Mercy Killing or Murder?

I was keen to learn abt Terri Schiavo's case after reading abt it in Mannat's blog, more so bcoz we had a similar case of Euthanasia in Venkatesh who succumbed recently to Muscular Dystrophy. I scanned through the pages of the Internet to learn abt the Schiavo case and was alarmed at the findings.

How can Euthanasia be administered without the consent of the patient? There is no evidence that Terri would have wanted to die under these circumstances, except her huband, Michael's statements. His relationship with another lady from whom he even has two children leads me to speculate that something somewhere is amiss. Moreover, when her parents are insisting that they want their child back, how can he have the heart to get her killed, all in the name of mercy killing? I think he ought to have mercy on her parents first.

Michael got her feeding tube removed on March 18, which means Terri is starving since two weeks. This is abject cruelty, inhumanity. It seems her husband is her legal guardian - I'm uncertain what this means, but it appears to give him some authority to take decisions for Terri.

Venkatesh's case was somewhat different. He was in a conscious state, hence could repeatedly express his wish to die, so that his organs could be donated. Here, without Terri's explicit statement, it's unfair to starve her to death by merely banking on Michael's word that she would not have wanted to be kept alive this way.

Medical experts say, now that she's in her thirteenth day without food and water, her organs would have deteriorated beyond repair & restoring the tube wouldn't do much good. This is a highly unfortunate situation. Around fifty people have been arrested for trying to feed her. Can't her husband have even an ounce of the compassion these people have for a stranger? That their daughter has been a living corpse for the past fifteen years is a mighty blow in itself. Taking away from them whatever little they have of her would be sheer transgression.