Remember, the people your family member was talking about are ill. Terri was not sick! She was just brain damaged.
Whether they're sick or not, it was a heck of a surprise that they're apparently 'end of lifed' in this way.
BTW, I'm a huge Terri supporter and keep pointing out to people that the only reason she was on a feeding tube in the first place was that her husband got a court order that she be fed this way (presumably so that he could get her to the point she's at now), vs. the other ways (spoon fed, for example) that she COULD have been fed - at least according to some very highly credentialed physicians.