Why would they criticize? Because some think it is better to live as a non-functioning brain-dead vegetable than to die with some dignity.
Those same people believe that laying around in your own gurgle goo is similar to "living a productive life".
Oh give me a friggin' break. The boxer becomes a quadrapalegic, not a vegetable. Either you just live to insult people by lumping the brain dead with the disabled or you just don't know what the heck you're talking about.
The Swank chacter in "Baby" was hardly a "vegetable". You didn't see Christopher Reeve trying to kill himself for the sake of phony "dignity", which is a bunch of crap. What makes one a human being anyway? the use of all your limbs? Being a "perfect specimen"? Steven Hawking, who many consider the most brilliant physicist alive--is 99% disabled from ALS, and has to type a keyboard with the single finger he can control, to communicate his genius with the world. He cannot even speak. Should he just say "f**k it all" and have someone blow his brains out??? Disgusting attitude.