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Protestors Gather Outside of Terri Schiavo's Hospice

Aired March 23, 2005 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's take a look at what's happening right "Now in the News." Next stop for the Terri Schiavo case will be the U.S. Supreme Court if the justices degree to hear it. The High Court has refused to do that several times. Earlier this morning, a federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled 2-1 that it had no legal basis to order Schiavo's feeding tube to be reinserted.
President Bush is hosting a North American summit. The leaders of Canada and Mexico have joined the president in Texas to discuss numerous items of mutual interest, especially trade and security issues. The joint press conference is expected about one hour from now.

We're expecting the annual status report on Social Security and Medicare. It's due to be posted any moment now at treasury.gov. The report is expected to provide a better sense of how much longer the programs can remain solvent.

And in California, Michael Jackson's child molestation trial resumes this morning. Jackson has appeared ill in recent days and complained of severe back pain. Testimony yesterday focused on comedian Louise Palanker, who is friends with the accuser's family and has said that she's given them $20,000.

Getting back to the Terri Schiavo story. Protesters are gathering outside of Terri Schiavo's hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida. Bob Franken is live there with the very latest -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Daryn, this is probably one of most choreographed protests you will ever see. This is something that has been planed and negotiated between the police and those who are going to protest. What we can expect is a small group from among those who have been holding a vigil here in support of connecting the tube of -- the nutrition tube of Terri Schiavo -- are going to try and bring water in. Now, this has been done by various individuals and once they get on the property, the hospice -- the people who own the hospice here do not want them on the property and they have been arrested for trespassing. And we expect that to happen today.

Now, all of this has occurred with leaders of the group having extensive negotiations with the police to discuss the parameters. One of the things that we can expect is a brief demonstration. And let's not forget much of this is for the news cameras. And then they will be handcuffed, those who disobey the order to leave the property, handcuffed. And they do it in a certain way, they have decided, so they don't cause too much discomfort. They, the police. They handcuff them with metal handcuffs, but double ones. In other words, they link two together. That way they're not pulling so much on the arms of those who they arrest.

Then they're going to put them in a van, one of the vans, and they're going to be taken to wherever the jail is. They will probably be given a $250 bail request. Most of them will post that. And then the trespassing charges will be dealt with later.

As you can see, this is beginning already. The man speaking right now is a representative of Operation Rescue. Flip Benham. He is a minister, he is somebody who has been very prominent in the anti- abortion movement. And they make no bones about the fact that the anti-abortion movement and this are closely intertwined. Let's listen to what he's saying.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

FLIP BENHAM, OPERATION RESCUE: ... this book that the judges of the nation are ruling against. It is this book and the God in this book that they so despise and the reason that they despise this book -- it says in the bible that all who hate me love death. And that is exactly what the courts of this nation are giving us. But long before the courts, it was the Church of Jesus Christ who has failed. We have failed to give a voice to the voices. But today, we are going to do that. Today, we are going to allow the work of God to become...

FRANKEN: As we can tell from the remarks, this is something that is very tied up in the conservative religious movement, something that the participants here are very proud to talk about. As you can hear from the comments, it's very much tied into a born-again movement. Now what's going to happen after Reverend Benham is through, he is going to lead whatever the small contingent is. So they'll be carrying water that they say that they want to give to Terri Schiavo. And as I described this a moment ago, they'll be met by police.

And to make sure you understand that this is not exactly considered some sort of high tension confrontation, the police are just in their normal uniforms, no sort of protective gear. They've gone through this the last couple of days with people and it's very polite. The man who is going to be meeting the demonstrators is the person who runs the detail here, and that Lieutenant Kevin Riley (ph), who is somebody who is very adept at keeping things low-key.

As I said, the property of this hospice, the driveway, there are a couple of sheriff departments. We used to call them paddy wagons, they now call them vehicular transport vehicles. And the people who are arrested will be put in those and then taken. As you can see by all the news cameras, this is as much a media event as anything. It is an effort by the people who are here protesting to get attention, to keep the pressure on the politicians who might be watching this. They have gone to great pains to make sure that they keep these things very tightly under control so nobody feels that they have somehow caused a bad image of their protest.

