Excuse me???? Where is Terri's notarized, witnessed and signed advance directive? Without that, and without asking Terri directly, there is no "right to refuse treatment" in question here! Even if we could take Michael at his word--that Terri, one time, said she wouldn't want to live "like that"--there is so much wrong with giving weight to that kind of "evidence" that I don't even know where to begin. What does "like that" mean? How can anyone possibly verify that such a conversation even took place? Ever follow the controversy about "repressed memory syndrome"--apparently, people can have quite detailed memories of events that never happened. To condemn an innocent woman to death based on this kind of "evidence" is absolutely barbaric. IMO, an honest judge would have thrown this case out from the get-go.
Trinity_Tx is right though. This is a "patient controls their own body" case. The court found (wrongly, IMO), that Terri would starve herself to death if she was given a choice.
Those who recoil at what is going on with Terri are bothered on several, separable points. On the legal point of using evidence other than an advance written directive, the law permits taking evidence from people who know the patient. The problem with the combination of an advance directive and the course of action/inaction taken here (killing by starvation), is that many people who compose advance directives don't foresee the possibility that their own words will be misconstrued as authorization to be starved to death. To be accurate, some do desire to be starved to death, but it's not what people normally expect will happen. The normal thought is "I'm dying from trauma, accident, cancer or disease, and am going to die in a few hours or days anyway, so in that case, just take me off the machine and let my body go." But people don't assume or think, normally, until this case opened their eyes, that doctors would use the denial of food and water to cause death of a person that isn't hooked up to anything else.
Anyway, there are both legal issues (what consititutes sufficient evidence, and how to correct a rogue trial court); and ethical issues (is it ethical to starve an otherwise healthy body to death). Again, it is legal for a person to starve themself to death. You can do that starting today if you want. It is legal. But nobody else is permitted to do that for you.