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Wow! Ok. I'm on the opposite side of this deal. I live in FL - only 10 minutes from the nursing home Terri was in. I lived with this story for 15 years. Most of you outside the state only heard snippets here and there.

I'd like to try to put something in perspective here. We are mostly Christians on this site, or we believe in some higher power/being, including myself. First, there is absolutely NO evidence whatsoever that Terri's husband was cruel to Terri in anyway at any time. I know a lot of you are going to get angry at that statement because of all the "talk" that came out at the end of Terri's life. Let me tell you - no one said a word about any mistreatment until the doctors gave the final word that Terri had irreversible brain damage.

Now, for some reason, we all believe that human life is the most precious of life on this planet. I disagree. I believe that all life is precious and no one or nothing's life is more important than another. I also know that, from the reports, it took the response team almost 7 minutes to reach Terri after she collapsed. There was not 45 minutes or over an hour that elapsed before Michael called the 911. Has anyone thought that perhaps God wanted Terri to join him then? If it had not been for medical intervention, Terri would have died that day of the accident and she would have been with God in heaven. Right? We, people, intervened and stopped it because we somehow believe that we can "fix" things. that we are supposed to save all and not let God do his thing. For the 1st 5 years Michael did everything he could. He got her care, he got experimental treatments for Terri, and the families were getting along. Then, Michael got the bad news that there was no hope for Terri and all hell broke loose.

I am a firm believer in the Constitution and I have been over the 14th amendment repeatedly. Terri was rightfully represented in court on many, many occasions. Before everyone gets ticked off at me, please read the Florida constitution's 14th amendment. Terri was never denied any care, she was never denied the right to pursue happiness and her husband does, under FL law, have the final word in cases like this.

This was not a matter of being cruel and starving a woman to death. Terri followed the natural course of dying when the tubes were removed. Her body was meant to die without the intervention. God wanted her. He had always wanted her. Humans were the ones that didn't want to let her go. Humans weren't thinking about what was best for Terri. The only person who thought about that was Michael. He didn't give her a drug to kill her. He let the natural course of life and death occur. Anyone who knows about death, watching someone they love die, they know that a week or two before they die they lose their appetite, they don't drink, they go in and out of lucidness. Why do humans think that we have to intervene, especially when there was no hope? It is because we are compassionate and we can't stand to lose the life of those we love. We are mortal. We don't understand why we have to live without this warm, loving soul. But whose wish matters most - ours or God's?

When we have our beloved dog or cat suffering from diabetes or some other terminal illness, when they can't have any life than that of being attached to tubes for the rest of their lives, we do what we call "humane". We put them down so they don't suffer. Why is this ok for our beloved pets, our four-legged soul mates but it's not ok for people? Why and when did we become so important and above everything else in this life?

I heard the argument that we wouldn't starve an animal to death so why were we doing that to Terri? We didn't. We let nature do what it was meant to do for 15 very long and exhausting years. Many people in the care of hospitals, hospice, etc. all end their lives this way. It is called a natural progression to death and we all will face it.

I suggest that until you are in that situation, you do not pass judgment. I am proud of what our court system did. We do not need our judges legislating from the bench. Oh, the world wanted the judges to step up to the plate but what if they had? What if judges began to legislate from the bench on everything and every issue? We can't allow that no matter how emotional we are about an issue. We must let the laws do what they were put into place to do. If we don't like the laws, then change them.