And there's more. When an old high school friend was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and was frightened she would die a horribly painful death, I drove to her town and helped her get a living will (and 6 notarized copies) , and made an appointment so she and I could visit her local hospice. There she was assured that the end of her life didn't have to be painful.
And there's more -- I slept on the floor of my father's hospital room, at his request, to make sure he wasn't hooked up to machines. He wanted to die a natural death. He didn't want his misery extended. He had his last meal about 6 hours before he died. We didn't kill him. We were allowed to protect him. He died with dignity.
What they're doing with Terri is killing her. And that's something we as a society have to decide on. I'm not ready to let a judge decide that innocent people can be put to death. It's the slipperiest of slippery slopes. And cultures who have made the wrong choice, the choice that some innocent lives are not as worthy as others, are cultures that generally become nightmares. We have the time to debate. The "judges" are not our betters. In our type of culture they work for us.
Do you really believe we can kill undesirables? Without consequesnces?
She has been dead for years no matter how long some want to prolong this pitiful, horrifying existence and call it a "life." It isn't. A minimal physiological process is not Life.
That's exactly it, that's the bottom line.
Whether Michael Schiavo abused her or strangled her or in any other way is responsible for her being brain-damaged to begin with, is really secondary at this point. It doesn't matter what the autospy does or does not show. The salient point RIGHT NOW is: An otherwise physically healthy woman is being starved and dehydrated until she is dead. That's it! Starved and dehydrated until she is dead. For essentially no other reason than.... We can.
I can't believe the nonchalence this fact elicits among so many people.