PINELLAS PARK, Fla., March 31 - The long, sorrowful struggle over Terri Schiavo's life ended Thursday morning when she died in her hospice bed almost two weeks after the removal of her feeding tube, her parents and siblings absent, the husband they reviled at her side.

The enmity that defined the case over seven years persisted even in the final minutes before Ms. Schiavo's death, as her brother, Bobby Schindler, sought to stay at her bedside but her husband, Michael, told him to leave.

Her death, just after 9 a.m., brought a swell of emotion from the encampment outside the hospice, the state capital, the White House and even the Vatican.

In brief statements, Bobby Schindler and his sister, Suzanne Vitadamo, hinted at their anger toward Mr. Schiavo but mostly thanked supporters who had rallied around them for years.

"After these recent years of neglect at the hands of those who were supposed to protect and care for her," Ms. Vitadamo said of her sister, who was 41, "she is finally at peace with God for eternity."

Mr. Schiavo stayed out of sight, but his lawyer, George Felos, said he had cradled his wife as her breathing ceased and her limbs grew cold, while his older brother, his lawyers and some of the hospice workers who tended to Ms. Schiavo for years looked on.

"Mr. Schiavo's overriding concern here was to provide for Terri a peaceful death with dignity," Mr. Felos said in an afternoon news conference. "This death was not for the siblings, and not for the spouse and not for the parents. This was for Terri."

In recent weeks, the polarizing fight over Ms. Schiavo produced a wrenching national debate about the rights of incapacitated people and when their lives should end if they left no specific instructions.

It drew religious conservatives and abortion opponents who took up the Schindlers' cause, saying no life should end prematurely. And just as the case of Karen Ann Quinlan prompted a debate nearly 30 years ago over the "right to die," the Schiavo case seemed to focus as much on the "right to live." [Page A18.]

In Washington, where the case prompted an extraordinary effort by Congress to intervene, President Bush expressed sympathy "to Terri Schiavo's families" and called on the nation to "build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected."

The Vatican issued a statement calling Ms. Schiavo's death a "violation of the sacred nature of life" that had "shocked consciences."

Pope John Paul II, whose own health is failing, said last year that providing food and water, even by artificial means, was "moral and obligatory."

Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, who had tried to intervene in the matter as recently as last week, said after learning of Ms. Schiavo's death that "this issue transcends politics and policies." He also called her case "the toughest issue" in his tenure.

"Her experience will heighten awareness of the importance of families dealing with end-of-life issues, and that is an incredible legacy," the governor said.

Within hours of her death, Ms. Schiavo's body was transported to the Pinellas County medical examiner's office, where an autopsy is to be performed to determine her cause of death. A spokesman from that office said that the autopsy would be completed within 24 hours and the body released to Mr. Schiavo, but that a report on its conclusions might not be finished for several weeks.

Earlier this week, Mr. Felos said Mr. Schiavo wanted the autopsy so he could lay to rest longstanding rumors that he had abused his wife, perhaps even on the night of her collapse.

Mr. Felos also said that his client believed it would be "important to have the public know the full and massive extent of the damage to Ms. Schiavo's brain" to counteract accusations that she was cognizant, communicative and involuntarily starved to death.

Dr. Barbara Crain, director of the autopsy service at Johns Hopkins University's school of medicine, said in an interview that an autopsy alone would probably not determine a patient's mental condition with absolute certainty. But by examining sections of nerve cells and connective tissue, Dr. Crain said, pathologists could confirm a vegetative state.

Autopsies of people who die in a persistent vegetative state show extensive cell death throughout the cerebral cortex, the seat of consciousness, and this damage is almost always obvious in a post-mortem review, Dr. Crain said.

Mr. Schiavo, 41, plans to cremate his wife and bury her remains in his family plot outside Philadelphia, where both he and his wife grew up. Mr. Felos did not discuss specific burial plans, but friends of the Schindlers said they were planning a separate funeral service for Ms. Schiavo in Florida.

Mr. Felos described Ms. Schiavo's final night and morning, from her increasingly labored breathing to the soft music playing in her room to the vigil her husband kept beside her. Around 7 a.m., Mr. Felos said, Mr. Schiavo left the room so his wife's siblings could visit her with a priest, the Rev. Frank Pavone, who runs a national group called Priests for Life.

