Terri Schiavo was in a vegetative state, not brain dead.
But your side said she was brain dead. Are you changing your definitions again?
My understanding of brain death, is that the brain no longer functions in any way at all....which means, that the patient must be hooked up to a ventilator, which makes them breathe, being that the brain is no longer able to allow respiration to take place naturally...
Sometimes people are placed on ventilators for a temporary amt of time, after major surgery to allow ease of breathing, but once they recover from surgery are taken off the ventilators...
Brain dead people, to my understanding anyway, do not begin to breathe once removed from the ventilator...
In fact, that was one of the tests done on my own son...he was removed from the ventilator, to see if any spontaneous respiration would take place....which in my sons case, it did not take place...and so he was placed back on the ventilator, and a number of other tests were conducted to assure that he was indeed, dead...