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This is a case of a husband seeking release to die for his wife, who is in a persistant vegetative state. The feature of all is history is a husband or wife's responsibility to give permission for their opposite to be allowed to die when the medical opinion is that spouse will be forever in a braindead state.

There are procedures by which such wishes can be expressed in writing. Nobody here is questioning the legitimacy of such written requests.

Yes, there are suspicious circumstances. Yes, the husband stands to gain from her death. But, the fact is that no one here knows what Terri's wishes are. No one here took vows of marriage to her. Only her husband.

Her husband is now shacked up with another woman and has fathered two children by her. He has abandoned his wife, and yet refuses to grant her a divorce. Do you believe that he holds his wedding vows sacred?

In the absense of clear and compelling evidence that a person wishes to die, the default is supposed to be a presumption that they wish to live. Michael's testimony about Terri's statements, even if it is true (which I doubt) should not in the eyes of any reasonably judge be considered clear and compelling evidence that she wishes to die, since the allgeged circumstances of her saying it are not ones in which one would normally intend to make binding statements, and since the timing of Michael's revelation strongly suggests that he made the whole thing up. Unfortunately, appeals court judges are not allowed to address the reasonableness of trial courts' actions.

If he does this with evil and gain in his heart, that is GOD'S business. The public has no business in it.

Murder is very much the public's business. And an examination of Terri's medical and financial records may show a very clear motive.

I understand the problem and the fear of many. Should this become a precedent, then we, ourselves, may be in a similar situation where we are conscious and unable to communicate and do not want to die. We can put ourselves, in our ignorance, in Terri's place, and feel the fear of death we don't wish.

Indeed, many of us see this as a very big danger. Given a sufficiently corrupt doctor and Judge Greer heading a case, anyone with insufficient muscular control to feed themselves would be at risk.

But how many have been screaming inside to die, unable to screan outwardly, and been denied that by machine and medicine? Distinguishing from the senario in the last paragraph, what may happen when we may be in a vegetative hell, screaming to get out and the public won't let us die.

A person who's wanting to die doesn't survive seven days of dehyration.

There are procedures by which such wishes can be expressed in writing. Nobody here is questioning the legitimacy of such written requests.

What happens when there is no written request? My wifes father was in a vegetative state after having suffered a stroke. My wife's family had to make the decision to let him die without support. They did.

I understand that Terri's husband may well be a criminal. There seems to be evidence posted on this thread that he beat her, and had a history of beating her. He appears to be breaking formal and moral vows left and right.

But until he is tried and convicted, with all the evidence presented, examined, rebutted and explained, he has the responsibility for this decision for his wife. If he is tried and convicted, then the people through their representatives probably would hves the responsibility to determine her fate.

I think if we allow a precedent like this from mere suspicion, however stark the reasons for that suspicion, we set up rules that can be applied very badly indeed. It would be very much like taking action against a person because of a crime he is thought to be going to commit.

There is evidence posted on this thread that indicates he put her in this state by beating her. Maybe he did. That is not for the public to decide directly, else we return to lynch mob days. From his actions, if he were tried, he probably not want me on his jury. But these are just my feelings and some scraps of evidence which has not been allowed to be formally refuted.

I would think a judge would have to take a man's sworn statement about his knowledge of his wife's wishes without a mindreader, or some other clear evidence that it was otherwise. How would a person in his wife's state give clear evidence she's willing to die?

I don't think we have any idea, just theories, about what is in the heart of this lady. I don't think we, as the public, ought to take any action like we do know. She could be longing for death, and all else is reading what we want into what actions and indication she has seemed to give.

If we, without knowing, consider the possibility she doesn't want to die then we have to consider the possibility that she wants to die, because we simply don't know. If she does want to die, then we will be keeping her alive because we don't want to see her husband get a lot of money, which he will not get if she lives. This is fine as long as she really wants to live, but what if she really wants to die?

Nobody can really call that, her being incapable of such complicated communications. Everybody is going to have a different theory. So someone has to be responsible, and it has to be her husband. As repulsive as that is, him being who he is, any other way leads to social chaos, in my opinion.

If what we suspect is true, and he is found to have killed her for his own interests, then we can burn him for murder.