[BykrBayb]

Karen lived nine more years

That's a long time for a patient to live without life support, when they supposedly need life support. Yet, we're supposed to believe that Karen Quinlan and Terri Schiavo were both removed from life support, and Terri must have been worse off, because she only survived 13 days without it, while Karen survived 9 years without it.

[T'wit]

Karen Ann was removed from real life support -- a ventilator. The docs in those primitive days took the trouble to wean her off the ventilation, so the shock wasn't too great. After that she was able to breathe just fine on her own. Her father refused a suggestion to pull her feeding tube. "That's her nutrition!" he said indignantly.

The visitors who talk about emotionalism are really talking about the Quinlan case at the time when her removal from life support was debated (1975-76). Emotions ran high. But that was 30 years ago. It's a crock to call that an issue today. By and large, there has been no public issue and no emotionalism since Quinlan about ending ARTIFICIAL life support. Everybody accepts it. (Karen Ann's death in 1985, from pneumonia, was hardly even noticed.)

An honest account of Terri's case must answer why her case caused an international sensation. It certainly wasn't due to issues settled in Quinlan and Cruzan.

[T'wit]

>> An honest account of Terri's case must answer why her case caused an international sensation.

There's probably a book in that one question! Whatever caused denizens of the hard left -- Ralph Nader, Jesse Jackson, Nat Hentoff, Alan Dershowitz, Gloria Allred -- to make common cause with Rick Santorum, Bill Frist, Tom Delay, George W. Bush and Pope John Paul II?