You might want to talk to Star Traveler, who insists the gov't must protect and defend life at all costs. That does mean insisting that I cannot refuse treatment.
This is all specified, by the way, in Florida law, including the definition that a caregiver who starves a dependent is guilty of criminal abuse/neglect.
It would be criminal for me to smother my husband with a pillow. But I can, if he is not conscious and has minimal brain function decide to turn off a respirator. There is law allowing that. Florida law allows for feeding tubes to be removed under certain conditions.
First of all, you can't mean that husbands have the right to kill their wives.
I mean that in the absence of conscious thought and decision-making by my husband, as his spouse, I have the legal right and responsibility to decide whether to continue life support. In marriage, that became my duty, no one else's.
The court ought to have taken the settlement money away from Michael Schiavo when he proved unwilling to use it for the stated purposes, and awarded it to a court-appointed guardian, who could have been her mother, father, or any other person committed to furthering Terri's health interest.
Perhaps they should have, but they didn't. That is irrelevant. He was left as the legal decision-maker.
In 1998, Michael Schiavo got Judge George Greer involved when he petitioned the Pinellas County Circuit Court to remove Terri's feeding tube.
I assume that this action was taken in accordance with the law in Florida, to make sure that there is oversight in these end of life decisions.
I further surmise that the request was granted. That should have been the end of the story, right there. Michael had the legal responsibility for the decision. Was he a good guy? Did he make the decision I would have made? Do I think it was right? All irrelevant. We allow spouses, and parents in the absence of a spouse, to make these decisions. Michael was the spouse. The end.
I don't construe ST's remarks that way (and it's up to ST to say yea or nay) but would swiftly and strongly reject that view.
"...if [my husband] is not conscious and has minimal brain function [I can] decide to turn off a respirator..."
Yes, that's right, if the respirator is found to be burdensome or futile, and especially if your husband is terminally ill or has specified that he does not want a respirator. A respirator is an "extraordinary" form of medical treatment.
"Florida law allows for feeding tubes to be removed under certain conditions."
Feeding tubes can be removed if the patient is no longer capable of assimilating food and fluids (e.g. if digestion and circulatuion are shutting down), or if there are tube-related complication (e.g. infection at the surgical os.) Feeding tubes are not to be removed for the purpose of killing the patient.
Nutrition and hydration are not "extraordinary" and are not "treatments." They are ordinary human needs, they are a fundamental element of palliative care even after medical treatment has been abandoned, and they are morally obligatory as long as the medically dependent person is capable of assimilating nutrients.
I mean that in the absence of conscious thought and decision-making by my husband, as his spouse, I have the legal right and responsibility to decide whether to continue life support.
That depends on what you mean by "life support." Even after all drugs, devices, and therapies have been stopped, palliative care --- nutrition, hydration, pain managment, hygienic and comfort care --- are obligatory, not optional. This does not include chemo, radiation therapy, surgery, ventilators, kidney dialysis and other interventions. These are optional.
No care-giver, whether spouse, parent, child, sibling, court-appointed gurdian or anyone else, is permitted to deliberately and intentionally cause the death of the patient by action or omission.
This does not mean that they cannot let nature take its course. Nature does, every time. It means that even a dying patient is morally and legally entitled to palliative care.
In 1998, Michael Schiavo got Judge George Greer involved when he petitioned the Pinellas County Circuit Court to remove Terri's feeding tube.
"I assume that this action was taken in accordance with the law in Florida..."
That's exactly what you can't assume. That's what the whole flippin' controversy was about.
"Michael had the legal responsibility for the decision. We allow spouses, and parents in the absence of a spouse, to make these decisions."
No. We do not allow any caregiver or kin to intentionally cause the death of a medically dependent person.