Read it here: http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder02-00.pdf
very few such people who made such statements in such circumstances did so with the intention that such statements in and of themselves could have been used...
Then I guess such people would be intelligent enough to have a living will written out so there would be no chance of anyone misinterpreting what they said, don't you agree?
... to cause them to be fatally dehydrated over a period of almost two weeks.
Does unplugging a heart-lung machine seem quicker to you? Would that make it easier for you?
-Traveler
That'a just the point. She wasn't being kept alive by extraordinary means like a heart machine. She was taken off "food."
Then I guess such people would be intelligent enough to have a living will written out so there would be no chance of anyone misinterpreting what they said, don't you agree?
Anyone who in the 1980's advocated that people fill out living wills to prevent their casual remarks from being misinterpreted would have been dismissed as a paranoid lunatic. How can you blame Terri for failing to do something absolutely nobody would have deemed necessary?
... to cause them to be fatally dehydrated over a period of almost two weeks.
Does unplugging a heart-lung machine seem quicker to you? Would that make it easier for you?
When docs unplug a ventilator, do they stuff a pillow over the patient's face to ensure the patient doesn't start breathing naturally? Even when docs are 99% sure the patient isn't going to start breathing naturally, they still allow the patient to do so. In some cases, much to their surprise, the patient in fact does.
That Terri failed her swallowing tests meant that the probability of successful oral feeding/hydration was not sufficient to justify the risks she might face therefrom, when other methods of feeding/hydration were available. Even if nobody expected that attempted oral feeding/hydration would succeed, refusing to allow it is akin to stuffing a pillow over a ventilator patient's face because he's not expected to start breathing on his own.
Indeed, I've been trying to figure out any scenario in which attempted oral feeding/hydration would have harmed Terri in any way (unless being fed successfully would be considered 'harm'). If Terri was sufficiently concious that she could feel any distress that such attempts at feeding would cause, they would pale in comparison to the pain of dehydration she would certainly feel in their absense. And if Terri fatally choked during the feeding attempts, she'd be no more dead than if she simply languished without water for two weeks. If Michael was afraid that Terri's choking during attempted feeding might be blamed on him, or afraid of the cost of such attempts, he could make the parents responsible for selecting, hiring, and paying for a doctor administering them.
So what basis was there for Michael's absolute outright denial of so much as an ice chip?