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Originally Posted by hannukah harry
if you reread her post, you'll find what your asking for clear as day.
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Thank you! I was starting to wonder if I was going insane. I'll repeat it just to be safe:
"If you read the ample documentation we have supplied to you, he believed too in the first couple of years that therapy might improve her condition. When it became clear that that was not the case and he realized what it would mean to have her living in a PVS forever, and ever, and ever, he petitioned the courts to have the feeding tube removed."
Incidentally, here is some information that might be relevant (from
http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html):
Why did Terri’s husband get to make the decision about whether she should live or die?
Michael Schiavo did not make the decision to discontinue life-prolonging measures for Terri.
As Terri's husband, Michael has been her guardian and her surrogate decision-maker. By 1998, though -- eight years after the trauma that produced Terri's situation -- Michael and Terri's parents disagreed over the proper course for her.
Rather than make the decision himself, Michael followed a procedure permitted by Florida courts by which a surrogate such as Michael can petition a court, asking the court to act as the ward's surrogate and determine what the ward would decide to do. Michael did this, and based on statements Terri made to him and others, he took the position that Terri would not wish to continue life-prolonging measures. The Schindlers took the position that Terri would continue life-prolonging measures. Under this procedure, the trial court becomes the surrogate decision-maker, and that is what happened in this case.
The trial court in this case held a trial on the dispute. Both sides were given opportunities to present their views and the evidence supporting those views. Afterwards, the trial court determined that, even applying the "clear and convincing evidence" standard -- the highest burden of proof used in civil cases -- the evidence showed that Terri would not wish to continue life-prolonging measures.
He waited 8 years. Is there any amount of time he could have waited that would satisfy his critics? If he'd said immediately "let's pull the plug" people would have criticized him for being too quick. Maybe after 8 years of watching her just persist with no hope of ever getting better it struck him that this is never going to end, and that she wouldn't want to linger forever in this state.