Schiavo debate

I could not resist responding to the letter by Angelo Micallef (April 15) regarding the Terri Schiavo debacle where Mr Micallef basically claimed that the judges put Mrs Schiavo to death by starvation and dehydration.

Nothing is further from the truth. Ms Schiavo had been in a vegetative state since she had a heart attack in 1990. Her brain slowly deteriorated over this period and her cerebral cortex became liquefied. In reality she had actually died 15 years earlier. Now, under Florida law, when one gets to this situation the state allows the care givers not to prolong life, whether stated in a "living will" or whether it can be proven so.

The judges just upheld the law because her husband Michael convinced them that that is how Ms Schiavo wanted it. To accuse the husband and the judges of killing Ms Schiavo is being ridiculous. After all, the case had been contested in the state courts for over nine years.

If one wants to protest, a better case would be the Texas law passed by George Bush when he was governor. In that state, the hospital is allowed to pull the plug on patients and will not continue to assist in prolonging life in vegetative-state patients, whether the relatives agree or not, if they cannot afford to pay the hospital fees.

Yes indeed, America is still the Land of the Free. Free to allow people's legal wishes to prevail and not let the few zealots to impose their will on others.