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Thanks for the ping and the update.

I do not want to see existing living wills set aside by new legislation, and it looks like they've done a good job of covering that concern. Where those exist, those should control.

I also never thought before of how Schiavo receiving a LUMP SUM payment intended for the long-term care of his wife has affected this issue. Had the court put those funds in trust, with a modest but adequate montly sum disbursed for her care and rehabilitation, I am quite sure we would not now be seeing this battle in court. He would have divorced her, and his children would be legitimatized, and her family would be caring for her now as should have happened all along. All this nastiness would never have happened, obviously. And who knows, she might be eating on her own and communicating. We don't know otherwise, since we do not know how much therapies that were supposed to be given to her could have done for her.

"I also never thought before of how Schiavo receiving a LUMP SUM payment intended for the long-term care of his wife has affected this issue. Had the court put those funds in trust, with a modest but adequate montly sum disbursed for her care and rehabilitation, I am quite sure we would not now be seeing this battle in court."

Terri's award was put in a trust fund, overseen by at least one bank, to be used for her rehabilitation, but was instead spent on legal fees, with the court's permission, to have her starved and dehydrated. The terms of the trust fund payouts should have been limited to rehabilitation only - but MS, as Terri's legal guardian, was able to do an end run around the court-ordered rehabilition by getting the court's permission to spend the award money on legal fees - under the pretense he was fulfilling her wishes.

This process would have stalled if MS had to go through an impartial GAL, who could have blocked use of her own rehab money for lawyers fees. In that case, MS would have had to use his own funds for legal fees to see her purported "wishes" realized.