What would be wrong with granting her husband a divorce and paying him off a settlement, as if she had died, in return for allowing her parents to keep her on life support? It seems fair.

Thanks for linking to that blog - Downtown Lad is very funny. I feel the same was as Dorian: it's too bad he can't just divorce her.

Hmm... richer, poorer, sickness, health... what's so hard to understand?

Thanks for the link Karol! My very own Karolanche. :)

The easiest way to solve this would be to ban mercy killing entirely. But as long as it's legal, I think it's the husbands call.

Choose your spouse carefully. And if you don't trust them, get a living will.

I'm with you Karol - I want to be kept alive at all costs. You only live once!

This really ought to be something that comes up during pre-wedding counseling. Addressed ahead of time can only be helpful.

Well, call me an asshole, but I would disregard those instructions even if a loved one specifically asked to be kept on life support under those circumstances -- for the same reason I wouldn't honor the request if my mom called up tonight and said, "Hey, Joe, I want you to torture me for a few years."

That's insane, Joe. I specifically want to live as long as possible. We have no proof that life on the other side (if there even is another side) is better than being comatose. I don't want to find out until I really, really have to.

But Ari, the husband said that's exactly what happened. They talked about it and she didn't want this. What's he supposed to do now that her parents are wigging?

Downtown Lad, it's not a mercy killing, it's a mercy keeping alive -- even the catholic church says that this goes beyond the bounds. She is dead, but because we can keep pumping the heart through a machine and breathe for her, she resgisters a pulse. This is probably the closest thing to zombieism.

I don't think she has a machine breathing for her. As I understand it, she just has a feeding tube.

I'm fine with removing artificial breathing equipment, but removing a feeding tube is nasty. The person ends up starving to death, which is long and slow.

Hey everyone,
I just posted about Terri Schiavo yesterday at Ace's:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/064553.php

What bothers me is that this poor defenseless woman will be starved to death mostly on the basis of the hearsay evidence of her scumbag husband. This is a man who said he'd use the settlement money to rehabilitate his wife, then just dumped her in a hospics with no rehabilitation, and took up with another woman with whom he has two illegitimate children.

Granted, some of you might say well she can't be rehabilitated. But that's no reason to condemn her to death.

As you can probably tell, I feel very strongly about this.

According to her parents her condition is not as bad as her husband says. Her parents think that she can recover if she is given treatment and therapy her husband refuses. Her parents lawyers also believe she is aware and not comatose or a vegeetable.

If she is really brain dead then there is no moral issue about keeping her alive - she is not suffering - so her husband has no reason to object to her parents keeping her alive.

Maybe her husband is just afraid that if she recovers she will say how she became injured in the first place.

If one doesn't know the difference between "Catholic" and "catholic"- It's a huge one- your grasp of Catholic doctrine just might be suspect.

The Catholic criterion for ascertaining death is 'the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity'

But in the case of Terry, her brain is still functioning, though at a very low level - she cannot swallow food, or communicate with those in the room.

And if Dawn would like to cite Catholic doctrine about gay marriage or abortion or what constitutes a just war, may I be struck by a bolt from heaven.

Always a nasty situation. I would suggest it depends on who got deliberate instructions. But I do not know the family so I cannot make a judgement on it.
In my case I would like to be frozen cryogenically or kept alive. My mother on the other hand has made it obvious that she would like to die. Something I respect and would advocate if it ever came to that situation.

Actually, whether she's "alive" to any significant degree is the issue. Terri's parents claim she can respond to a small degree, and has the potential to improve with proper therapy. There are medical professionals who back this up. Her husband, and his medical professionals, claim the opposite.

This case has virtually nothing to do with the principle of right-to-die. It's a question of facts, concerning whether Michael Schiavo is a credible source for his wife's wishes, given that she never told anyone else about this, and various other reasons people have to be suspicious of him.