It is a group that's been here since the last week, certainly. Certainly since Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was disconnected. They've been here in small numbers. They have been standing behind the snow fence, some of them with bullhorns, some of them praying a lot of the time, and some of them just being here and making the statement with their presence. The relationship between them and news cameras is often times pretty even -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Bob Franken, thank you. We're going to keep these live pictures up and transfer our focus to Tallahassee, Florida. That's where the Florida state senate will meet in about 90 minutes on the Terri Schiavo case, a last-ditch effort to pass a bill to keep her alive. Supporters appear to be two votes short.

Let's bring in reporter Mike Vasilinda of Capital News Service in Tallahassee. Mike, what is this latest effort and why would it be different than the last time the Schindler family went to the state legislature?

MIKE VASILINDA, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA: Well, good morning, Daryn. As you said, the senate, when it went home last night, was two votes shy of potentially passing a majority bill that would reinsert Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. We're told that the sponsor of that legislation spent most of the night working the phones, trying to talk to his fellow members to convince a couple of them to at least move temporarily.

We also know Governor Jeb Bush was on the phone at midnight last night, trying to twist the arms of the reluctant nine, as they are called, nine Republicans who voted against this legislation. And so we are, like you say, 90 minutes away. And one senator says, who's been negotiating this, that there's a very good likelihood something will happen. Another says, don't count on it.

The reality is, no one really knows what the senators are going to do until they walk onto the senate floor at 1:00 and a vote is called, because we are told that a vote will be called. And at that moment, it will be the moment of truth.

Bobby Schindler, by the way, Terri Schiavo's brother, is here in Tallahassee. He's been working the Capitol for the last three hours or so, meeting with about a half dozen senators. He told us a little while ago that he's very hopeful something will happen.

KAGAN: Mike, you stay put there. We want to go back live to Pinellas Park. The potential arrests about to happen. We'll be back to Mike Vasilinda in just a minute.

FRANKEN: OK, what we have here now, Daryn, is that today some of the people planning to bring the water, are holding styrofoam cups with water. That is their intention, their announced intention, to try and take that water to Terri Schiavo, who has had her nutrition tube removed as of last Friday. Which, of course, means in the medical term, that she is not being hydrated. That is to say, not only is she not been given any nutrition, but has not been given any water.

What will happen, and everybody knows this, is that the police will ask them to leave. They will not leave, they will stay a foot or so on the property. The facility here has insisted that nobody can get on the property. And that's sort of a line of demarcation. The police will ask them once or try twice to depart, and when they do not, and when they do not, they will be arrested, something they all expect to have happen.

At the moment, they're standing, just waiting, about an inch or two from the police. One of the participants looks like she's quite nervous, as this is not something that they do every day. She's talking...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... what I experience, my compassion for Terri, my compassion for this nation, because if we let this happen to her, it will be happening to others. And I know God judges nations. Look at Yugoslavia, it no longer exists. God judged Nazi Germany. I fear for this nation, if we permit innocent lives to be exterminated. Our nation will -- will go down in perdition if we don't stop.

FRANKEN: And as you can see, the public statements are an imperative part of the demonstration.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm feeling right now and I'm just pleading with God Almighty to soften the hearts of our legislators.

FRANKEN: In fact, it was here to say, and they would not dispute this, that presenting a picture, a public picture, of their cause is what this -- is what they want to do, because they want to do this to keep pressure on the politicians. And so, this is all part of something that is fair to say is choreographed and carefully negotiated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let us not be so selfish anymore. Let us step out and do what is right in God's eyes. And God would honor that. And our nation may not have to go through more 9/11s. Our nation may not have to go through more tornadoes and floods like we do.

FRANKEN: Daryn, some of the principals who've been involved in this are people who at other venues had been much more intense in the acts that they had taken, but the tactical decision has been made, one that they've shared with us, that they just do not want to give anybody some cause to resent whatever protests that they do. So they're doing things like this.

This is an action that's been actually planned for a day ago, which they withheld because of what was going on in the courts. Actually, it had been originally scheduled to occur before the weekend, but because of the congressional debate, they decided that they didn't want to disrupt anything. And then yesterday, the same decision was made.

