Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman at the heart of a wrenching dispute over her fate that drew in the U.S. Congress and President Bush, died on Thursday.

“Terri Schiavo has passed away just a little while ago,” said Brother Paul O’Donnell, a Franciscan monk and spiritual adviser to the parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who fought a seven-year legal battle to keep their daughter alive.

Schiavo, 41, died 13 days after her feeding tube was halted under order from a state court, and just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed yet another appeal by her parents for the feeding to be restored.

Schiavo had been in what courts ruled was a “persistent vegetative state” since her heart briefly stopped in 1990, depriving her brain of oxygen.

Courts had long sided with her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, in ruling she would not have wanted to live in that condition and should be allowed to die.

“This is a very difficult day,” said David Gibbs, attorney for the parents, his voice breaking with emotion as he spoke to reporters outside the hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, where Schiavo was cared for.

A small group of protesters, who had kept vigil outside the hospice, calling for Schiavo to be kept alive, sang hymns in the morning sunshine.

The parents were backed in their long legal fight by conservative religious activists, anti-abortion campaigners and advocates for the disabled, and by mainly Republican politicians who saw their cause as a rallying point for advocates of “the culture of life.”

The Schindlers were able to take their case to federal court after the U.S. Congress passed a special law giving federal jurisdiction in what traditionally has been the domain of state courts and Bush cut short a vacation to sign it.

But the effort, which opinion polls showed was unpopular with most Americans, failed when federal judges refused the parents’ requests to order feeding resumed.

The last rebuff, from the U.S. Supreme Court, came late on Wednesday night. The highest U.S. court had repeatedly refused to take on the case.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, also became heavily involved on the side of the parents, but last week state courts denied his efforts to have the state welfare agency take custody of Schiavo.

And the governor also failed to persuade the Florida Legislature to push through a state law to intervene.

Moments after the news of her death, members of the Florida Senate held a moment of silence for Schiavo.

“Regardless of your perspective on end-of-life issues this is very sad moment and a very reflective moment for a lot of us,” said Senate President Tom Lee.