Suzanne Vitadamo, Terri Schiavo's sister, left, Mary Schindler, Schiavo's mother, center, and Bob Schindler, Schiavo's father, right, pause during a news conference outside the Woodside Hospice where Schiavo is a patient on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 in Pinellas Park, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Pinellas Park, Fla.—Terri Schiavo’s parents will appeal their latest judicial defeat to the U.S. Supreme Court. Robert and Mary Schindler met with their legal and spiritual advisors Wednesday afternoon following a rejection of their latest pleading by the full 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

“I’m in the room surrounded by family members right now and they are going to appeal it,” Gary McCullough, a spokesman for the Schindler family told Cybercast News Service in an exclusive interview. “They’ve been on the phone with the lawyers a lot and they are going to appeal it. The lawyers have been working, it seems like, around the clock, because we hardly ever see them.”

At a news conference with the Schindler family and other spiritual advisors Wednesday evening, Rev. Jesse Jackson said he is encouraging them to “hope against hope.”

“The family still knows there’s a fight, and yet the family is also facing the fact of their fate,” Jackson said. “They know that she cannot live but so long without water, without food. The family is both optimistic and realistic.”

Jackson acknowledged that the potential for Terri’s survival is lessening as the minutes and hours pass.

“It seems at every turn, these various legal doors are being closed,” Jackson said. “I’ve said to the family, ‘Be prepared for her to live. Be prepared for her to die.’

Jackson sounded even more resigned to the fact that, based on past experiences, further judicial appeals on Terri’s behalf will probably fail.

“We believe that, beyond the grave, there is life,” Jackson added, “That is a matter of our faith.”

Questioned by a reporter about only recently becoming involved in a court battle that has been going on since the 1990s, Jackson said, “All I know is that we did the best that we could do against the odds.”

11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling

The official order of the court of appeals was only one sentence and noted that “a majority” of the active circuit judges on the court had voted against the Schindler’s appeal. But Circuit Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., wrote a concurring opinion (PDF file) arguing that the courts should overcome the passions in the Schindler-Schiavo battle.

“Any further action by our court or the district court would be improper,” Birch wrote. “While the members of her family and the members of Congress have acted in a way that is both fervent and sincere, the time has come for dispassionate discharge of duty.”

Birch not only refused the Schindlers appeal, but he also chastised Congress for getting involved in the matter in the first place.

“In sum, while Congress may grant jurisdiction to a federal court consistent with Article III as it did in Section 1 of the Act, it may not ‘assume a function that more properly is entrusted to’ the judiciary,” Birch wrote. “By arrogating vital judicial functions to itself in the passage of the provisions of Section 2 of the Act, Congress violated core constitutional separation principles, it prescribed a ‘rule of decision’ and acted unconstitutionally.”

Michael Schiavo’s attorney, recognized “right-to-die” attorney, author and activist George Felos, arrived at the Woodside Hospice through a rear entrance late Wednesday morning. He did not respond to questions and was not available to respond to the Atlanta-based appeals court’s ruling or the promised appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wednesday at the Woodside Hospice

Robert Schindler visited with his daughter earlier Wednesday and later said that he was “pleasantly surprised” by what he saw.

“She is weak from lack of food and hydration,” Schindler said, “but we know her organs are still functioning.

“So, she’s still fighting and we’ll keep fighting,” Schindler concluded.

Bro. Paul O’Donnell, a spiritual advisor to the family, said that the Schindlers were holding up reasonably well under the stress of the situation.

“They’re doing pretty good considering,” O’Donnell said. “However, it’s very difficult for Mary to go in and see Terri right now because, on the one hand, she wants to be in the room with her daughter, on the other hand, it’s like watching a perpetrator murder her daughter.”

Many of Schindler family supporters gathered outside Terri’s hospice seemed undeterred by the repeated court rejections.

Terry Baumann works in Clearwater, Fla., about 10 miles north of Pinellas Park. He spent his lunch hour holding a sign in support of the Schindler’s efforts to save their daughter.

“I’m a Christian and I feel that, as a Christian and an American, I have a right to express my opinion,” Baumann said, “and this is my way of coming down here and saying, ‘This is wrong, I believe this to be wrong.’”

Baumann’s hand-lettered sign read, “We did not kill Ronald Reagan. We did not kill Christopher Reeve. Why are we killing Terri Schiavo?” Regardless of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling, Baumann believes he is making a statement that needs to be made.

“I think my responsibility is to get out here and do all that I can do,” Baumann said. “I think it’s a bigger thing than just Terri Schiavo.”

Daniel Vogel of Chicago, Ill., said he traveled to Pinellas Park, Fla., “to pray for Terri, in the hope that she would be saved.” He said, despite the many setbacks, he is not giving up.

“I don’t think that we’re at that point yet, the point of no return,” Vogel said, conceding that “obviously I think people should take into consideration her medical condition, and this is why they should act today.”

Asked what he would say to the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court when the Schindler family’s latest appeal comes before them, Vogel responded, “Two words: ‘Save Terri.’ It’s simple.” If they were to ask him why: “Because she’s a human being and she has the right to live.”