>>Are you comfortable with the idea of now, if you suffered a stroke and were unable to speak, that your spouse could have the plug pulled merely based on hearsay?<<
If I was rendered incapable of communication for years, I'd certainly want my wife to be able to make arrangements to let me die based on her knowledge of me and, even more, based on her sympathy for me. If Ms. Schiavo has any awareness, what an utter nightmare! To be trapped in the prison of your own body for over a decade strikes me as a torture beyond my capacity to imagine. And if, as I suspect, Ms. Schiavo has no awareness, her remains should be allowed to die with dignity, not be turned into a public fetish. Our fear of death belittles us all.
Of course, for my own part, I'd want my wife to be allowed to authorize a lethal injection so that I could die humanely. But, after years of being confined to my body but robbed of my ability to communicate and control my actions, I would choose death for myself whether humanely through letal injection or cruelly through starvation. My wife knows that. It would agonize her to let me go and to be forced into making such a hard decision, and I would be horrified if, in such a situation, the United States Congress deigned to second guess her.
My marriage is sacred to me, and the United States Congress has no place in the middle of it. I think our ability to face death with courage and dignity is a real measure of our humanity.
Bravo.