Now that this is going before the Supreme Court, they decided now is the time to do their demonstration, what they call their first demonstration. As you can hear, everybody who has something to say has a lot to say.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I will only give you advice when you want it. And the son runs the business into the ground, and the father cannot do anything but stand by because he has made a promise. FRANKEN: And by the way, I would point out that not only are the places occupied by the demonstrators and the police arranged, the media have, in effect, been told, here are your rules, you can go this far, but you can't go any further than that. It's something the police have on a couple of occasions enforced as forcefully as necessary. This, again, is something where everybody wants to be part of what amounts to publicity -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Bob, you stand by there. We're going to keep the picture and the sound up. And while we do that, I'm go to bring in our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and talk about what these people, they're trying to do. They have styrofoam cups of water that they're trying to bring it Terri Schiavo. Clearly that's not going to happen, because of the police presence there. And it's symbolic. Someone in that case, you're not going to give a cup of water to.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, Obviously, they're saying she's dehydrated. She's been almost -- I guess five days it will be at 1:00 today, so just a couple hours from now. She can swallow, I guess. I've done some swallowing studies in the past to try to figure out whether or not...

KAGAN: Bob Franken's trying to get in here -- Bob.

FRANKEN: She's walking in now. Kevin Riley, the lieutenant, is talking to her. She is refusing a desire to be arrested, to leave the property. As you can see, she's had the water taken away from her, along with a copy of the Bible, and will now be handcuffed with put in the van, double handcuffs as I pointed out, which are designed to put the least amount of pressure on the person. The police have told me that they believe that the plastic handcuffs are even -- are somewhat painful.

KAGAN: This appears to be going peacefully. Let's bring Dr. Gupta back in here.

Sanjay, the effect of going five, six days without any kind of feeding tube?

GUPTA: Yes, and the bigger concern is not so much the calories as it is the hydration, the fluid status, people have been talking about that.

We know a couple of thins about Terri. In October 2003 she went 6 1/2 days before she had the feeding tube put back in, and appears not have suffered any long-term consequences at that time.

In a healthy person, a person who is not debilitated, you'd say probably a week a half, a couple of weeks they could live without hydration, but they could be profoundly ill. She's been pretty debilitated. She's been bedridden, obviously. You've see the chronic state that she's been in.

It's hard to say, seven, 10, two weeks maybe. KAGAN: There's been a call to get an independent panel of doctors to start over. Is there such a thing as an independent pan of doctors, or does it become a Rohrshack (ph) Test, and you can't help but bring some set of beliefs to what you're looking at as a doctor?

GUPTA: Well, I think, clearly, the testimony that you've seen and everyone has seen from the five doctors that everyone's been talking about for so long, really remarkable to see as a medical professional. I mean they were just so polar opposite. On one hand, someone essentially said that she was brain dead. On the other hand, they said she would recover; she would just have some arm weakness.

KAGAN: And they were seeing the same...

GUPTA: Patient, they were seeing her. They were seeing Terri.

KAGAN: They saw her, the people who have seen Terri Schiavo?

GUPTA: They examined Terri directly. This is not based on videotapes. They looked at her CAT scans. They evaluated her hospital records, all that sort of stuff completely opposite sort of testimony, not only in terms of the state that she was in, but also her likelihood for recovery. So part of the bill, as you mentioned, is to bring in five doctors who have not been associated with this case at all. Actually, I shouldn't say it's five, but an independent panel of doctors, I don't know the number, and re-examine and determine these two things: Is she actually in a persistent vegetative state? And how will she do? Is she likely to recover?

KAGAN: Stay with me. I have another question for you there, but I want to go back to Mike Vasilinda, who's at the state capital in Florida, in Tallahassee.

Mike, what can be done? And what kind of power does this legislature actually have? They're talking about reinserting, ordering the reinsertion of the feeding tube, and yet that's something the U.S. Congress didn't go as far as.

MIKE VASILINDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What the legislature is aiming to do is pass a bill that would say that anyone who is not specifically said in a health-care directive that they want food and hydration withheld, that that could not be withheld without that actually having been said in writing. The search right now is for compromised language. The first legislation that was drafted could have applied to tens of thousands of people, elderly people here in Florida, and there was a great concern that a lot of folks who did not want to be fed would be fed.

