Terri Schiavo is dead

Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old brain-damaged Florida woman, whose feeding tube was removed on the direction of a court, died on Thursday, a spokesman for her parents said.

Terri had been without the tube for 14 days, and it had created a controversy in the US.

While her parents wanted the tube to be reinstated, her husband, Michael Schiavo said Terri, in the condition she was in, would have preferred to die.

Terri's parents Bob and Mary Schindler and Michael Schiavo were involved in a court battle for over seven years.  

The Supreme Court had, hours before her death, refused a petition from the Schindler's, who had sought the reinsertion of the feeding tube to ensure that their daughter stayed alive.