Should Terri Schiavo stay alive?
On Oct. 15, Michel Schiavo, husband and guardian of 39-year-old Terri Schiavo, ordered the removal of her feeding tube. For 13 years, this brain-damaged woman has been in what some, though not all, neurologists say is a “persistent vegetative state.” She is not brain dead, not terminal and, as The Economist magazine reports, “Her expression appears to go from stupor to joy at the sound of her mother’s voice.” The Florida legislature has intervened in the case, giving Gov. Jeb Bush the power to overrule her husband and reinsert the feeding tube. Michael Schiavo has gone to court to have the feeding tube removed again. She would then starve to death. Initially, the resultant furor across the nation at this form of “death with dignity” in the phrase of right-to-die proponents pressured the legislature to act. Gov. Bush was already in favor of Terri’s right to stay alive, emphasizing that “it is only the lack of food and water that will cause her death,” and she “is not comatose.” However,