The second part of all of this, is where constitutionally can the legislature go? By making it too narrow, it would be unconstitutional. But then, the problem is making it too broad. So that is the dilemma the state legislature finds itself in. As of a little while ago, I'm told no compromise language has been arrived at yet. But we're a little over an hour away from a Senate vote and the folks are still working on it. But today is probably the last day this legislature has to act. The Senate is here in the morning, but the House goes home this afternoon for the Easter weekend been so with the clock ticking for Terri Schiavo without action by the Senate today and then the House, and the governor who is willing to sign this, if he can get something on his desk, today may be the last chance the Florida legislature has to act.

KAGAN: Mike Vasilinda, with the Capitol News Service in Tallahassee, we'll check back with you to see what the developments might be as the day goes on.

Sanjay, one more question for you. No matter where people fall on this side of the issue, whether the feeding tube should be in or out, I think there's great concern for Terri Schiavo, does she feel pain and discomfort. Do we even know the answer to that question?

GUPTA: The right answer is nobody really knows, because this is a woman who cannot communicate, and I think that's important to state. And of course I've never examined Terri. There had been a lot of studies done on people who are in end-of-life situations who can communicate, because of terminal cancer or something like that.

And they do say, and some of the end-of-life specialists we've talked to have repeated that what happens is the body sort of eventually does take over. Some hormones are released. Your body goes into a state of ketosis. The term's in not important, but what that basically means is that you start to break down, accumulate certain toxins in your blood. Sounds bad, but actually what people feel oftentimes is no pain, and maybe even a sense of euphoria, some of the end-of-life specialists have told us.

So it's a difficult situation. Again the right answer is, we don't know, because Terri can't tell us. But based on some of the studies, it appears that there really isn't pain associated with lack of feeding or lack of hydration.

KAGAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you for your expertise. We appreciate that.

We have a lot more ahead on this, plus other news. Stay with us. We're back after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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(END VIDEOTAPE)

Wicked weather yesterday for much of the Southeastern U.S. What about today? The forecast is just ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: And that's going to do it for me. I'm Daryn Kagan. Carol Lin is going to be filling for Wolf Blitzer. She's coming up after the break with more news. I will see you here tomorrow morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired March 23, 2005 - 11:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's take a look at what's happening right "Now in the News." Next stop for the Terri Schiavo case will be the U.S. Supreme Court if the justices degree to hear it. The High Court has refused to do that several times. Earlier this morning, a federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled 2-1 that it had no legal basis to order Schiavo's feeding tube to be reinserted.
President Bush is hosting a North American summit. The leaders of Canada and Mexico have joined the president in Texas to discuss numerous items of mutual interest, especially trade and security issues. The joint press conference is expected about one hour from now.

We're expecting the annual status report on Social Security and Medicare. It's due to be posted any moment now at treasury.gov. The report is expected to provide a better sense of how much longer the programs can remain solvent.

And in California, Michael Jackson's child molestation trial resumes this morning. Jackson has appeared ill in recent days and complained of severe back pain. Testimony yesterday focused on comedian Louise Palanker, who is friends with the accuser's family and has said that she's given them $20,000.

Getting back to the Terri Schiavo story. Protesters are gathering outside of Terri Schiavo's hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida. Bob Franken is live there with the very latest -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Daryn, this is probably one of most choreographed protests you will ever see. This is something that has been planed and negotiated between the police and those who are going to protest. What we can expect is a small group from among those who have been holding a vigil here in support of connecting the tube of -- the nutrition tube of Terri Schiavo -- are going to try and bring water in. Now, this has been done by various individuals and once they get on the property, the hospice -- the people who own the hospice here do not want them on the property and they have been arrested for trespassing. And we expect that to happen today.

Now, all of this has occurred with leaders of the group having extensive negotiations with the police to discuss the parameters. One of the things that we can expect is a brief demonstration. And let's not forget much of this is for the news cameras. And then they will be handcuffed, those who disobey the order to leave the property, handcuffed. And they do it in a certain way, they have decided, so they don't cause too much discomfort. They, the police. They handcuff them with metal handcuffs, but double ones. In other words, they link two together. That way they're not pulling so much on the arms of those who they arrest.

