Janette at Common Sense Runs Wild has been following the story of Terry Schiavo, a young woman who is in a coma-like (though not an actual coma) non-communicative state. This woman's family are asking not that the plug be pulled, for she does not require life support, but that she be starved and dehydrated until death.

Let me be clear on this: I am a huge advocate of quality of life, and euthenasia as an alternative to terminal suffering. If anyone has seen what I have seen, you would probably feel the same. But I do not agree with starving a person to death. Especially when her own doctors cannot figure out what "state" she is in, for they do not believe that she is either comatose or vegitative. Until she is deemed terminal, or until it is determined that her brain is dead, this is bordering on murder.

Terri Schiavo is not dying, she is not comatose, she is not in a persistent vegetative state. She is disabled, anyone who watches the videotapes would agree to that.

Terri is kept alive by the same things that keep all people alive — food and water by a tube and the air she breathes -- on her own. It would be murder to cause her death by denying her the food and water that she still has the ability to digest and metabolize.

From the Washington Dispatch

Under Florida statute 765.309 concerning such patients, only "life-prolonging procedures" may be removed, not regular food and water; the law does not "permit any affirmative or deliberate act or omission to end life other than to permit the natural process of dying.

So you tell me, why is Terri Schiavo's life worth less than a cow, a research animal or a convicted murder?

I encourage anyone with feelings on the subject to read Janette's post, as she has outlined various ways to have your concerns heard.

Best of luck.