I'm going to go back and research the statutes about the feeding tubes, just wondering if in any way if affects the children. I'm curious about this because of the reaction that King's aide had when I mentioned the story to her.
I did find this article in Duval County medical journal which was written I believe as a response the Browning case and this is a little snip ( the whole thing is worth reading though)...
notice the last part .....
Some of the problems with any definition of "Terminal" are that there is no commonly accepted clinical definition of "Terminal." Is it —Days? —Weeks? —Whenever death is inevitable? To some extent, the creation of the "End stage" category was meant to clarify "Terminal." But note the broad difference between "no reasonable medical probability of recovery" (found in the Terminal definition), versus "to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that treatment of the irreversible condition would be medically ineffective" (as found in the End-Stage definition). The End stage definition is a much higher standard, and probably results from the lawmakers too closely tracking another state's statute when intending to broaden our own statute.
Furthermore, even Browning addressed the rights of persons who are both mentally and physically incapacitated, but not those who are mentally incapacitated but physically in good health (as can be frequently the case with Alzheimer's patients).
http://www.dcmsonline.org/jax-medicine/2001journals/May2001/choices.htm