[MarMema]

No it is completely relevant and has everything to do with this case and the many others preceding it.

Because unlike your naive presumption, this killing of Terri has nothing to do with mercy or releasing her, and everything to do with paving the way for further abuse of conscious, alive people with brain damage.

Dehumanization is the trend. Where the trend is leading seems to be toward organ "donation".

And if you spent the time I do reading the medical journals, especially the letters, you would see this as clearly as I do.

[huck von finn]

Because unlike your naive presumption, this killing of Terri has nothing to do with mercy or releasing her, and everything to do with paving the way for further abuse of conscious, alive people with brain damage.

I'd call this a little more than damage. I told you, it's GONE. Absent. Not there. The majority of the cortex.

And if you spent the time I do reading the medical journals, especially the letters, you would see this as clearly as I do.

Well you didn't read the NEJM very well, or else you would have realized that Quinlan's autopsy showed that her problem came from the thalamus instead of the cortex.

[strela]

Because unlike your naive presumption, this killing of Terri has nothing to do with mercy or releasing her

I disagree. Your way would continue to doom her to being chained to a hospital bed, receiving nourishment through a tube. "But she would still be ALIVE"! Well, to some of us, "life" is defined as how we interact with our environment, our experiences, the people we interact with, and our simple pleasures (and even pain), and "life" in a hospital bed like some sort of zombie with no hope of recovery is not "life" at all.

Dehumanization is the trend.

How "human" is it to sentence somebody to some sort of twilight zombie existence, forever dependent on some $12 an hour nurse carrying your next meal in a bag and thinking about that hot date she's going to have after she finishes feeding the "Q" in Room 293?

Where the trend is leading seems to be toward organ "donation".

There is no such "trend" on this side of the keyboard, thanks. And it is insulting that you would think that I would support harvesting people's organs UNLESS THEY AGREED TO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

And if you spent the time I do reading the medical journals, especially the letters, you would see this as clearly as I do.

I don't care if you're Michael DeBakey or Hippocrates himself, you still have no right to play God with other people's lives.