This comment, posted in this thread at New Sisyphus, I can agree with:
Two points from my perspective worth commenting on: First, Terri was not being kept alive by extraordinary measures. If it were just a question of life support (Respirator, dialysis, IV's with various meds) there would have been much less of an outcry. However, she was being fed through a tube, something done with some frequency for debilitated patients. Had the tube never been inserted, few of us would have requested it for a loved one in such a situation, but once inserted, IMHO, the default position (a conservative position in several meanings of the word)should be to continue such minimal intervention in the context of no written word on what the patient would want. Second, every effort should be made to avoid codifying these kinds of situations in law; legal venues are poor choices for this kind of conflict and using law and the courts to resolve familial hatreds usually leaves everyone, including the law, diminished.
We now are stuck with the worst possible outcome: watching a woman whose current vacant state allows people to freely project their own fears and fantasies into her, die of dehydration before our eyes.
It is mainly the part I've made bold above that most concerns me. I'm equally angry and disgusted with Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers.
