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.- In a case recalling the conflict over Terri Schiavo, two divorced parents in Delaware are fighting over whether to continue life-sustaining nutrition for their brain-damaged adult daughter, the News Journal reports.
Lauren Richardson, 23, has been in a so-called persistent vegetative state since overdosing on heroin in August 2006. Pregnant at the time, she was kept alive at a hospital with feeding tubes and a breathing machine until she gave birth in February 2007 to a healthy baby girl.
Her parents Randy Richardson and Edith Towers are currently disputing whether her feeding tube should be removed.
Towers, who says her daughter did not wish to live in such a state and wants the feeding tube removed, was awarded guardianship of Lauren in January.
Her father Randy Richardson disagrees, "She's committed no crime and doesn't deserve to have this death imposed on her," he told the News Journal. He is appealing the ruling awarding guardianship to Towers, his ex-wife. The appeal will take three months.
Lauren lacked any living will or advance directive recording her wishes in writing.
In court, Towers testified that Lauren in 2005 had reacted badly to reports of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman whose parents fought her husband in a legal battle to continue nourishing her via a feeding tube.
According to Towers, Lauren said, "Don't ever leave me hooked up to life support. I would not want that. I think it is horrible. I think that I do not ever want to be kept on life support if the doctors say there's no hope.".......................
Divorced parents contest life-sustaining feeding tube for brain-damaged adult daughter
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