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"It´s terrible that Terri didn´t write down her thoughts, this should be a lesson for all of us!! Nothing should be above the free will of the individual human."

Yes, because we don't know whether her thoughts about this were to live or to not live. And people can change their minds about this, too.

I'm sure there've been times I've said things along the lines of not wanting to live if I were on a ventilator. But, I can also say that I wouldn't want to die by starvation/dehydration. I've never written down whether I'd want to live or die, or under what circumstances it would be one versus the other.

On another thread, where I wrote that I wouldn't want to die that way, one person's response was along the lines of "20 years of torture vs. 2 weeks of torture, oooh, tough choice" [paraphrase]. Being that I've had chronic pain for 20+ years (and believe me there've been times when I have wanted to die) I still think I'd rather go through another 20 or 30 years than spend 2-3 weeks starving and dehydrating. I haven't given up hope of finding some modality that will help. Despite it all, I'm still glad to be here.

But back to the thing about people changing their minds. My sister works in a hospital. The other night she was present when a doctor was checking with a patient about whether she wanted to keep her DNR (do not resuscitate) order in place. The conversation had some double negatives in it, and the patient was agreeing with the doctor. After the doctor left, she said, "Tell him to save me. I want to be saved." So, my sister went to the doctor, told him, and he went back to clarify things with the patient. The discussion resulted in the doctor removing the DNR order.

The discussion resulted in the doctor removing the DNR order.

Yes.

People do change their minds. Even people who write living wills, might change their mind or might find themselves in slightly different circumstances than they imagined at the time they wrote their living wills. I hope their spouses and doctors listen to them.