USA: Congress passes bill to force docters to keep 41-year-old Terri Schiavo alive

In the United States both houses of Congress have passed a bill to force doctors in Florida to reattach a feeding tube to 41-year-old Terri Schiavo to keep her alive. Both the Senate and lower House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to keep Schiavo alive. Without the tube the brain damaged woman will die from starvation within a fortnight.

Conservative Christian groups had been putting pressure on politicians to force doctors´ hands. President Bush even cut short his weekend to return to the White House so that he can immediately sign the legislation into law.

Schiavo has been in a vegetative state for more than a decade after a heart attack starved her brain of oxygen. Americans are split over the issue – even her own family. Her husband said she never wanted to be kept alive artificially – the rest disagree with him.

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