[Hermann the Cherusker]

Therefore, she was a living, breathing, person who needed only food water and basic medical care to survive.

Prior to the invention of artificial feeding tubes, she would have naturally expired many years before. She could not eat or drink anything. She was simply a body hooked up to machines, like in bad science fiction stories.

None of your examples address one of the most common use of respirators, which is in people with things like congestive heart failure. The person can continue to live for some time with respirators and draining of the lungs. But we feel it morally permissible to turn off their respirator and let them drown in their own fluids, which is anything but a pleasant way to die.

Also consider this. A person who has no brain function will die without the ability to breath within minutes, not hours. For those who have basic but impaired brain function, lack of oxygen will kill within hours. She spent two weeks dying from dehydration. I see a huge difference in that, don't you?

No more a difference than that of slowly draining someone of their blood and cutting open their throat and letting it quickly gush forth. One's slow, one's fast, both end up with a dead person by deliberate intent.

[Brytani]

Have you ever known a person who relies on a feeding tube to survive? I have, two people that I'm very close too.

One is the son of one of my best friends. Brian was born with a severe case of cerebral palsy. He does not have the ability to swallow and relies on a feeding tube for sustenance.

A large syringe apparatus is filled 6 times a day with liquid supplements and is pushed into a tube inserted into his stomach. His body than metabolizes the food.

Brian does not have the ability to talk, walk, or control his arms or legs. He does however cry in pain and make noises. He is profoundly brain damaged from birth but yet is a very loved child who is a joy to his parents.

In your opinion, he's nothing but a bad science fiction story that should be removed from this "artificial" means of food and left to die.

The second is another friend of mine who was diagnosed with stomach cancer years ago.

Between surgery to remove the tumor and cancer treatments she was left with virtually no viable stomach. She has a feeding tube inserted into her small intestine and throughout the day she receives nutrition through this tube. She is a walking, talking, breathing, working, human being who volunteers at my church to help seat handicapped members with seating or other needs they may have. Is she a bad science fiction experiment?

My very own mother-in-law has CHF along with end stage renal disease and lived with us for 7 months after hurricane Rita did a good amount of damage in her hometown of Texas. She relies on oxygen along with dialysis to live. Not once were we ever given the option to remove her oxygen or dialysis and let her "drown in her own fluids" and we live in Florida. The state that allowed Terri Schiavo to be put to death. It was not even suggested. Yet, without those treatments she would be dead within days, if not hours. Your example is far from reality.

In cases where heart/lung bypass machines or ventilators are turned off, the patient is brain dead. Without the ability then or in the future to sustain breathing or even the basic bodily functions of life. That was not the case with Terri Schiavo and her autopsy report proves that.

As for slowly draining a person of blood or cutting their throats to invoke death, that is murder in either case, quick or not. No medical treatment involved draining the blood of a human to bring upon death. Now that really is science fiction.

[Ohioan from Florida]

Prior to the invention of artificial feeding tubes, she would have naturally expired many years before.

Artificial feeding tubes have been being used in various forms since the late 1800's. Not entirely a new apparatus. And they don't need to use a pump per se to deliver the nourishment. It can be accomplished with a gravity bag.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The Baylor Hospital's medical journal had a long article on brain-damage last fall. There are seveal types of damage with varying prognoses and symptoms. It's worthwhile to read some medical literature on such damage. Unfortunately, too many people (Bill Frist who should know better) are making diagnoses based on TV clips or on what they wish the case to be.