Then they're going to put them in a van, one of the vans, and they're going to be taken to wherever the jail is. They will probably be given a $250 bail request. Most of them will post that. And then the trespassing charges will be dealt with later.

As you can see, this is beginning already. The man speaking right now is a representative of Operation Rescue. Flip Benham. He is a minister, he is somebody who has been very prominent in the anti- abortion movement. And they make no bones about the fact that the anti-abortion movement and this are closely intertwined. Let's listen to what he's saying.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

FLIP BENHAM, OPERATION RESCUE: ... this book that the judges of the nation are ruling against. It is this book and the God in this book that they so despise and the reason that they despise this book -- it says in the bible that all who hate me love death. And that is exactly what the courts of this nation are giving us. But long before the courts, it was the Church of Jesus Christ who has failed. We have failed to give a voice to the voices. But today, we are going to do that. Today, we are going to allow the work of God to become...

FRANKEN: As we can tell from the remarks, this is something that is very tied up in the conservative religious movement, something that the participants here are very proud to talk about. As you can hear from the comments, it's very much tied into a born-again movement. Now what's going to happen after Reverend Benham is through, he is going to lead whatever the small contingent is. So they'll be carrying water that they say that they want to give to Terri Schiavo. And as I described this a moment ago, they'll be met by police.

And to make sure you understand that this is not exactly considered some sort of high tension confrontation, the police are just in their normal uniforms, no sort of protective gear. They've gone through this the last couple of days with people and it's very polite. The man who is going to be meeting the demonstrators is the person who runs the detail here, and that Lieutenant Kevin Riley (ph), who is somebody who is very adept at keeping things low-key.

As I said, the property of this hospice, the driveway, there are a couple of sheriff departments. We used to call them paddy wagons, they now call them vehicular transport vehicles. And the people who are arrested will be put in those and then taken. As you can see by all the news cameras, this is as much a media event as anything. It is an effort by the people who are here protesting to get attention, to keep the pressure on the politicians who might be watching this. They have gone to great pains to make sure that they keep these things very tightly under control so nobody feels that they have somehow caused a bad image of their protest.

It is a group that's been here since the last week, certainly. Certainly since Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was disconnected. They've been here in small numbers. They have been standing behind the snow fence, some of them with bullhorns, some of them praying a lot of the time, and some of them just being here and making the statement with their presence. The relationship between them and news cameras is often times pretty even -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Bob Franken, thank you. We're going to keep these live pictures up and transfer our focus to Tallahassee, Florida. That's where the Florida state senate will meet in about 90 minutes on the Terri Schiavo case, a last-ditch effort to pass a bill to keep her alive. Supporters appear to be two votes short.

Let's bring in reporter Mike Vasilinda of Capital News Service in Tallahassee. Mike, what is this latest effort and why would it be different than the last time the Schindler family went to the state legislature?

MIKE VASILINDA, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA: Well, good morning, Daryn. As you said, the senate, when it went home last night, was two votes shy of potentially passing a majority bill that would reinsert Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. We're told that the sponsor of that legislation spent most of the night working the phones, trying to talk to his fellow members to convince a couple of them to at least move temporarily.

We also know Governor Jeb Bush was on the phone at midnight last night, trying to twist the arms of the reluctant nine, as they are called, nine Republicans who voted against this legislation. And so we are, like you say, 90 minutes away. And one senator says, who's been negotiating this, that there's a very good likelihood something will happen. Another says, don't count on it.

The reality is, no one really knows what the senators are going to do until they walk onto the senate floor at 1:00 and a vote is called, because we are told that a vote will be called. And at that moment, it will be the moment of truth.

Bobby Schindler, by the way, Terri Schiavo's brother, is here in Tallahassee. He's been working the Capitol for the last three hours or so, meeting with about a half dozen senators. He told us a little while ago that he's very hopeful something will happen.

KAGAN: Mike, you stay put there. We want to go back live to Pinellas Park. The potential arrests about to happen. We'll be back to Mike Vasilinda in just a minute.

FRANKEN: OK, what we have here now, Daryn, is that today some of the people planning to bring the water, are holding styrofoam cups with water. That is their intention, their announced intention, to try and take that water to Terri Schiavo, who has had her nutrition tube removed as of last Friday. Which, of course, means in the medical term, that she is not being hydrated. That is to say, not only is she not been given any nutrition, but has not been given any water.

