When we are told that a majority is favorable to killing Terri because they too would wish to die if they were in her condition, what does that tell us?
Basically, if your life does not measure up to a certain kind of success then life is not worth living.
We have a population in favor of killing Terfi for the same reason we have a great many Anorexics and Bulimiacs. Body image tyranny.
But why not simply view this as an appication of the golden rule in a straightforward manner?
In all honesty I do not know if I would want to be kept alive in a similar manner. While it is, inarguably, difficult to discern where the line is between a person who is suffering from disease/illness, and a person who has entered death to the point that they are no longer “human” in any relevant sense, despite the difficulties there, I think it’s alright to allow for some cases like Schiavo’s death.
There is also the side question of whether a technological invention (in this case a feeding tube, but in many cases some other peice of technology) somehow creates a moral obligation. And upon whom does this obligation fall? This is the morass of “patient rights”. Who has the correspnding responsibilities, and how did those responsibilities arise?
The judge’s order was inclusive of a ban on feeding Terri normal non-medicinally produced food, or offering her a cup of water.
This was was an order to starve a person. It was opposed by every major disabilities organization that there is. Since these organizations have constituents, I think the golden rule is suspect. Healthy people want to die at the thought of such a thing. Those who are denied the idol tend to feel solidarity (true golden-rule thinking) with Terri.