Replies

Her husband is a real piece of work. All he cares about is himself. What he is trying to do amounts to murder. If he gets his way and removes the tube Terry will not die within a few minutes or hours. It will be several days and because of starvation. Obviously her brain is enough alive to help her breath and keep her heart beating. Maybe she can't express herself but what kind of pain might she feel if she is starved to death. I can't believe a judge can honestly go along with this. He ought to be removed from the chair because this kind of ruling you would have expected from the courts in Nazi Germany.

The husband should be removed from the picture because:

1) He is not acting like a husband. He's romantically involved with another woman and IMHO Terry is an inconvenience to him so he is trying to kill her to remove her from the picture. He could divorce her and let her parents take over her guardianship but that would cost money.

2) Terry's parents said they are more than willing to take over responsibility for Terry's care. Their feelings should be as important as the supposed spouse of Terry because they are the closest relative of Terry.

3) There is no living will which expresses Terry's desires in a situation such as this. All we have is the husband's word on this even though he is not acting like the loving husband he is trying to pretend he is.

4) Terry has rights just like anyone else. She deserves as much protection under the law as you or I deserve.

5) Terry's religious beliefs should have some sway here because the Catholic Church is pretty specific about removing feeding tubes in a situation like this.

I hope that Terry's parents win this one. I believe we're on the verge of a decision that could be as devisive as the Roe vs. Wade decision. You can't even equate this with Dr. Kevorkian's euthanasia practice because in Dr. Kevorkian's case the victims made the choice themselves. It wasn't made by someone who has serious conflict of interests involved. I hope at some point the Justice Department of either Florida or the US wakes up and sees that this is not a case of someone who is not loved and totally incapable of sustaining life but someone that has a family that loves her for who she is and would rather have her alive instead of dead and buried thus relieving them of any responsibility to her.