Two different issues. For myself, I am the one to decide. That's why we all need living wills to try to diminish the opportunity for well-intentioned, but misled people to get involved and try to frustrate our wishes. As to Terri (or any person other than ourselves), we have a two-step analysis. We have to have a societal mechanism (we call it 'law') to determine what they wanted for themselves. That is precisely what was done in Terri's case. Those are the legal processes. We can keep tweaking the process, but the determination always has to be their wishes.
Then. we have to move to the misguided "moral" arguments about implementing her wishes, our own desires again become relevant because Christ told us, "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets." So, in any moral analysis, our own desires for how we would be treated is critical.
She may well have determined that, while it was not the best way to live, that she still wanted to live anyway.
Sure, all things known to human experience are possible, but there is absolutely no evidence that she changed her mind before the cardiac arrest. Moreover, this was not a woman who simply lost the power of speech and kept other cognitive abilities by which she might have changed her mind after the cardiac arrest. Her brain was destroyed, so she could no longer think and she was incapable of changing her mind (once the cardiac arrest occurred). Very sad situation. But to protect the sanctity of her earlier wishes, we have to have system that makes a good determination of her last known wishes.
Well, there is hearsay/declarative evidence that she "changed her mind" (wanted to live) after. Had Michael allowed Terri to be examined by truly impartial doctors and made unedited videotapes available to all for impartial observation, perhaps she could have been asked what she wanted. I know you claim she was braindead yadda yadda yadda, but that claim is hardly beyond dispute. The CT scans show significant but not total cortical damage, and clinical observations were inconsistent with the legal definition of PVS.
Of course, in today's legal climate it's possible for a patient to clearly and unambiguously state a desire to receive food and water and have it denied on the basis that they're supposedly not competant to overturn their earlier "living will".
"Sure, all things known to human experience are possible, but there is absolutely no evidence that she changed her mind before the cardiac arrest. Moreover, this was not a woman who simply lost the power of speech and kept other cognitive abilities by which she might have changed her mind after the cardiac arrest. Her brain was destroyed, so she could no longer think and she was incapable of changing her mind (once the cardiac arrest occurred). Very sad situation. But to protect the sanctity of her earlier wishes, we have to have system that makes a good determination of her last known wishes."
One question. What if the court made the wrong determination and she always wanted to live?