[ziggytrix]

Originally Posted by Crash

If the parents know that, why would they keep her "alive"? It's clear she won't ever be coming back. In all manners (figurative and otherwise) of speaking, she's dead. Correct me if i'm wrong, but I heard true death occurs when the brain is dead.

http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/149562.htm

Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive . . . at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open-heart surgery. Within the testimony, as part of the hypothetical presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state.

In a footnote, Wolfson writes: During the course of the GAL’s investigation, the Schindlers allow that this is not accurate, and that they never intended to imply a gruesome maintenance of Theresa at all costs.

According to the columnist, "Wolfson told me that when Michael heard this, he said: 'That's it. I'm never going to let that happen to her.'"