[strela]

So since we don't know what Terri would have wanted to do with her "right" to die, what is the way to proceed? Err on the side of life, or err on the side of death?

If you consider being imprisoned in a hospital bed, taking your nourishment through a tube, and being helpless to even move a finger as "life", then fill out your Living Will accordingly. In my own case, I don't consider such a horrible existence to be "life" in any way shape or form.

[huck von finn]

In my own case, I don't consider such a horrible existence to be "life" in any way shape or form.

True. Since she has no cerebral cortex, apparently Schiavo is alive, yes, but not aware.

[MarMema]

If you consider being imprisoned...

You have already made clear how you feel about it, and it doesn't matter here what you or I would choose.

Let's stay on topic. What should be done with people like Terri who did not choose and are now too brain damaged to do so for themselves?

[shhrubbery!]

If you consider being imprisoned in a hospital bed, taking your nourishment through a tube, and being helpless to even move a finger as "life", then fill out your Living Will accordingly

But what if, with therapy, you could begin to eat again, could move your fingers again, could communicate and interact with the world again?

What if doing so would enable you to hold your first grandchild?
Or to see your daughter graduate from college?
Or to see your son come home from war?

Terri needs therapy, not death.

[MHGinTN]

You wrote, "If you consider being imprisoned in a hospital bed, taking your nourishment through a tube, and being helpless to even move a finger as "life" ..." Strela, you appear to be missing the point. Terri is imprisoned because her guardian 'husband' will not allow her to have any of the rehabilitation therapy that was paid in advance to the tune of $750,000 into a trust fund! He will not allow her to be taken outside, to be taken to a McDonalds, to be given therapy for her legs and arms and back muscles. HE has created the imprisonment. Now, with the direct aid of an incompetent judge who has business ties to the atty representing Michael Schiavo in this effort to have Terri executed via dehydration, Terri is to be 'put down' because she cannot function in the way she very well might have if the husband and judge had allowed ... no, strike that ... if the husband and the judge had not forbidden the therapy she so needed and for which Michael Schiavo won a palpractice lawsuit to pay for!

So you see, 'imprisoned in a hospital bed, taking nourishment through a tube, and being helpless' is the purposed state her husband has achieved through the abuse of neglect and willful withholding of therapy that was paid for!