[ican'tbelieveit]

I am going to get in trouble for this, but I disagree with you guys on this. For one thing the husband is her next of kin. Secondly, what is wrong with humanely letting someone go in her state?

I watched my brother take his wife off of life support after 2 years of grueling cancer treatment. Yes, we could have kept on going and trying to keep her alive, but if you would have seen what condition she was in, there was no other choice. Within 30 seconds of pulling her off of the ventilator, she passed on. She is now in heaven, no more suffering.

On the other side of the coin, her family would not have allowed my brother to pursue any medical treatment for her at all, if they had the choice to make. They were of a religious sect that believes you will be cured by God if you have asked for forgiveness for all of your sins. If you are not being cured, you must be holding on to something.

[Teacher317]

what is wrong with humanely letting someone go in her state

What, exactly, IS her "state"? It certainly seems to differ according to the person you ask. The fact that the court won't even review the case is troubling in and of itself. If (big if, of course) this is indeed an attempted murder, with the help of the state authority, who exactly would prosecute it?

[nina0113]

It's not a question of "letting her go" - she's not on a ventilator. It's a question of deliberately refusing to feed an aware and responsive woman who is too disabled to hold a spoon to feed herself.

It's going to take a couple of weeks for her to starve to death, because she is in reasonable physical health. Of course, she'll die of thirst first, as the nurses and staff stand around watching. I wonder if they'll bother to avoid eye contact.

[I still care]

I think this is a different situation than your sister in law. Cancer is a terminal, progressive disease. This is from a one time injury.Therapy has actually been withheld from this woman to prevent her from improving.

I saw this done in a hospital once to an elderly woman. The nurses were all upset. She had a stroke, but with a feeding tube was starting to improve. She smiled and tried to talk to you.

Her doctor told us he actually prescribed too thick a mixture to go down the tube, so it would have to have it pulled. He did this on the instructions of the family. The nurses hated him behind his back, but it was all legally done.

After a few days she grew weaker and died. The head nurse cried when she died, from frustration. She said to me, "She could have gotten better, but they didn't want her to."

She left quite a bit of money to her family.

[nickcarraway]

Please read more about this case. Terri is not on life support or in a coma. She has communicated with her family, but she has not been allowed medical treatment. Her husband said he was going to take her home and care for her when he was suing the hospital. Then when he got all the money he could, he ``remembered'' she wanted to die-which he never remembered before.

Also, there is evidence that he put her in this state. A murderer should not be allowed to legally finish his crime- and control all evidence of his crime.

[NautiNurse]

humanely letting someone go in her state?

Death by starvation is humane? Please do some research about the case.

[sweetliberty]

"what is wrong with humanely letting someone go in her state?"

We're not talking about taking someone off a ventilator here and letting them stop breathing and die naturally. I had to make that choice on behalf of my grandmother. We're talking about starving someone to death, which, as I understand it, is a slow and agonizing death. I think there's a big difference.