Written Assignment
26 year old Terri went into an unexpected cardiac arrest on Feb 25th, 1990.
She was rescued but developed severe hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and never came back to consciousness.
She was then diagnosed with persistent vegetative state.
Doctors tried lots of therapy programs to treat her but did not succeed to regain any cognitive or motor function because EEG revealed no cortical activity.
The doctors placed a PEG tube to give her nutrition and hydration because she could not swallow water or food.
Terri had been married for 4 years to Michael Schiavo when she went into cardiac arrest.
The courts and the State of Florida said that she was not able to make decisions and accepted her diagnosis of PVS.
Since Terri could not make her own decisions, her husband was her health decision maker, but Terri’s parents, the Schindlers, were not aware for several years.
Terri’s parents petitioned the court to remove Michael from making Terri’s health decisions but the court ruled over it because he had always acted in the best interest of Terri.
Michael authorized the removal of Terri’s feeding tube. He believed that Terri would not recover from PVS and recalled that Terri said that she wouldn’t want to be kept artificially alive if there was no hope for recovery.
The Schindlers disagreed and said they would “continue the feeding tube regardless of Terri’s preferences.”
The courts ruled in favor of Michael and removed the feeding tube and Terri died 2 weeks after.
Questions
1. I think the husband that new Terri’s final wishes had the right to pull the plug. It is Terri’s rigt to control her own body and to choose her medical treatment, although she did not make this clear so the right moves onto a
