You seem to conveniently overlook the fact that at the time of Terri’s injury, a feeding tube WAS NOT considered life support, so she NEVER could have requested that food and water be withheld.
Florida changed the law afterwards and Michael used this to carry out his “promise” to murder his wife.
Furthermore, she was 24 or 25 at the time of her collapse and like most people that age, she was most unlikely to have given any of this serious thought.
That makes no difference as to the outcome of this case. Her wishes were that she did not want to be kept alive in the situation she found herself in. This is true whether the life support consisted a feeding tube of a ventilator. The courts, and the American public, clearly understood that fact.
Florida changed the law afterwards and Michael used this to carry out his “promise” to murder his wife.
Numerous people have pointed out that this law was passed by the Florida Legislature and signed by Governor Bush only in 1999 -- years after Terri's collapse and even longer after Terri made whatever statements she made about such things. They contend that this 1999 law shouldn't apply to Terri.
Let's take a step back. Statutes are one form of law in Florida, but there is another form of law that's higher: the Florida Constitution. In 1980, Florida's citizens amended Florida's constitution to add a right of privacy to Floridians' fundamental rights. The Florida Supreme Court addressed this right in the 1990 case In re Browning. Florida's high court determined that the constitutional right of privacy includes the right to decline any medical treatment, including the use of a feeding tube. The court said:
Recognizing that one has the inherent right to make choices about medical treatment, we necessarily conclude that this right encompasses all medical choices. A competent individual has the constitutional right to refuse medical treatment regardless of his or her medical condition. The issue involves a patient's right of self-determination and does not involve what is thought to be in the patient's best interests.
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We see no reason to qualify that right on the basis of the denomination of a medical procedure as major or minor, ordinary or extraordinary, life-prolonging, life-maintaining, life-sustaining, or otherwise.
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Courts overwhelmingly have held that a person may refuse or remove artificial life-support, whether supplying oxygen by a mechanical respirator or supplying food and water through a feeding tube. We agree and find no significant legal distinction between these artificial means of life-support. (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
So, as explained by the Florida Supreme Court in 1990, the right to decline medical treatment -- including use of a feeding tube -- has been the law of Florida since no later than 1980. Under the Florida Constitution, feeding tubes are medical treatment that may be refused. What the statutes say on this point cannot overcome the rights conferred by the Constitution.