WASHINGTON -- As doctors yesterday removed the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo, Republican congressional leaders vowed to continue their unprecedented legal efforts to force doctors to keep the brain-damaged Florida woman alive until lawmakers can review her case.

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The decision by Republican lawmakers to press their legal battle over Schiavo's life support capped a day filled with extraordinary legal and political maneuvering involving top federal and Florida officials and pitting members of Congress against a state court judge.

Feelings ran high. Congressional GOP leaders contended that the feeding tube's removal was "barbarism," while an attorney for Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, accused U.S. House members of "thuggery" and acting like the "Soviet Politburo" under Joseph Stalin for issuing subpoenas requiring the incapacitated and unresponsive Terri Schiavo to be brought before a congressional hearing next week.

A top House Democrat denounced Republican lawmakers for turning the Schiavo case into a "national political farce," Meanwhile, religious conservatives said they would hold congressional leaders accountable if they failed to save the woman.

The wrangling continued into last evening. Hours after a Florida circuit judge rejected a plea by congressional Republicans and ordered the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said they remained undaunted in their quest to keep her alive.

"The House and Senate leadership are committed to reaching agreement on legislation that provides an opportunity to save Mrs. Schiavo's life," Hastert and Frist said in a joint statement. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Tex., added: "She doesn't need to die, and as long as Terri Schiavo can breathe and her supporters can pray, we will not rest."

The feeding tube was removed from Schiavo about 1:45 p.m., according to George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney. The woman, who lives in a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., could survive a week or two, medical experts say -- unless the tube is reinserted, as has happened twice before.

A hospice priest administered the sacrament of Communion to Schiavo before the tube was removed in a "very calm, peaceful procedure," Felos said. Michael Schiavo arrived to be with his wife after the tube was removed, the lawyer added.

Terri Schiavo, 41, has been in a "persistent vegetative state" since suffering severe brain damage 15 years ago. Court-appointed doctors say her brain is so severely damaged that there is no hope that she could recover her cognitive abilities.

Michael Schiavo, who is his wife's legal guardian, has spent the last eight years in a bitter court battle with her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, over whether to remove the feeding tube and let her die. He has contended that, before his wife's collapse in 1990, she had indicated her opposition to being kept alive artificially.

But the Schindlers, who are devout Roman Catholics, vigorously disagree. The parents have tried to convince courts to let them take over guardianship of their daughter, so they could keep the feeding tube in place. The case has been heard by at least 19 judges in six different courts, attracted international attention and become a focal point for conservative religious groups.

With Schiavo's parents running out of legal options, the Florida legislature this week took up the issue for the second time in two years. State lawmakers eventually rejected legislation that would have blocked the court order to remove Schiavo's feeding tube. That prompted Republican congressional leaders in Washington to jump into the case, fueled by a flood of messages from Christian activists to save the woman's life.

Late Wednesday night, the U.S. House passed legislation that would require a federal court to review Schiavo's case after it had been appealed as far as possible in state courts. The U.S. Senate took up the issue Thursday, but it passed a far narrower measure that would allow but not require a federal court review of the case.

House GOP leaders rejected the Senate version but were working with Senate colleagues to find enough senators to approve the House version. Although most lawmakers have left for a two-week Easter recess, the House and Senate will return to session Monday to deal with the Schiavo issue, leaders said.

President Bush has indicated that he will sign legislation dealing with the Schiavo case if Congress does approve it. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president had discussed the case with his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, during his trip to the state yesterday to promote his Social Security plans.

"We're continuing to monitor developments," McClellan said. "The president believes when there are serious questions or doubts in a case like this, that the presumption ought to be in favor of life."

When there was no final congressional consensus on the Schiavo issue late Thursday, congressional Republicans tried another tack, issuing subpoenas for Schiavo and her husband to appear before committee hearings in a bid to persuade a state judge to delay his order for the feeding tube's removal.

House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Republicans said they would hold a hearing March 25 at Schiavo's hospice. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Republicans have requested, meanwhile, that Terri Schiavo appear for a March 28 hearing in Washington. Her caregivers said she could be brought there in a wheelchair.

Rep Henry Waxman of California, the senior Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, labeled the subpoenas a "flagrant abuse of power," saying Republicans were trying to prescribe Schiavo's medical care. "Congress is turning the Schiavo family's personal tragedy into a national political farce," he said.

Congressional Republicans had hoped that the subpoenas would carry enough legal weight to induce the Florida state judge handling Schiavo's case to postpone his order to remove the feeding tube. But in a conference call with attorneys, Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer rejected the request of congressional attorneys to postpone the tube's removal while the case is appealed.

"The fact that you -- your committee -- decided to do something today doesn't create an emergency," Greer told a lawyer for the House committee. He added that Congress' last-minute action failed to invalidate years of court rulings in the case.

Political experts called the congressional actions unprecedented.

"I've not seen anything like this, ever," said Norman Ornstein, an American Enterprise Institute political science scholar. "The idea of a congressional committee issuing a subpoena -- not to get a witness, but to block an action in a state court -- is almost bizarre."

Ornstein said the congressional actions are unusual as well because conservative lawmakers, normally staunch supporters of state's rights, were seeking to force the federal government into a state issue. "Using the weapons of Congress in an individual case like this -- it's not what you'd expect from conservatives," he said.