WASHINGTON, March 23 (Xinhuanet) -- US President George W. Bush said on Wednesday that he had considered all options before the Congress passed an unprecedented legislation and he signed it intolaw over the weekend in a case involving a brain-damaged woman.

    "This is an extraordinary and sad case," Bush said at a news conference in Waco, Texas, where he was hosting Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and Mexican President Vicente Fox for talks on trade and border security.

    The fate of the woman, Terri Shiavo, 41, now rested with the courts, he suggested.

    "I have looked at all options prior to taking the action we took last weekend in concert with Congress ... And now we'll watch the courts make its decisions. But we looked at all options from the executive branch perspective," he said.

    Bush rushed back to the White House from his Texas ranch earlier this week to sign the unprecedented emergency legislation that shifted the jurisdiction of Schiavo's case from state courts to federal courts.

    "The decision was made to support congressional efforts to givethe parents of Terri Schiavo another opportunity to save their daughter's life," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday. "There really are not other legal options available to us," he added.

    Schiavo's parents, whose request to reconnect the feeding tube for their daughter was denied by federal judges Tuesday and Wednesday, has asked the full US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, to consider their request, and vowed to appeal to the US Supreme Court.

    Shiavo's feeding tube was disconnected last Friday on the orders of a state judge, which led to the weekend effort by Congressional Republicans to push through the unprecedented emergency legislation.

    Schiavo was incapacitated in 1990 when her heart stopped briefly cutting oxygen to her brain. Her husband has said she did not want to be kept alive artificially and has no hope for recovery, but her parents have contended that Schiavo's condition could improve with treatment.

    In Pinellas Park, Florida, several people, including three children, were handcuffed by police on Wednesday for trying to take water into the hospice where Shiavo was staying. Enditem