What will happen, and everybody knows this, is that the police will ask them to leave. They will not leave, they will stay a foot or so on the property. The facility here has insisted that nobody can get on the property. And that's sort of a line of demarcation. The police will ask them once or try twice to depart, and when they do not, and when they do not, they will be arrested, something they all expect to have happen.

At the moment, they're standing, just waiting, about an inch or two from the police. One of the participants looks like she's quite nervous, as this is not something that they do every day. She's talking...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... what I experience, my compassion for Terri, my compassion for this nation, because if we let this happen to her, it will be happening to others. And I know God judges nations. Look at Yugoslavia, it no longer exists. God judged Nazi Germany. I fear for this nation, if we permit innocent lives to be exterminated. Our nation will -- will go down in perdition if we don't stop.

FRANKEN: And as you can see, the public statements are an imperative part of the demonstration.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm feeling right now and I'm just pleading with God Almighty to soften the hearts of our legislators.

FRANKEN: In fact, it was here to say, and they would not dispute this, that presenting a picture, a public picture, of their cause is what this -- is what they want to do, because they want to do this to keep pressure on the politicians. And so, this is all part of something that is fair to say is choreographed and carefully negotiated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let us not be so selfish anymore. Let us step out and do what is right in God's eyes. And God would honor that. And our nation may not have to go through more 9/11s. Our nation may not have to go through more tornadoes and floods like we do.

FRANKEN: Daryn, some of the principals who've been involved in this are people who at other venues had been much more intense in the acts that they had taken, but the tactical decision has been made, one that they've shared with us, that they just do not want to give anybody some cause to resent whatever protests that they do. So they're doing things like this.

This is an action that's been actually planned for a day ago, which they withheld because of what was going on in the courts. Actually, it had been originally scheduled to occur before the weekend, but because of the congressional debate, they decided that they didn't want to disrupt anything. And then yesterday, the same decision was made.

Now that this is going before the Supreme Court, they decided now is the time to do their demonstration, what they call their first demonstration. As you can hear, everybody who has something to say has a lot to say.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I will only give you advice when you want it. And the son runs the business into the ground, and the father cannot do anything but stand by because he has made a promise. FRANKEN: And by the way, I would point out that not only are the places occupied by the demonstrators and the police arranged, the media have, in effect, been told, here are your rules, you can go this far, but you can't go any further than that. It's something the police have on a couple of occasions enforced as forcefully as necessary. This, again, is something where everybody wants to be part of what amounts to publicity -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Bob, you stand by there. We're going to keep the picture and the sound up. And while we do that, I'm go to bring in our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and talk about what these people, they're trying to do. They have styrofoam cups of water that they're trying to bring it Terri Schiavo. Clearly that's not going to happen, because of the police presence there. And it's symbolic. Someone in that case, you're not going to give a cup of water to.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, Obviously, they're saying she's dehydrated. She's been almost -- I guess five days it will be at 1:00 today, so just a couple hours from now. She can swallow, I guess. I've done some swallowing studies in the past to try to figure out whether or not...

KAGAN: Bob Franken's trying to get in here -- Bob.

FRANKEN: She's walking in now. Kevin Riley, the lieutenant, is talking to her. She is refusing a desire to be arrested, to leave the property. As you can see, she's had the water taken away from her, along with a copy of the Bible, and will now be handcuffed with put in the van, double handcuffs as I pointed out, which are designed to put the least amount of pressure on the person. The police have told me that they believe that the plastic handcuffs are even -- are somewhat painful.

KAGAN: This appears to be going peacefully. Let's bring Dr. Gupta back in here.

Sanjay, the effect of going five, six days without any kind of feeding tube?

GUPTA: Yes, and the bigger concern is not so much the calories as it is the hydration, the fluid status, people have been talking about that.

We know a couple of thins about Terri. In October 2003 she went 6 1/2 days before she had the feeding tube put back in, and appears not have suffered any long-term consequences at that time.

In a healthy person, a person who is not debilitated, you'd say probably a week a half, a couple of weeks they could live without hydration, but they could be profoundly ill. She's been pretty debilitated. She's been bedridden, obviously. You've see the chronic state that she's been in.

