The story of the day as mentioned in the post above is living wills and advance directives.
Critical-care decisions including hydration, ventilation or nutrition (such as a feeding tube) can be specified before a critical accident or abrupt illness leaves a person unable to communicate.
“A situation like Terri Schiavo’s in Florida years ago never would have happened if she had filled out these forms and made her critical care, end-of-life wishes known,” Iredell Hospice hospital liaison Debbie Lackey said......
Local experts tout benefits of having health-care decisions, wills in writing
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The man who would be King...
From Tampa Bay Online:
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TALLAHASSEE - A group of Republican senators who helped kill legislation in 2005 to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case may stand with Democrats again this year to oppose a controversial abortion bill.
The Senate is poised to vote on a bill requiring ultrasounds before abortions. Already passed by the House, the bill would require doctors to show the ultrasound results to patients seeking an abortion, unless the patient opted out of the viewing. The bill faces a tougher road in the more politically moderate Senate, where Republicans hold a narrower majority.
For Senate Majority Leader Dan Webster, sponsor of the legislation, the vote could prove to be a flashback.
Three years ago, Webster sponsored legislation to intervene in the case of Schiavo, a vegetative, brain-damaged patient whose husband, Michael, sought to remove her feeding tube over her parents' objections.
A cadre of nine Republicans broke ranks to kill the bill, which would have required that sustenance continue for a patient if there was a dispute among family members over end-of-life issues.
Former Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville, was among the Republican dissenters on Schiavo. At the time, he said the issue was "a very personal type of thing. It transcends Republican and Democrat."
Now it appears that abortion ultrasounds may be the same kind of transcendent issue.
King, who opposes Webster's abortion bill, is counting votes from other Republicans to kill it.
"I started out with nine votes," King said Wednesday. "I know I've got more than six, and those six are going to be steadfast."
Webster's seniority, influence and the respect he enjoys make mounting an opposition tougher this year, King said. Webster's retirement from the Senate this year because of term limits has some senators who are personally loyal to Webster thinking of the abortion bill as his "last hurrah."
So far, only one of the Senate's 14 Democrats has said he will vote for Webster's legislation. Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, voted for it in committee and confirmed Wednesday that he will support it on the Senate floor.
If King has six GOP votes and the Democrats furnish 13, "I'm still one shy" of the 20 needed, he said.
King would not name the six votes he has counted, but noted that not all had voted "no" in the Schiavo case. At least one Republican who dissented in 2005 plans to support this year's bill: JD Alexander of Winter Haven, who is anti-abortion.
Likewise, King can no longer turn to Nancy Argenziano, who voted against the Schiavo bill but left the Senate in 2007 to join the Public Service Commission..............
Theres Bipartisan Opposition To Abortion Ultrasound Bill
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