Clearing the way for Texas' first execution of a woman in 135 years, the state's Board of Pardons and Paroles turned down a clemency request today from Karla Faye Tucker, a pickax murderer and born-again Christian whose plea for life has drawn worldwide attention and rekindled the nation's debate over the death penalty.

The board, most of whose members were picked by Gov. George W. Bush, voted 16 to 0 with 2 abstentions to deny Ms. Tucker's request. She is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at 6 P.M. Tuesday at the state prison in Huntsville. Prison officials announced today that she had selected a last meal of peach slices, a banana and a tossed salad with either ranch or Italian dressing.

The 38-year-old, 5-foot-3, 120-pound Ms. Tucker would be only the second woman executed in this country since the Supreme Court cleared the way for reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. (A total of 434 men have been executed in the nation in that period. Texas has executed 144 men since 1982.) With the board's vote, Governor Bush has no independent authority to grant clemency, although he could decide to issue a one-time, 30-day reprieve. He has not delayed or commuted a death sentence since taking office in 1995.

Thus Ms. Tucker's slim hopes to stay alive mainly rested tonight with the United States Supreme Court, where her lawyers have filed an appeal challenging the constitutionality of Texas's clemency process.

Ms. Tucker's sex is clearly a major reason for the extraordinary publicity swirling around her case, although many who have appealed for mercy have cited her Christian prison works, intended to use her troubled life story to persuade young people to turn from crime.

Her cause has generated clemency-seeking letters to Mr. Bush from Pope John Paul II and the European Parliament, and has been taken up by the television evangelist Pat Robertson, who said he supported the death penalty but believed Ms. Tucker deserved mercy. One Christian columnist, F. M. Richbourg 3d of Dallas, described Ms. Tucker as ''this miraculously sweet-spirited little soldier in the war against criminal wickedness.''

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