BullitNutz
Two Plus Two Is Jello
It's dem damned activist judges ah tell yuh!! </snark>
but seriously...
I do believe every one of us has a right to do with our own bodies as we please. Now do not get me wrong, do not dare to try and twist my words, this freedom extends to the point where it involves another person and their consent. However, if someone says they would prefer to be remembered as youthful, exuberant, and most importantly, alive, then I do not see any problem with simply entering a clause into their living will, stating that they would rather die than be a vegetable with no hope of recovery. I would imagine things would also be easier if it was legal for a doctor to administer a few CC's of something that would simply let the afflicted drift off into death within minutes, as opposed to the removal of a feeding tube and the subsequent 2 weeks of "starvation." (for the past 15 years of her "life," the woman has been starved of everything except food.)
Now, all rational (independent and non-agenda-oriented) studies show that a person who is in a PVS will not feel pain. It's simply impossible. The areas of the brain that relay this information are gone. They literally have rotted away and have been replaced by cerebro-spinal fluid. It's both irrational and sadistic to fantasize that Terri felt any pain before her death.
That said, I'm glad that Terri's wishes have finally been carried out. I'm saddened that she has been foisted up as some sort of martyr by the same people that profess to be patrons of freedom, with the intent to block what have been deemed to be her intentions regarding herself, should she suffer such a state of being. If you could call it being. I'd think it would be more like being link-dead in a game. The playermodel is there, nothing's going on otherwise.
Nearly all of the judges who have heard the case have agreed that yes, Terri would have preferred to pass on, as opposed to remain as such a burden, emotionally and otherwise, to her family. That would place it that the judicial minority who ruled against Michael would be the "activist" and Jeb the "renegade governor." Even the Supreme Court refused to re-hear the case. Activist Judges, the whole lot, no?
If there is anything political to come of this, it is the victory against the American Christian Taliban and their Culture of Sorrow. These monsters wish to invade the most private of domiciles: The Human Body - and interfere with our personal end-of-life wishes. Their rise will herald the loss of freedom far and wide. DNR demands? Denied. Living Wills? Thing of the past. Each of us has a civic duty to protect America's guarantee of freedom, not through blind flag-waving, but through keeping a close eye on the actions of those who with to subjugate us all to their own twisted desires.