allow the parents of a Florida woman with a severe brain injury to sue in federal court to save her life. The parents of Terri Schindler Schiavo are trying to get their daughter’s feeding tube reinserted after her husband had it removed Friday with permission from a Florida state court.

Just after 1:00 a.m. EST, Bush enacted the special legislation, entitled “For the relief of the Parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo.” The White House released a written statement from the president a short time later.

“Today, I signed into law a bill that will allow Federal courts to hear a claim by or on behalf of Terri Schiavo for violation of her rights relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life,” the Bush statement said. “In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life.

“This presumption is especially critical for those like Terri Schiavo who live at the mercy of others,” the president continued. “I appreciate the bipartisan action by the Members of Congress to pass this bill. I will continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities.”

Bush returned to the White House Sunday from a trip to promote his Social Security reform plan to be available to sign the bill.

The proposal, S. 686, gives the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida jurisdiction to hear and render judgment on a suit or claim by or on behalf of Theresa Marie Schiavo for the alleged violation of any of her rights under the Constitution or laws of the United States “relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life.”

The law also specifically authorizes Terri’s parents to sue on her behalf and establishes the procedures for a suit brought under the Act.

The Senate passed the proposal on a voice vote Sunday afternoon. After that vote, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) told reporters that the Schiavo case involves “extraordinary circumstances that center on the most fundamental of human values and virtues, the sanctity of human life.”

Frist explained that, contrary to claims made by opponents, the legislation, which is being called the “Palm Sunday Compromise,” would not mandate a decision in favor of Terri’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.

“It gives Terri Schiavo another chance,” Frist explained. “It guarantees a process to help Terri, but does not guarantee a particular outcome.”

After the Senate passed the bill, Mary Schindler pleaded with members of the House to help save her daughter.

“There are some congressmen that are trying to stop this bill,” Mrs. Schindler said, speaking to reporters outside the hospice where Terri is being kept. “Please don’t use my daughter’s suffering for your own personal agenda.”

House Democrats blocked efforts to have the Senate version of the bill passed on a voice vote. As a result, Republican leaders were required to get at least 218 members to return to Washington on Palm Sunday in order to have a quorum so they could convene the House for a vote.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) opposed the bill, calling it “a dangerously reckless way to deal with one of the most serious issues we will ever confront.

“This bill would place a federal judge in the middle of this case after the state courts have adjudicated it,” Nadler said. “After everything is over, after all the facts have been established to the satisfaction of the courts, all the appeals exhausted, the writ of certiorari denied by the Supreme Court of the United States, now we’re going to start all over again.

“We have never, ever done such a thing in the history of this country,” Nadler added, “and we should not start now.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) supported the bill and used Nadler’s own words to refute his opposition to the proposal.

“I’m a little bit puzzled listening to my friend from New York,” Sensenbrenner said.

“At (Volume) 151 Congressional Record, page H-1599, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, said, ‘If a person thinks the court in a state is depriving someone of civil rights, they can go into federal court,’” Sensenbrenner quoted. “And at Volume 150, Congressional Record, on page H-6580, the gentleman from New York noted that without federal courts, ‘obviously the progress we have witnessed in the area of civil rights would have been, at the very least stymied, and most likely prevented altogether.’

“All this bill does is to allow the parents of Terri Schiavo to go into federal court to adjudicate her federal constitutional and legal rights,” Sensenbrenner concluded, “no more, and no less.”

In order to comply with House rules, the vote could not be taken until after 12:00 a.m. (Eastern) Monday. Shortly after midnight, lawmakers voted 208 to 53 in favor of the legislation. Less than an hour later, a senior White House aide told reporters that President Bush had signed the bill immediately when he received it.

‘’We feel every moment is urgent,” David Gibbs III, the attorney for Bob and Mary Schindler told reporter earlier Sunday. “We are considering every second as precious in terms of saving Terri.”