It's hard to say, seven, 10, two weeks maybe. KAGAN: There's been a call to get an independent panel of doctors to start over. Is there such a thing as an independent pan of doctors, or does it become a Rohrshack (ph) Test, and you can't help but bring some set of beliefs to what you're looking at as a doctor?

GUPTA: Well, I think, clearly, the testimony that you've seen and everyone has seen from the five doctors that everyone's been talking about for so long, really remarkable to see as a medical professional. I mean they were just so polar opposite. On one hand, someone essentially said that she was brain dead. On the other hand, they said she would recover; she would just have some arm weakness.

KAGAN: And they were seeing the same...

GUPTA: Patient, they were seeing her. They were seeing Terri.

KAGAN: They saw her, the people who have seen Terri Schiavo?

GUPTA: They examined Terri directly. This is not based on videotapes. They looked at her CAT scans. They evaluated her hospital records, all that sort of stuff completely opposite sort of testimony, not only in terms of the state that she was in, but also her likelihood for recovery. So part of the bill, as you mentioned, is to bring in five doctors who have not been associated with this case at all. Actually, I shouldn't say it's five, but an independent panel of doctors, I don't know the number, and re-examine and determine these two things: Is she actually in a persistent vegetative state? And how will she do? Is she likely to recover?

KAGAN: Stay with me. I have another question for you there, but I want to go back to Mike Vasilinda, who's at the state capital in Florida, in Tallahassee.

Mike, what can be done? And what kind of power does this legislature actually have? They're talking about reinserting, ordering the reinsertion of the feeding tube, and yet that's something the U.S. Congress didn't go as far as.

MIKE VASILINDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What the legislature is aiming to do is pass a bill that would say that anyone who is not specifically said in a health-care directive that they want food and hydration withheld, that that could not be withheld without that actually having been said in writing. The search right now is for compromised language. The first legislation that was drafted could have applied to tens of thousands of people, elderly people here in Florida, and there was a great concern that a lot of folks who did not want to be fed would be fed.

The second part of all of this, is where constitutionally can the legislature go? By making it too narrow, it would be unconstitutional. But then, the problem is making it too broad. So that is the dilemma the state legislature finds itself in. As of a little while ago, I'm told no compromise language has been arrived at yet. But we're a little over an hour away from a Senate vote and the folks are still working on it. But today is probably the last day this legislature has to act. The Senate is here in the morning, but the House goes home this afternoon for the Easter weekend been so with the clock ticking for Terri Schiavo without action by the Senate today and then the House, and the governor who is willing to sign this, if he can get something on his desk, today may be the last chance the Florida legislature has to act.

KAGAN: Mike Vasilinda, with the Capitol News Service in Tallahassee, we'll check back with you to see what the developments might be as the day goes on.

Sanjay, one more question for you. No matter where people fall on this side of the issue, whether the feeding tube should be in or out, I think there's great concern for Terri Schiavo, does she feel pain and discomfort. Do we even know the answer to that question?

GUPTA: The right answer is nobody really knows, because this is a woman who cannot communicate, and I think that's important to state. And of course I've never examined Terri. There had been a lot of studies done on people who are in end-of-life situations who can communicate, because of terminal cancer or something like that.

And they do say, and some of the end-of-life specialists we've talked to have repeated that what happens is the body sort of eventually does take over. Some hormones are released. Your body goes into a state of ketosis. The term's in not important, but what that basically means is that you start to break down, accumulate certain toxins in your blood. Sounds bad, but actually what people feel oftentimes is no pain, and maybe even a sense of euphoria, some of the end-of-life specialists have told us.

So it's a difficult situation. Again the right answer is, we don't know, because Terri can't tell us. But based on some of the studies, it appears that there really isn't pain associated with lack of feeding or lack of hydration.

KAGAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you for your expertise. We appreciate that.

We have a lot more ahead on this, plus other news. Stay with us. We're back after this break.

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Wicked weather yesterday for much of the Southeastern U.S. What about today? The forecast is just ahead. Stay with us.

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KAGAN: And that's going to do it for me. I'm Daryn Kagan. Carol Lin is going to be filling for Wolf Blitzer. She's coming up after the break with more news. I will see you here tomorrow morning.

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