WASHINGTON – The brain-damaged Florida woman at the center of a family feud that flared into a national firestorm died yesterday morning, nearly two weeks after a judge ordered her feeding tube disconnected.

The death of Theresa Schiavo, 41, who became known to the nation as “Terri”, brought to an end a case that involved years of litigation over her fate, ensnared Congress and the White House, and was sent six times to Supreme Court.

Her death did not end the recriminations between her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, who wanted her kept alive, and her husband, Michael Schiavo, who claimed she would have wanted to have been allowed to die. It also inflamed a growing political fury over the future of federal judicial appointments and the role of the judiciary.

President Bush said he was saddened by Mrs. Schiavo’s death, and he praised her “families” for displaying an “example of grace and dignity” at a difficult time.

He urged supporters of Mrs. Schiavo “to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. … In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life.

The House majority leader, Rep. Tom DeLay, blamed Mrs. Schiavo’s death yesterday on judges who refused to order her kept alive, and said he would consider bringing impeachment proceedings against judges involved in the case.

His comments drew scorn from Senator Kennedy, a Democrat of Massachusetts who accused Republicans of assaulting the independence of the judiciary. He suggested Mr. DeLay’s comments could lead to violence against judges.

Supporters of Mrs. Schiavo’s parents said she had been “killed” and accused her husband of “heartless cruelty” for not allowing the Schindlers into her room at the moment of her death.

“This is a killing, and for that we not only grieve that Terri has passed, but we grieve that our nation has allowed such an atrocity as this, and we pray that it will never happen again,” said an advisor to the Schindlers, the Reverend Frank Pavone, a Roman Catholic priest.

James Dobson, the chairman of a conservative group, Focus on the Family, declared she had been “executed.”

And in Rome, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, head of the Vatican’s office for sainthood, called the removal of the feeding tube “an attack against God,” the Associated Press reported.

In contrast, Mr. Schiavo’s lawyer, George Felos, said she died a “calm, peaceful, and gentle death,” cradled by her husband, and surrounded by bouquets of flowers and the hospice workers who had cared for her over five years.

Her family was not invited into the room at the moment because her brother, Bobby Schiavo, had just been involved in an altercation with a police officer, Mr. Felos said.

Her family later spent time with her body before her remains were taken under police escort to the Pinellas County medical examiner’s office. A planned autopsy was expected to provide more information about her brain damage, but some test results might not be ready for several weeks, Mr. Felos said.

After seven years of litigation, the Schiavo case captured the nation’s attention earlier this month when Republican leaders in Congress called members back from a recess to pass extraordinary legislation requiring federal courts to hear her case.

After some resistance from House Democrats but no objection in the Senate, the legislation passed after midnight, and the president signed the bill in the early hours of the morning.

The legislation did not ultimately help the Schindlers’ cause. Federal courts denied a flurry of appeals. One judge, a Republican appointee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, wrote that the congressional intervention had violated the Constitution.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., accused the federal courts of not giving the case the “new, full, and fresh review” that the law “requires.”

Mr. DeLay signaled yesterday that the battle was not over.

“This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change,” he said in a statement. “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.”

Speaking with reporters later in Houston, Mr. DeLay said lawmakers “will look at an arrogant and out-of-control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the president,” the AP reported. Asked if that included the possibility of the House bringing impeachment charges against judges involved in the Schiavo case, Mr. DeLay said, “There’s plenty of time to look into that.”

“I never thought I’d see the day when a U.S. judge stopped feeding a living American so that they took 14 days to die,” he added.

Mr. Kennedy accused Republicans of “seeking to take away the independence of the judiciary – the crown jewel in our system of government – so that they can advance their own ideological agenda of the day.”

He called Mr. DeLay’s comments reprehensible and irresponsible at a time when judges had been murdered on the job. White House press secretary Scott McClellan declined to criticize the judges. “We would have preferred a different decision from the courts … but ultimately we have to follow our laws and abide by the courts,” he said.

Nonetheless, numerous Schiavo supporters focused their criticism on the judges yesterday.

Pamela Hennessy, a spokeswoman for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, which supported the Schindlers’ fight, has called for “the immediate impeachment” of Pinellas County Judge George Greer, who presided over the trial in state court. Judge Greer came to the conclusion that Mrs. Schiavo, who was brain-damaged at the age of 26, was in a persistent vegetative state, and he accepted her husband’s claim that she would not have wanted to be kept alive in that condition.

The president of the Christian Coalition, Roberta Combs, urged Congress to “address a judicial system which is no longer concerned for innocent life, so that another Terri Schiavo will not have to die.”

A citizens’ petition demanding the impeachment of Judge Greer is only the beginning, said the president of the National Legal Foundation, Steven Fitschen, the leader in a movement pushing for the impeachment of judges whose decisions it considers unconstitutional. The movement began with dissatisfaction over decisions affecting gay rights and the death penalty.

“It’s just a snowball,” said Mr. Fitschen. “More and more Americans are finding that the judiciary is running roughshod over the issues they care for. The temperature is being turned up,” he said.

The press attention focused around the Schiavo case will give the potential impeachment of Judge Greer momentum, he said. But working against the judge’s impeachment, Mr. Fitschen added, is the fact that numerous higher court judges upheld Judge Greer’s opinion.

Republicans who continue to push against the judiciary may face a political backlash, said a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Norm Ornstein.

“This is a man who is out of control,” Mr. Ornstein said of Mr. DeLay. “If I were the Democrats, I would be praying he will start to bring impeachment proceedings against judges.”

Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush appointed many of the judges who ruled against the Schindlers, he noted.

“It will reach a point where lots of conservatives are going to say they are worse than the other side,” he said.

Nonetheless, pressure from conservative groups will likely force the Senate Republican leader, Senator Frist of Tennessee, to employ the so-called “nuclear option” to end the ability of Democrats to filibuster judicial appointments, Mr. Ornstein said.

“There is no way he can back off from the nuclear option now. If he doesn’t find the votes for it, people are going to blame him,” he said.

Numerous polls suggested that public opinion was overwhelmingly against the congressional intervention in the Schiavo case.

“The Republicans goofed big time on this one,” said a professor of political science at the University of Virginia, Larry Sabato. “They clearly did not anticipate the strong backlash from the public against their intervention, and what the public saw rightly or wrongly was a private family dispute.”

Still, there is no clear benefit to Democrats, Mr. Sabato said.

The Democrats “neutralized what might have been a victory,” he said, because nearly half the Democrats who voted in the House voted in favor of the legislation, and no Democratic objected in the Senate.