All of the federal petitions and appeals of Terri Schiavo's parents to maintain her life support were denied, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant certiorari.
The vote concluded at 12:41 a.m. EST; President Bush returned from vacation at his Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas, to Washington, D.C., and signed the bill at 1:11 a.m., when it became Public Law 109-3.
The act applied only to the parents of Terri Schiavo — not Terri Schiavo herself — and gave federal courts jurisdiction to review alleged violations of her constitutional rights, without regard to prior state court rulings (a review de novo, effectively wiping out the previous decade of litigation).
However, Congress did not attempt to create any new substantive rights for Schiavo, or include any provision requiring the federal court to order reinsertion of the feeding tube pending review.
[1]Some PDF files may be large and take time to download; alternate links provided in case one site is down or slow; "En banc" refers to the full court, not initial 3 judge panel.