It's kind of a dumb question, when you stop and think about it. Either Terri is a vegetable, or she isn't. If she is, she doesn't give a rat's ass about whether she's dead or on a feeding tube.

If she is conscious enough to care about it, then we have a whole different problem, don't we?

Her parents would be glad enough to live with Terri and care for her in her present condition forever. Even if they're deluding themselves as to her awareness, if she's really brain dead, who's being hurt? Who's being helped? If some widow keeps the ashes of her husband on the shelf and talks to them at length, you going to be the one to tell her she's an idiot?

"Let poor, suffering Terri die," everyone says. Hello?? "Poor Terri" doesn't GIVE a shit, but her parents are having their hearts torn out piece by piece.

The question I want to see answered is, who's really gaining anything from this?

I don't know all the legal and financial ramifications, and if someone does, clear it up for me, but I would have thought the simplest answer would have been for Terri to just be turned over to her parents, and for Michael to go about his life. Why wasn't this done?

As for me, if my brain is utterly dead, my kin can make a goddam corner lamp out of me if it brings them some comfort. What do I care? Do I get points in the next life for having my corpse, breathing or not, treated with "dignity?"