[kenth]

I suppose that's a way to compromise, but I'm of the opinion that the clarification of most importance is regarding the advanced directive. Without one, and without a person being able to make their wishes clear, any action taken to end their lives is to possibly kill them against their wishes.

Close the loopholes that one can abuse in order to kill another. It needs to be a first-person thing only. If the people want a right to die, that's perfectly fine, but they don't get a right to kill.

[supercat]

I suppose that's a way to compromise, but I'm of the opinion that the clarification of most importance is regarding the advanced directive. Without one, and without a person being able to make their wishes clear, any action taken to end their lives is to possibly kill them against their wishes.

I think we are both in agreement that what's going on in Terri's case is clearly wrong. I would suggest, however, that rather than trying to make all removal of food and water difficult, I think it's important to differentiate the act of removing food and water from a patient who is going to die of something else before they starve or dehydrate, and the act of removing food and water from a patient who would not otherwise die soon from any other cause.

Close the loopholes that one can abuse in order to kill another. It needs to be a first-person thing only. If the people want a right to die, that's perfectly fine, but they don't get a right to kill.

I see at least three issues here:

• The law should distinguish between actions which allow a truly terminal patient to die somewhat sooner than they might otherwise, from those which cause the death of a person who would otherwise not be imminently dying; it should also distinguish between acts which would inherently be fatal and those which would not. Denying a healthy person water for 24 hours in a 25C room would not kill them nor even particularly harm them from what I understand. Denying a healthy person water for 24 days, however, would.
• Some better standards need to be drawn up regarding what constitutes "clear and compelling" evidence. Even requiring written living-will documents wouldn't do much good if a biased or corrupt judge could accept what normal people would regard as obvious forgeries.
• The law needs to be changed to explicitly declare that any person shall be deemed mentally competant to demand food and water, regardless of any other mental incapacity.

How do those sound?