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?

I believe so, yes.

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.

By now, everybody is locked into their positions and nobody will ever change.

But back when it all started, we had a husband (and by all accounts a loving husband who studied nursing in hopes of bringing his wife back) who said that his wife had wanted to die rather than live in a persistent vegetative state. And we had some parents who said, no, she's alive, she'll get better, she wouldn't have wanted to die.

• EVERY SINGLE COURT*, appeals court, you name it, has said (A) the husband gets to decide and (B) Terri Schiavo has no cerebral function and (C) she told her husband she didn't want to live like this.

If you boil it down to he said, she said, you have to choose between the husband and the parents. Settled case law says that the husband chooses, and I think that's right.

Wow.

Rejecting requests from Republican leaders in Congress, a Florida judge on Friday refused to again delay permission to remove the feeding tube keeping alive Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman at the center of a battle between her husband and her parents.

[link]

No reason why he couldn't, I don't think.

I had kind of assumed he couldn't, because she can't respond or work with an attorney, and did not choose to abandon him. (IOW, I thought divorce had to be mutual, even if one party pursued it much more agressively.) If he can, I don't understand why he hasn't, other than that he feels he can carry out her wishes better than her parents could.

It's sad all around, but I do think her parents should let go.

Wow. Massive x-posting there. Thanks for all the input.

How can the insurance money be gone, though, since she hasn't died yet?

I've seen the videos they show occasionally of her "responding" but I had no idea that her cerebrum had disintegrated. Flowers aren't sentient, but they still turn toward the sun when they need it -- if she opens her eyes or her muscles flex, I can't imagine that proves thought or feeling on her part. I'm assuming they've done brain wave scans (or whatever they're technically called) to prove how little brain activity she has?

I feel horrible for her parents, loving her so much (although, they really need to let go in my opinion), and I feel equally horrible about the idea of her starving to death, but it's also just fucking unbelievable that it came to this. If her husband is truly trying to carry out what he believes were her wishes on this kind of eventuality, then more power to him.

I think the husband and parents have not had much love lost, anyway. Wow, one's brain can be replaced by fluid?! Just, yikes.

Wow, one's brain can be replaced by fluid?! Just, yikes.

Mostly from watching Fox.