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This is in ProLifeBlogs...

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Healthcare providers stopped feeding Terri Schiavo for the purpose of ending her life. Terri's brother, Bobby Schindler, and Presidential candidate Sam Brownback called this "killing" today at West Des Moines' Crossroads Fellowship Church (this article ). I agree with them. "Her life remained sacred to the very end," Brownback was quoted by the Desmoines Register as saying. "Whether it's a child in the womb or it's somebody that has had a very difficult situation...she nonetheless remains a person and she shouldn't be artificially, or by humans, terminated. Instead, we should protect these lives."

Was she killed or not?

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This story on Michael Schiavo is on a separate thread by monomaniac. Thanks, BykrBayb.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Federal Election Commission in Washington has fined the political action committee created by Terri Schiavo's former husband. After ordering her painful two-week-long starvation and dehydration death in March 2005, Michael Schiavo created the PAC to target pro-life lawmakers who tried to stop him from killing her.

The TerriPAC Michael created with his brother Brian Schiavo has frequently run afoul of the federal agency by failing to file its campaign finance reports on time or include all of the necessary information.

Because TerriPAC failed to properly file its October 2006 quarterly report properly, the FEC assessed the PAC a $1,350 civil money penalty. FEC records obtained by LifeNews.com find TerriPAC eventually paid the fine.

Federal Election Commission Fines Terri Schiavo's Ex-Husband's PAC

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The cornerstone of personal autonomy, or "right to die" law, is informed consent. (See Cruzan, e.g.) Refusing medical care must be the patient's informed choice. In Terri's case, that was impossible because they changed the law to add PEG tubes to the definition of "life support." She couldn't have known she would suffer the hideous death of dehydration. She couldn't possibly have made an informed choice.

Professor O. Carter Snead, a law professor at Notre Dame and himself an advocate for the right to die movement, wrote an essay harshly criticizing the Greer court. He said its mishandling of the Schiavo case was a disaster and a severe set-back for the whole autonomy movement. I can't link to it but I can excerpt it here and there to show how shockingly bad George Greer's take on the law was. Here is a quotation:

"To the extent that the courts did take steps to discern Ms. Schiavo’s wishes, they did so in an unrigorous and unreliable manner, ignoring crucial procedural safeguards prescribed by the Florida guardianship laws. As a result, it is impossible to have any confidence that the conclusions reached by the courts accorded with Ms. Schiavo’s actual wishes. If the court’s order to terminate artificial nutrition and hydration was indeed a fulfillment of Ms. Schiavo’s subjective desires, this is a happy accident. It was manifestly not the result of a judicial process calculated to advance autonomy and self-determination. Mr. Schiavo’s legal efforts to discontinue artificial nutrition and hydration for his wife lasted seven years. However, throughout this entire period, there was only one evidentiary hearing (in 2000) devoted to the question of Ms. Schiavo’s wishes regarding life-sustaining measures. By any measure, the evidence presented at this hearing was scant, vague, and contradictory." [-- Prof. O. Carter Snead]

Was she killed or not? More from Law Professor O. Carter Snead:

"What, then, persuaded the reviewing courts that Ms. Schiavo’s desire was to decline life-sustaining measures under the circumstances? What quantum of proof was marshaled to demonstrate this proposition to the satisfaction of the most exacting evidentiary standard available in civil cases? A careful review of the record reveals a jarring truth: the evidence deemed “clear and convincing” in the Schiavo case was a veritable parade of every species of presumptively unreliable statement long rejected by courts across the nation called upon to adjudicate end of life disputes."