By Arthur Caplan
A new piece by contributor Art Caplan on Today Health:
Terri Schiavo died 10 years ago today — not long after her feeding tube was removed by order of a Florida judge acting at the request of Schiavo’s husband that his wife be allowed to die.
She was 41 and had spent nearly half her life in a vegetative state after suffering a cardiac arrest in 1990, causing a severe lack of oxygen and brain damage. The highly publicized legal case surrounding her husband’s plea not to keep her artificially alive roused debates across the world and at the U.S. Supreme Court.
What is Schiavo’s legacy? What have we since learned about brain function, vegetative states, and how we should talk about death — long before we’re gone?
Continue reading here.
