I'm not going to flame you because I believe that there has been far too much of it going on around FR already. I just want to point out that doctors have acknowledged that they aren't entirely sure what is going on inside the head of a PVS patient. That is why they've given Terri morphine. They don't think that she feels pain, but they don't want to take any chances. Because of that, I don't think that it's unreasonable to conclude that there is a chance that she has awareness and that she might be suffering due to the dehydration/starvation process.
The medical standards continue to evolve. We saw Doctor Healey (sp?) on TV last night - from somewhere I thought she was a former surgeon general or nominee for that position - and she flatly stated as fact that there have been new standards developed since Terri was declared PVS. She also expressed her opinion that the new standards should be applied to anybody who is about to have a feeding tube removed.
Sadly, Terri's tube was removed based on application of something other than the most recent standards.
Morphine is given to all patients removed from feeding tubes, whether they have cognitive abilities or not.
It's called a "just in case" measure.
The morphine is to slow down her heart rate.