Wendland was different. As was the Martin case where he testified that a man who could answer yes or no questions--including an affirmative response to the "do you want to live" question--was the functional equivalent of a PVS.
Wendland had more functionality that Terri. I believe he could distinguish colors and could write the first letter of his name.
The whole PVS debate is disingenuous because Cranford doesn't care if you're PVS or not-- if you're not functional enough to meet his definition of human you can be killed.
nor did it matter whether or not she could ever be "rehabilitated".....
I just don't think we can out of the blue decide we want someone dead, and then go ahead and get the courts to okay it, and to make that someone dead in the most torturous way......
Yep.
RONALD CRANFORD, NEUROLOGIST: [Robert Wendland is] not in a coma, he's not vegetative, he is not unconscious, he is what we call 'minimally conscious.' He does have some definite, but minimal, interaction with the environment. In that situation, he is so severely brain damaged that I think the one that is the most caring and most interested, which seems to be the wife and the children, should be allowed to make that decision. . . ."
Neither Cranford nor Hammelsfamr are the types of doctors one would like being involved in this type of decision. Both have agendas and neither appears to be a serious physician. When you politicise a case you end up with snakes like them as well as snakes like Felos and Randall Terry.