[Gondring]

What if the spouse prefers the parents instead of the spouse because the parents and spouse have differing views about end of life issues? What if the spouse is a person who believes it is best to pull the plug immediately, while the parents believe otherwise?

It doesn't seem like much of a spouse who would choose to disregard what you want. The personal opinions shouldn't matter...what should matter is the willingness to follow what the incapacitated person would want! I would follow a spouse's wishes even if they were against my own preferences.

...clearly, her parents and her spouse had very different views on what they each believed she would have wanted.

True, but even partly irrelevant, as the Schindlers admitted that they would have disregarded Mrs. Schiavo's wishes even if they were known in writing. At least her husband based his claim on respecting what he believed her wishes would have been.

[summer]

the Schindlers admitted that they would have disregarded Mrs. Schiavo's wishes even if they were known in writing.

I've never heard that before. Has anyone else heard that before now?

[summer]

It doesn't seem like much of a spouse who would choose to disregard what you want. The personal opinions shouldn't matter...what should matter is the willingness

But "willingness" is a factor that could change over time for someone once 10 years or whatever have passed. The spouse may decide to get on with a life not including the incapacitated spouse.

The parents, on the other hand, may be the ones more willing, over time, to honor the request of someone incapacitated, because their child remains their child. They are not having more children.

But the other spouse may decide to take a new spouse. (And, again, we saw that in this case.)