Judge rules Terri Schiavo’s parents may resume visitation

CLEARWATER (FBW)–Telling them they won’t need a security guard, but they will need to make sure not to violate their daughter’s privacy, Judge George W. Greer ruled June 4 that Terri Schiavo’s parents can resume visiting their daughter at the Clearwater assisted living facility where she lives.

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Bob and Mary Schindler are parents of the 40-year-old brain damaged woman at the center of a national “right-to-die” debate. They have been allowed by her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, to visit her only twice since March 29 when Schiavo accused them of causing punture-like wounds on her arms.

Terri Schiavo collapsed under mysterious circumstances 14 years ago at which time her brain was deprived of oxygen.

Though he cleared the Schindlers of any wrondoing in the wounds on her arms, Greer warned the Schindlers against allowing anyone to video tape their disabled daughter.

“This court has consistently depended on the Schindler family to not only conduct themselves appropriately when they visit, but also monitor their relatives and friends who visit,” Greer wrote in his decision.

Bob Schindler admitted to Greer under oath that he had videotaped his daughter right before her feeding tube was set to be removed for the second time in two years, last October.

The Schindlers have been in a battle with Schiavo for over six years throughout which he has asked the court to be allowed to disconnect Terri’s feeding tube. Schiavo has said Terri would want to be allowed to die. Her parents have said she has never been given the rehabilitation doctors advised. Schiavo had petitioned the court to limit the Schindler’s visits and require them to pay an off-duty officer to watch them while they were in their daughter’s room. He had sought to add further restrictions to a 2000 order entered by another judge.

In October, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed “Terri’s Law,” ordering her feeding tube reinserted six days after it was removed as a result of Greer’s decision to grant Schiavo’s request. Schiavo has challenged the constitutionality of that law.

Late last month an appeals court forwarded that challenge to the Florida Supreme Court, which will decide whether to fast track the case or send it back to the 2nd Circuit Court for a ruling.