"I'm wondering if political pressure could be brought to bear on Jeb Bush and the legislature to make another emergency law that prohibits causing intentional death by starvation and dehydration where the will of the patient to be "put down" in that painful fashion is not written in her own hand and notarized - asserting rather that a more humane method must be used as it is with condemned criminals and unwanted animals, i.e. lethal injection.
If Michael fought the change, it would be a huge news story and would slow down the process. If he did not fight it then Terri would be spared a great deal of suffering."
I've been thinking along those lines too, but maybe what we need is a law outlawing death by starvation and dehydation. Evidently, this is not allowed in many states, and considerd a very inhumane death. It was posted here that it only became a law in Florida in 1999.
Someone said Felos lobbied for the law to be passed.
This may boomerang on the right-to-kill folks yet.
Indeed, it ought to boomerang on the "right to kill" folks. Thank you for your reply!
No. Michael would very happily have Terri put down by lethal injection.
Making clearn that anyone who prevents bona fide efforts to provide oral feeding and hydration to a patient who was starving or becoming dehydrated would be guilty of capital murder might be better.
Otherwise, the legislature could correct the two biggest problems in Terri's law:
To overrule the stay, the judge must find that not only are the above conditions for issuance not met, but he must also find that the ward is still in a persistent vegetative state, that any evidence of her wishes is credible, and that the guardian who seeks to have her dehydrated is still legally qualified to be her guardian.
Perhaps I'm being too detailed, but on what basis could a law like that be struck down? It's not vague, I don't think Michael could disprove any of the factual requirements for the governor's action, and I don't think that a court would find that the rights of a patient whose case met those requirements would be infringed if her guardian wasn't allowed to kill her.