I would say that the subjective opinion of a lawyer about her client's case is not terribly reliable. If Terri is as responsive as these accounts say, I am confident that further court-ordered investigation by court-appointed physicians will find her not to be in a PVS.
However, I also know the power of the (intact) human mind to see/hear what it wants to see/hear. Given the extent of the brain damage I find it beyond the stretch of imagination that she could have the kinds of reactions attributed to her in her family's and her family's lawyers' accounts, and that a dozen trained neurologists could have missed it. The family has previously claimed that Terri is "responsive" and "happy" or "frustrated" or "wants to live," but subsequent medical investigation has shown that she is simply acting reflexively, and that the parts of her brain that process cognition and emotion are GONE.
Again, I would be happy to see another court-ordered physician's report, and I'm pretty confident about what it's going to show. Letters from lawyers or no.
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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
- Anatole France
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