One thing I gotta say first, 'Schiavo' is not pronounced 'shy-voh'; it's 'ski-ah-voh', which is Italian for 'slave', as in 'slave to one's body'.
According to one expert, 80% of her brain was replaced with fluid, and the remaining functional 20% was 'abnormal'. Now take a look at these before/after photos and tell me what would you want for yourself. After 15 years of not: making love, walking the dog, cooking your favourite food, pruning a fruit tree in the garden, selecting new covers for the living-room suite, getting a text message from a mate..., would you want to go on under the care of your parents being......... 'loved'?
I guess that's why Americans are rushing to their lawyers to get living wills drawn up.
This circus is probably not over yet. Michael Schiavo is reported to have been seen in Terri's hospital room with a vial of insulin - shades of Claus von Bullow. He was also heard to have made such comments to nurses as 'when is the bitch gonna die?' More suspicious, the nurse who made a report on Michael was fired a week later. Also, a report from 1991 states she arrived with multiple fractures all over her body. In the report, it states she has a history of such broken bones; however, those who knew Terri say she never had a broken bone in her body till she met Michael.
More grist for the American media which has run out of hate mongering ideas against Bush. And since a wife & baby murderer has been sentenced, a basketball player accused of rape has been let off, and a lunatic pop icon has already done everything imaginable to get attention, the media in the States will be covering post Schiavo and 'who's going to be the next Pope' predictions now he is dead. Long live the Fourth Estate, bigger, more technologically advanced, more tunnel-visioned, and more mendacious than ever.
For another perspective on this case, read Living Will is the Best Revenge , by Robert Friedman.