[Concerned]

LONE VOICE WROTE: "I am rather shocked that my parents want food and water withheld from them. It will be hard for me to do, God forbid I should ever have to, knowing my own beliefs. I personally could not do that, I would make my big brother or my 2 sisters do that."

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I AM RESPONDING:
My Aunt (who had a minor and major stroke a few weeks ago) just recently died after 21 DAYS without food or water (and virtually no ice chips).

I BEGGED and BEGGED my cousins not to let her die that way, but they insisted she had a "Living Will" which said she didn't want to be kept alive. I don't know if it specifically said no food or water, but they at least interpreted it that way. She had some EXCRUCIATING PAIN in her legs, extremely dark, concentrated urine (from no water dilution!) and (I believe) eventually had internal bleeding (from cracking, dehydrated organs).

It was VERY PAINFUL for her, VERY PAINFUL for her children to watch and VERY PAINFUL for me to hear about.

Death by starvation and dehydration is NOT PAINLESS!!!!!

[The Red Zone]

What state did this happen in? If she's in good enough shape to tell the world that her legs hurt, then she oughtn't to have been parchstarved to death even if she swore it on a million bibles in front of the superbowl crowd.

[Lone Voice in the hinterlands]

Concerned,
Condolences on the passing of your aunt.
I'm sure your cousins did what they thought was right when reading the Living Will your aunt left and their own remberences of conversations with her.

Comments like yours cause us all to pause and think about Terri. In absence of a living will, even if she did express her desire not to be kept alive artificailly, did she intend for that to be the withholding of food and water.

Your comments make us really think hard about the consequences of decisions.

I agree with others that his is not a "Right To Life" case, it is a "Right Not to Be Killed" case. Food and water to me are not extrodinary, in the absence of instructions of her wishes she should be given food and water. And be treated medically to give her the best possible life. Her parents have her best intrest at heart, not her husband (In Name Only).
Thanks for writing and telling us how awful an end starvation is. I think we all knew it, but your first person account (and the account of others) drives it home.

[pollywog]

my sympathy to you Concerned. This must have been very hard on you to watch your aunt die. It is sure changing alot about the way some of us view our living wills.

[cyn]

Death by starvation and dehydration is NOT PAINLESS!!!!!

THANKS for your posts -- showing that the answer to Terri's situation is NOT to simply draw up a living will. So many people do not realize the probs w/this. There is info at terrisfight.org about what folks can do, not just blindly doing a living will. Others have posted w/more info.