Tampa, Fla. ? Armed with a new law rushed through Congress, the attorney for Terri Schiavo’s parents pleaded with a judge Monday to order the brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube re-inserted. But the judge appeared cool to the argument.

U.S. District Judge James Whittemore did not immediately make a ruling after the two-hour hearing, and he gave no indication on when he might act on the request.

The hearing came three days after the feeding tube was removed. Doctors have said Schiavo, 41, could survive one to two weeks without the tube.

The courtroom showdown, the latest in what has become a legal cliffhanger captivating the nation, followed an extraordinary political fight over the weekend that consumed both chambers of Congress and prompted the president to rush back to the White House.

Congress passed a law that allowed Schiavo’s parents to argue their case before a federal court, bringing the intense legal battle to Whittemore’s Tampa courtroom.

“We are rushed, and we are somewhat desperate,” the parents’ attorney, David Gibbs III, told the judge. “Terri may die as I speak.” The attorney said that forcing Schiavo to die by starvation and dehydration would be “a mortal sin” under her Roman Catholic beliefs.

“It is a complete violation to her rights and to her religious liberty, to force her in a position of refusing nutrition,” Gibbs said.

But the judge told Gibbs that he was not completely sold on the argument. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that you have a substantial likelihood” of the parents’ lawsuit succeeding, said Whittemore, nominated by former President Clinton in 1999.

Brenda Whalen walks with her children James, in Brenda's arms, and Anthony Frey, in wheelchair, past protester Jamie Walter while Terri Schiavo's hearing takes place inside the U.S. Courthouse in Tampa, Fla. Judge James Whittemore didn't rule on whether Terri's feeding tube should be reinstalled during Monday's hearing.

George Felos, representing husband Michael Schiavo, told Whittemore that the case has been aired thoroughly in state courts and that forcing the 41-year-old severely brain-damaged woman to endure another reinsertion of the tube would violate her civil rights.

“Every possible issue has been raised and re-raised, litigated and re-litigated,” Felos said. “It’s the elongation of these proceedings that have violated Mrs. Schiavo’s due process rights.”

Felos praised Whittemore’s careful deliberation as political pressure mounts for the tube to be reinserted.

“Yes, life is sacred,” Felos said as he argued that restarting artificial feedings would be a violation of Schiavo’s rights. “So is liberty, particularly in this country.”