A co-worker has a wife that's a nurse. She says that most of the poor souls in hospices are put on feeding tubes because they tend to aspirate (suck food/liquid into the lungs) and need to be taken to a hospital when it happens. The families get upset and get the lawyers involved and....well, you know the rest of the story.
Most if not all "poor souls in hospices" are there because they have some terminal illness and there is little hope of them surviving very long. That is what a hospice is for: to care for people who are dying. The mere fact that Terri was in a hospice at all when she was not terminal is all you need to know about Michael Schiavo's intentions from the get-go.