This woman has, above all, a right to live. She is judged by some doctors to be in a persistent vegetative state. If she was only severely retarded but responsive and reactive to outside stimuli, as the parents insist she is, there would be no grounds to remove the tube and we wouldn't even be discussing this because we dont starve retarded people in this country, at least not yet.
So some doctors have convinced one judge that she's in a PVS. (yes, many judges have reviewed the procedural aspects of the case but only one has reviewed the facts in the case). Never mind the possibility of evidence to the contrary or possible misdiagnosis, next question is, what do you do with her?
1)The husband does not have the right to remove the feeding tube just because he wants to. His legal case is that he's speaking for her wishes and that she would have wanted the tube removed, because she said so at one particular time. It seems his entire case is built on flimsy hearsay evidence that would not stand in many other legal cases. The full burden of proof that she forfeited her right to live should be on him.
2)The family is perfectly willing to care for her and in fact are pleading for her life.
Something just doesn't add up for me.
If Michael is so passionate in his belief that she wouldn't have wanted to live this way but at the same time believes she is completely brain dead, just a body on auto pilot, well case is closed, isn't it? For all intents and purposes, she's dead. No thinking. No feeling. She's 100% out of the picture.
Why not give her to the parents and brother and sister who are pleading for life? The mother that bore her?
Point 2: I don't blame him for hooking up with another woman, but by doing so, setting up house and having two children, doesn't he forfeit his moral claim to her guardianship?
Point 3: Another thing that's not sitting right with me is the fact that her parents and family talk of her laughing and smiling and uttering sounds as if trying to form words as opposed to the doctors' characterization of PVS.
Either the parents are telling the truth, are in serious denial, or are lying. I'll be the first to admit I don't have nearly all the info in the case but I have to believe the family.
There's a lot of talk in this thread about:
1) what she would have wanted:
Nobody knows.
2) what you would do if you were in her position:
Totally irrelevant
3) no chance of recovery or rehabilitation:
same could be said of many neurological injuries. Life's value does not lie in it's potential.
4) Why are we so afraid of death?
Because she's still alive, and she may want to be alive
Don't get me wrong, if it's true her cerebral cortex is 100% liquefied, her EEG is 100% flatlined and she's truly in a vegetative state then there's no question. It's just that I choose to believe the parents when they say they can interact with her, over the testimony of a few doctors who may have misdiagnosed her.
If I'm wrong, I'm glad to err on the side of life.
5) And keep a soul trapped in limbo forever...
Well we can start a whole new thread over this. So when did this soul first enter her body, the day she was born? You don't want to go there. May end up in Hypocriteville.