It's not quite so black and white. She was unable to feed herself, so they fed her, which kept her alive. If that's life support, then feeding old people and babies is keeping them on life support too, which by your logic makes them subject to having their life support removed.
You could argue that her case is different because she was brain dead, but that's a whole different argument. I didn't follow the Shiavo case but as far as I know her doctors never determined that she was braindead. So if your position was to pull the tube, then you are on far shakier ground trying to justify it that way.
What is irritating about your comments is that:
1) It's obvious that what really bugged you about people complaining about the cartoon is that they took a position on the Shiavo matter that you didn't like, and that complaining about the cartoon was your way of expressing that. You acted like some champion of the principle of free speech, but you would have said nothing if the cartoon had been about something else.
2) You sound like a libertarian, and libertarians are intrinsically irritating. I know this from the inside because I once was one.
OK, I brushed up on the case and will refer to the facts rather than making stuff up like most on here seem to do with zeal.
The court documents refer to her feeding tube as ‘artificial life support’. Feeding a baby or helping elderly to eat without inserting a tube in their stomachs and pumping nutrients isn’t the same thing except in the most general of definitions-— and then only if you delete the modifier ‘artificial’. It’s a silly point you are trying to make, but I did fail to add ‘artificial’ in my statement, so you get to make it.
At least 6 doctors are referred to in the court documents saying she was in a ‘persistent vegetative state’. 2 doctors testified she was in minimally conscious state. The autopsy revealed she had irreparable brain damage to all areas of her brain which had shrunk to more than half its normal size. No one has come out and even attempted a factually supportable claim that the autopsy results indicated she was anything other that in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery of function.
No, my reaction was to the inability or unwillingness of others to recognize the target of the cartoon they completely mischaracterized along with the issues of free speech. I suppose I could have just left it at that, but when challenged as a death lover, death bot, etc. by people who throw out outright falsehoods and accusations of murder, my obvious lack of morals, etc., I stated my position on the public circus and interference in a private tragedy, which was the missed point of the offending cartoon. That’s what some of us are here for. Others want to reinforce their fantasies and won’t abide interference with their cult meetings devoid of concern for fact or decency. I came to the wrong place for reasoned discussion, obviously.
(2)I probably am closer to Libertarian than any other political philosophy, but I don’t hold to every position that party takes. Considering the state our county is in, such a philosophy probably is intrinsically irritating to most. That doesn’t make it wrong, does it?