[exDemMom]

And yet thousands of families a day in hospital across this country make decisions exactly like this without benefit of living wills.

I think that these common decisions are the ones based on trying to prolong life another day, another week, in a terminal situation where the outcome cannot be changed even with extraordinary measures. The decision to terminate a healthy, but cognitively disabled person is not the type of decision happening every day--if it were, there wouldn't be court involvement every time a "loving" family member decides they're tired of waiting for the person to die.

[Peach]

I'm afraid there are lots of families who have relatives who are brain dead. Decisions are made to terminate life in those cases as well. Every day.