"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. 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:
- It failed to make meaningfully clear in what cases the governor had the authority to act, in a manner that made clear that his purpose was to protect the rights of would-be starvation/dehydration victims.
- It did not provide any way for any of the key facts in Terri's case to make it into appeals courts.
Both of these might be remedied by crafting the legislation to lay out more of the explicit facts of the case, and setting the stage for an evidentiary hearing. If the law explicitly stated that the governor shall have the authority to stay any action that would put a ward to death, including by starvation or dehydration, if he believes...
- The only evidence of her wish to die is hearsay testimony from a guardian-husband who has fathered children by another woman turing his tenure as guardian, and relatives and in-laws of that husband;
- No evidence of her wish to die was introduced prior to the receipt of a malpractice award which was pledged to provide therapy for the ward; and
- The only findings that the ward is in a persistent vegetative state and wishes to die have been made by a judge who has on two or more occasions allowed the person who had sought such findings to miss depositions without being held in contempt.
If the governor files such a stay, the guardian shall have the right to file a contest to determine whether the governor's belief is correct. Such a hearing shall not be held by any judge who has on two or more occasions allowed the guardian to skip depositions without being held in contempt, and any earlier findings of fact by such a judge shall not be binding the judge who hears the case.
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.