I know there are living wills; I mentioned them above. There is a difference between refusing extreme measures when terminally ill and requesting people to actively kill some future, viable version of yourself. Thus a living will is irrelevant to a case like Terri Schiavo’s.

That right has already been decided for a very long time. My sister works in hospice. People in persistent vegetative state have their plug pulled every single day, with less fanfare. It is ALWAYS a difficult and painful decision for the family making it, but nobody makes a media circus about it.

The only reason that anyone took an interest in Terri Schiavo’s case was because there was conflict between family members. As you pointed out, Terri herself did not care at that point what happened to her. If Michael Schiavo’s in-laws had not raised a fuss, this would have been an ordinary case of taking someone off life support, and no one would have wrung their hands about “starving her to death.”

“Persons in a vegetative or near-vegetative state do not retain any abstract desire to die from their pre-vegetable days, so living wills are beside the point. You cannot make a suicide pact with your future self.”

Of course you can. If you could not, there wouldn’t be any living wills. And while it may not have mattered to Ms. Schiavo personally, it matters A LOT to other people who do not wish to be indefinitely kept alive as a vegetable. It’s creepy to think that your wishes on the matter might be ignored at a later date, and makes everyone much more unsettled about the whole process.