Mr. Felos said that when hospice workers asked the siblings to leave around 8:45 a.m. so they could assess Ms. Schiavo's condition, Bobby Schindler said he wanted to stay and got into a dispute with a police officer stationed outside the room.

Mr. Schiavo made a "split-second decision" about Mr. Schindler, Mr. Felos said, adding that he "was not going to permit an explosive situation" in his wife's last moments.

When Ms. Schiavo died, her brother and sister were across the street in a thrift shop that served as the family's base in recent weeks. Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, arrived about a half-hour later and went in to see her one last time, looking dazed.

The protesters who had come from around the country to wave signs, play trumpets and sing hymns in recent weeks -- there was even a pair of jugglers on Wednesday -- did not turn angry so much as quiet upon hearing the news, praying and brushing away tears. Outside Woodside Hospice House after the death was announced, Father Pavone said of Mr. Schiavo, "His heartless cruelty continues until this very last moment."

Asked if the Schindlers and Mr. Schiavo might reconcile now that the source of their dispute was gone, Mr. Felos did not offer much hope.

"The level of acrimony hurled at Mr. Schiavo by the Schindlers -- I mean, he's been called a murderer, a wife abuser," he said. "That is not conduct and behavior that lead to reconciliation."

But the Schindlers, some of whose supporters have leveled death threats against Mr. Schiavo, called for peace after his wife's death.

"Our family abhors any violence or any threats of violence," Ms. Vitadamo said. "We would ask that all of those who support our family be completely kind in their words and deeds toward others."

Ms. Schiavo's husband and parents, once close, have battled over her fate since 1998, when Mr. Schiavo asked a state court's permission to remove life support. Ms. Schiavo suffered extensive brain damage when her heart stopped beating one night in 1990, due to a potassium deficiency that may have been caused by bulimia.

She could breathe on her own and had periods of wakefulness, but Judge George W. Greer of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court accepted the testimony of doctors who said she was in a "persistent vegetative state" and incapable of thought or emotion.

More important, Judge Greer found credible Mr. Schiavo's testimony that his wife, who left no written directive, had said on several occasions that she would not want life-prolonging measures to be used for her. The Schindlers maintained that their daughter was responsive and capable of recovery, and tried to win guardianship of her.

The rift between the Schindlers and Mr. Schiavo, which started over a $1 million malpractice settlement he won on his wife's behalf in 1993, deepened after he had two children with Jodi Centonze, his live-in girlfriend since the mid-1990's. Supporters of the Schindlers called him an adulterer who should not retain guardianship of Ms. Schiavo.

Judge Greer's rulings in favor of Mr. Schiavo eventually drew the attention of conservative political leaders in Florida and in Washington. The case stirred to action Governor Bush and the State Legislature, which got Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted six days after its removal in 2003 with a law that was later ruled to be unconstitutional.

It also stirred Congress and President Bush, who enacted a measure days after Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube was removed for the final time on March 18 letting the Schindlers take their case against Mr. Schiavo to the federal courts for a new review.

Its backers hoped the newest law would lead a federal court to order Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted, at least giving her parents more time to press their case.

But a federal judge in Tampa rejected the Schindlers' argument that their daughter's due process rights had been violated, and the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld his decision.

In an opinion this week, Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr. of the appellate court admonished President Bush and Congress for acting "in a manner demonstrably at odds with our founding fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people."

Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo was born Dec. 3, 1963, and grew up in Huntingdon Valley, Pa. She was overweight through childhood but lost more than 50 pounds in her senior year of high school.

She met Michael Schiavo in her second semester at Bucks County Community College. They married in 1984 and soon moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., where he worked as a restaurant manager and she as an insurance company clerk.

The Schindlers followed, and Ms. Schiavo maintained her close relationship with her family. She also grew thinner, weighing no more than 120 pounds on Feb. 26, 1990, the day her ordinary life changed irrevocably.

According to Mr. Schiavo, he heard a thud around 4 a.m. and rose from bed to find his wife collapsed on the floor. By the time paramedics arrived and resuscitated her, oxygen depletion had caused the brain damage that would confine her to beds and chairs, and diapers, tubes and contracted limbs, for the rest of her life.

After she died, a stuffed tabby cat tucked in the crook of her arm, hospice workers bathed her body, then at least 30 gathered around as it lay on the medical examiner's gurney. They said prayers, according to Mr. Felos, and then they said goodbye.

Theresa M Schiavo