Amy, he says that she expressed very clearly that she would never want to be kept alive like this and that he feels it is cruel to force her to stay alive in a world after she has, for all intents and purposes, been dead for more than a decade.
It's very difficult for me to be rational about this; DH's father died very slowly from ALS and was down to 80 pounds and no means of communication by the time a family member did as he'd requested in earlier years and removed his feeding tube to let him die. If that person had done so publically, s/he could have been tried for murder. It just makes me sick to my stomach to even think about.
That's the thing -- the parents are quite plainly not living on this planet any more.
They claim she's responding to them. She hasn't got any fucking cerebrum to do that. There is no brain there.
Is she in some weird gray area between being totally brain-dead and being... responsive?
eta:
She hasn't got any fucking cerebrum to do that. There is no brain there.
So she's completely brain-dead?
No. She is totally brain dead. MRIs show that her cerebrum has been replaced by fluid.
People who have a working brain stem move, open and shut their eyes, and make noises. She does all the above. That doesn't mean that she's thinking or responding.
Can he divorce her, legally?
See, this is something I don't understand. Husband/Wife = Next of Kin. End of story. If MY parents or Joe's parents EVER put up this kind of fight, I'd probably do the same thing.
Is she in some weird gray area between being totally brain-dead and being... responsive?
Her cerebral cortex has
liquified.
Yeah, there was a thing in Mouth says she laughs and stuff. But, I think not.
Can he divorce her, legally?
No reason why he couldn't, I don't think. And honestly, it would have made life much easier on him. There are people who question his motives but...I don't know what they think he expects to get from this, beyond his stated goal of carrying out her wishes.
