A
complicated legal and ethical debate has developed over the past 15 years on whether Terri Schiavo should be kept alive through the only means that is
possible for her; a feeding tube that supplies her with the nutrition she needs
to sustain the breath of life. But is her situation as simple and
straightforward as that? Terri Schiavo has been diagnosed by physicians to be
lying in a vegetative state. So what exactly does that mean? Is she alive or
dead? Who has the right to decide whether a person in a vegetative state lives
or dies? The legal guardian? The physician? The courts? Religion? Do decisions
such as these vary according to our different backgrounds, or is there one
ethical decision that can be made and generalized for every single case and
every single person regardless of religious belief, philosophical affiliation,
or cultural upbringing? The debate is ongoing, and what is most obvious is that
there is no single universal decision that everyone agrees to.
