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[dazzleman]

Jake, I don't believe I know this case well enough to involve myself to the point of contacting legislators with one position or another.  I have always been highly critical of people, like many Hollywood stars, who take activist positions on issues about which they know nothing, and I wouldn't want to emulate that.

As I understand it, this woman has been in a coma for over a decade.  I believe she is hooked up to a feeding tube, but I don't know whether other artificial means of life support, such as breathing apparatus, are being used.

My general position is that it is OK to withhold artificial means of life support like breathing apparatus, but I am less comfortable with effectively starving a person to death by removing the feeding tube.  Whether a feeding tube is an extraordinary means of life support is a gray area for me.

I think we need to recognize and think about a very big and growing issue here - the ability of the medical profession to prolong life without necessarily adding to the quality of it, and how this ability has outstripped our collective wisdom of whether and when to use it.

I am in favor of withholding extraordinary means of life support from terminally ill patients, in general.  Still, there are always the cases where a person recovers when nobody expected it.  I have personally been involved in denying needed medication to a person in an irreversible coma, in order to hasten death rather than prolong life in that state.  But I see that possibly as different from cutting off a person's food supply.  To me, that crosses a certain line.  But sometimes prolonging life can be the cruelest thing to do to a person.

Some of our medical technology forces us to play God sometimes, at least in term of determining timing of death.  It's something we can't avoid, but generally I am very uncomfortable having the power of life and death in my hands.

[dazzleman]

Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage 15 years ago. There is evidence to suggest that she may have been physically attacked by her husband, but no court will put forth an investigation to confirm or deny that. Her husband won a large amount of money in a lawsuit from a doctor that was suppose to go towards her rehabilitation, but instead he has used in on court cases trying to kill her. And despite the fact that they are married, he has had two children with another woman that he plans on marrying once Terri is dead.

I believe she should be kept alive. If she were brain-dead or in a coma then I could see the argument she should be left to die. But she has brain activity. Euthanasia is referred to as "Mercy Killing". Where is the mercy in letting someone starve to death? And even if anyone would not want to be kept alive like that, would you want to be starved to death? And do you honeslty believe her husband has her best interest at hand?

Instead of lethal injection or the gas chamber or electric chair, from now on lets lock death room inmates in a room with no food an let them starve to death as our new execution method.

If an animal attacks a human and needs to be killed, lets let it starve to death instead of just putting it to sleep.

The anti-death penalty and animal rights activists would be all over that instantly. The ACLU, who is supporting the husband's right to starve his wife to death, would be all over the issue if this was used to execute death row inmates.

You make some great points, especially about the fact that we wouldn't let death row inmates die this way.  As I said, I am perfectly OK with removing life support, but not starving somebody to death.  And I would be suspicious of the husband's motives.  Why doesn't he just divorce her?  He'd probably lose out on a lot of money; that's probably why.