Doctor and senior woman wearing facemasks during coronavirus and flu outbreak. Virus protection. COVID-2019..

The parents of Terri Schiavo pleaded in vain with a federal appeals court Tuesday to order the reinsertion of the feeding tube for their daughter after a federal court refused to refused their request. The matter was headed for the U.S. Supreme Court today.

“Where, as here, death is imminent, it is hard to imagine more critical and exigent circumstances,” David Gibbs, the attorney for Schiavo’s parents, said in the appeal filed electronically with the court. “Terri is fading quickly and her parents reasonably fear that her death is imminent.”

The tube was removed Friday following a ruling by Judge George W. Greer of the Florida Circuit Court, 6th Judicial Circuit, Pinellas County. The House of Representatives passed a bill Monday allowing the federal court to consider the case and President Bush signed the measure.

Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Shindler, have been fighting with her husband, Michael Schiavo, for years over the fate of their daughter. While Michael Schiavo has insisted that Schiavo would not want to live in her current state, her parents have argued she will get better. Court-appointed doctors say Schiavo, who suffered a heart attack 15 years ago, has been in a persistent vegetative state.