Since everybody else is writing about Terri Schiavo, I guess I'll put in my two cents' worth. I don't think she'll mind.
About 15 years ago, Terri Schiavo, who apparently suffered from bulemia, experienced a heart attack due to a potassium deficiency, and before paramedics could arrive and administer resuscitation, her oxygen-starved cerebral cortex, the seat of what we may loosely call "sentience", died. Since then, Schiavo has been in what is diagnosed as "a persistent vegetative state". For some time ― certainly long enough for him to win a malpractice suit against her doctor ― Schiavo's husband Michael kept her on life-support and undergoing various therapies. Somewhat later, he decided ― as her legal guardian ― that such draconian measures were no longer called for, and asked for her to be taken off the support that was keeping her "alive". Her parents, on the other hand, impelled perhaps by strong philosophical principles and perhaps by an unthinking parental desire to keep their daughter indefinitely on a shelf like a wax doll, fought against this. The fight has been going on for the better part of a decade, and now ― with Michael Schiavo's preferences apparently ascendant ― has again made national news, with Schiavo's "feeding tube" out for about eight days, president and Congress trying to get into the act, almost every judge approached saying "No!" to the parents, and even one attempt to solicit the murders of Schiavo and the main judge in the case.
Looking at the situation, I don't feel a lot of sympathy for anybody involved, except maybe for the hapless judges who have, as far as I can tell, tried to do their jobs. Skip quickly over President Bush, who as governor of Texas signed a bill that would allow people like Schiavo to die quickly (and otherwise, particularly with respect to convicted murderers, never showed any great feeling that life was something to be preserved under any circumstances), but who as president seemed to feel that Schiavo deserved the right to live ― in other words, he wanted to do something about his sagging ratings. Skip quickly over a Congress that wasted its time and our money sticking its nose into an affair that was none of its business in the first place. Skip over the Florida government and governor Jeb Bush, who has over the last few years gone out of his way to keep Schiavo "alive" by violating due process right and left ― and, for failing in his (to me) extralegal activities, is now being soundly denounced by Schiavo's parents, the Schindlers, and their supporters.
Let's go right to Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers. Did Schiavo really love his wife, and did she really confide in him her wish to die if she were ever to be found in her current circumstances? Well, Schiavo is now living with a "girl friend", who has given him two children. And his report of her preference not to be kept alive indefinitely came awfully late in the game; why did he not simply refuse to put her on such support in the first place? Problem here, of course, is that ― based on democratic principles ― it's very easy to believe (and probably true) that Terri Schiavo, whatever she told or did not tell her husband, would rather not continue "alive" in her current state; apparently most of the rest of us would not, either. Whatever Schiavo's motives and behavior, he has likely correctly reported ― or guessed ― his wife's probable preference.
And her parents? I may be being cynical here, but I have a feeling that if the situation were reversed, if it were Michael Schiavo lying there with a feeding tube inserted into his stomach and no higher brain functions left at all, and if it were Terri Schiavo trying to make the difficult decision of whether to keep him "alive" or turn him off, the parents would be right there urging here to send poor Michael to surcease and "get on with your life" (i.e., remarry and provide us with the grandchildren that all grandparents seem to want).
Recently they've reported that when asked her own preference, Terri Schiavo managed to voice two syllables ― "AHHH WAHHH", which they interpret as "I want to live!" Aside from the fact that one could just as easily interpret these as "I want to die!" this information, too, was dumped into the game awfully late, especially given that, from everything I've heard, nobody has ever otherwise heard Terri say anything in fifteen years. Judge Greer, who is the chief representative of the Florida judicial branch in this matter, has rightly decided to ignore this "evidence".
And my own opinion? I suspect (based on my own religious views) that the "personality" named Terri Schiavo has been dead for fifteen years. But the body lives on, and trapped somewhere in there is the nameless entity ― the thing that sometimes says to itself, "Why am I looking out of this pair of eyes and not some other?" ― for want of a better word, what we can call the "soul" ― screaming to get out. If I were making the decision, I'd say: "Let her go, to heaven or hell or the summerlands or the happy hunting ground or wherever. Pull the tube." That's the decision I'd want someone to make for me.