Why do you keep calling Terri Schiavo’s starvation “murder”? She is a free as you are to get up out of that bed and head to the nearest fridge. Her inability to do so does not constitute a claim of right upon others to force them to feed her. If it is murder to refrain from feeding Terri Schiavo, then it is also murder to refrain from feeding any other hungry person – a proposition that I do not associate with conservatism.
There are people who are willing to feed her. The court and the police are preventing people from feeding her. Several people have been arrested for trying to bring water to her.
She has money. She had 1.2 million dollars in the bank from her medical malpractice lawsuit. Her husband used that money to hire lawyers to get the court to deny food and water.
When the courts order the police to prevent people from feeding a millionaire, that is murder.
What they are proposing to do -- or, rather, what they WERE proposing to do until she died today -- was to stick a tube into her body to squirt nutrients into her. This should not be permitted without the squirt-ee's permission, which Terri Schiavo never gave.
They were also trying to feed her by mouth, which she willingly accepted.
Under your theory, anyone who is in an accident and unconscious can not be treated.
The difference is that, if I were unconscious after an accident, the people who want to stick a tube into me have my permission. My loved ones would know that I want to be treated and restored to good health, because I have told them so. If I were in a catatonic state that there is no means of reversing, by contrast, they would not have my permission. (My family knows that, too.)
According to the best evidence that anyone has with which to divine Terri Schiavo's intent, the tube people do not have her permission. She, like me, said she did not want a tube. That, anyway, is what every court that has looked into it has found.
That being so, sticking a tube into an unwilling body would be a crime. Far from being murder, the arrest of the would-be tube-inserter would be an act in protection of property, which is the only legitimate function of government.
Then why did she swallow water and food that her parents gave her?
P.S. There was no evidence of her intent, except for hearsay and her own willingness to accept food and water.
P.P.S. There is not always time for the paramedics to assess your intent when they are intubating you at the scene of a trauma or casualty. Surely you don't suggest that rescue personnel wait until they find your family when you are bleeding and unconscious at the scene of an accident.
The husband never mentioned his wife's so-called expressed desire to die when he was pursuing the medical malpractice claim on her behalf. He only "remembered" this desire after she got the money - money that will now go to support the harlot with whom he had an affair.
Does this mean that hearsay is now admissible as evidence in death penalty cases?
I don't see any legal basis for giving family members control over whether a sick person lives or dies. This is especially true when the family member stands to profit from the death.
Commenting by HaloScan
