Of course Terri's folks were never allowed to find out if she could eat or drink. And this doesn't even apply to several previous cases where the people could eat and drink, but it was time consuming so feeding tubes were put in to keep staff costs at a minimum.
Christine Busalacchi ate and drank on her own well but her father had her dehydrated to death because of her incontinence.
There have been many other cases where people who ate and drank pretty well were dehydrated to death by family members for other reasons. So the feeding tube is not what this is all really about.
It is about killing the (expensive) disabled off in institutions.
This statement concerned me, as I'd never heard of Christine Busalacchi, so I did a Google search. From what I could find, she was severely brain damaged in a car accident in 1987, and was unable to eat and drink on her own. She was diagnosed as PVS and was declared incompetent to make her own decisions, but she was probably incontinent as well. Nowhere did I see that incontinence was the reason for her father seeking to have her feeding tube removed, and nowhere did I see that she was able to eat and drink on her own. If incontinence were the only reason, I'm sure someone would have been happy to pay for her Depends. Do you have a source for that? Thanks.
You make some good points, and as you pointed out, there are other issues. It's a bad sign when no one cares enough to feed a disabled person who can eat but society is willing to use a feeding tube. I don't know of a good solution, but solving the problem by sticking a tube down someone's throat in order to warehouse them as "alive" is a bad sign. However, the fact remains that many people are in situations where there is no good answer, and I'm not going to agree to usurping that decision from the patient's loved ones.