PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) - With a furious legal and political battle raging outside her hospice room, doctors removed Terri Schiavo's feeding tube Friday after a judge rebuffed an unprecedented attempt by Congress to keep the brain-damaged woman alive.

Schiavo, 41, could linger one to two weeks without the tube, provided no one intercedes and gets it reinserted - as happened twice before.

The move came after Republicans on Capitol Hill used their subpoena power to demand that Schiavo be brought before a congressional hearing, saying removing the tube amounted to "barbarism." The attorney for Schiavo's husband shot back at a news conference, calling the subpoenas "nothing short of thuggery."

"It was odious, it was shocking, it was disgusting, and I think all Americans should be very alarmed about that," George Felos said.

The judge presiding over the case ruled in the husband's favor early Friday afternoon and rejected the request from House attorneys to delay the removal, which he had previously ordered to take place at 1 p.m. EST. Felos said Michael Schiavo was at his wife's side shortly after the tube was disconnected.

Late Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, denied an emergency request from the House committee that issued the subpoenas to reinsert Schiavo's feeding tube while the committee files appeals in the lower courts to have its subpoenas recognized.

Republican congressional leaders said in a statement that they planned to work through the weekend to try to save Terri Schiavo's life.