Gibbs had already written the emergency appeal asking the federal district court in Tampa to issue an injunction ordering Terri’s feeding tube reinserted while it reviews her case. A computer program assigns the judges for such requests and would deliver the appeal to the judge automatically when it was received. Gibbs told reporters he hopes the court will act with the same speed as Congress and the president, considering that Terri’s life hangs in the balance.

Before Congress took up the compromise version of the bill Michael Schiavo lashed out at lawmakers, telling CNN that “Congress has more important things to discuss.”

Over the weekend, supporters of the Schindler family pointed out an inconsistency in Schiavo’s comments during that televised appearance. Schiavo, who is also Terri’s legal guardian, has maintained—since shortly after receiving more than $1 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit on Teri’s behalf—that she had expressed a desire never to be kept alive by any type of life-prolonging medical intervention.

But speaking with CNN’s Larry King Friday, Schiavo contradicted his previous statements.

“Do you understand how they (Terri’s parents) feel?” King asked.

“Yes, I do. But this is not about them. It’s about Terri,” Schiavo responded. “And I’ve also said that in court. We didn’t know what Terri wanted but this is what we want...”

Attorneys familiar with the case say that, had Schiavo made that statement under oath, he would be guilty of perjury. Schiavo has previously testified under oath, as have his brother and sister-in-law, that he had no doubt about his estranged wife’s wishes concerning medical treatment.

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Pinellas County, Fla., Circuit Court Judge George Greer previously dismissed testimony from at least one eye witness to statements by Terri that contradict the claims of her husband and his relatives.

Diane Meyer, one of Terri’s life-long friends, told Greer that Terri had expressed her disagreement with the decision of Karen Ann Quinlan’s parents to remove their comatose daughter from life support in a highly publicized “right-to-die” case in the 1970s and 1980s.

“There was an incident when I told a poor joke about Karen Ann Quinlan. I remember distinctly because Terri never lost her temper with me. This time she did,” Meyer testified in 2002. “She told me that she did not approve of what was going on or what happened in the Karen Ann Quinlan case.”

Meyer told the court that the conversation had taken place, “in the summer of 1982.”

Greer ruled that, because Meyer spoke of the conversation in the present tense, she must have been mistaken about the date. He deduced that the comments must have been made in the mid-1970s, when Terri would have been only 11 or 12 years old.

“The first quote involved a bad joke and used the verb ‘is.’ The second quote involved the response from Terri Schiavo, which used the word ‘are,’” Greer wrote in his decision. “The court is mystified as to how these present tense verbs would have been used some six years after the death of Karen Ann Quinlan.”

As a result, Greer ruled that the statement that she “would not want to be kept alive artificially”—which Terri allegedly made in the presence of her husband, brother-in-law and brother-in-law’s wife—was Terri’s only adult comment on the matter.

Gibbs’ argued that it was Greer, not Meyer, who was in error.

“The court discredited Ms. Meyer’s testimony because of its own mistaken conclusion that Karen Ann Quinlan was dead in 1982. In reality, Ms. Quinlan was very much alive in 1982,” Gibbs wrote in a motion filed with the court. “Ms. Quinlan did not die until 1985, some nine years after her court case ended and her respirator was removed.”

Greer’s refusal to consider Meyer’s testimony as equal to that of Terri’s husband and in-laws constitutes a reversible error, Gibbs claimed.

“When the adult statement of Mrs. Schiavo to her friend Ms. Meyer is given the credibility it deserves, there is no longer clear and convincing evidence that Mrs. Schiavo had, knowingly and with understanding, waived her right to life,” Gibbs contended. “It is therefore no longer equitable that the February 11, 2000 and February 25, 2005, orders to end Mrs. Schiavo’s life should have further application.”

Gibbs petitioned Greer to overturn his ruling based on that alleged error. Greer refused to do so. That dispute is one of many issues Gibbs is expected to ask the federal court to review in his appeal.