What is more disturbing, in my mind, is that once they decided to let
> the body die (regardless of the state of the mind), they chose to let
> it happen through two weeks of starvation and dehydration.
> This is a sad statement about humanity, that we'll use drugs to
> painlessly put a mortally wounded dog out of its misery, but a human
> body must be forced to endure two weeks of torture until its organs > fail.
It is certainly the Peronismo sin Peron of euthanasia, but the medical authorities claim it is painless and without feelings of hunger or thirst. I think part of their motivation is laws criminalizing euthanasia, including voluntary suicide for the competent.
Part of it also must be the feeling that there is a moral difference between not acting to prolong "life" and acting to end it. Most of the world failed to act to stop the genocide in the Balkans, and in Africa, but seems to see a difference between that and actively slitting the throats. I don't know why there is a feeling that one is more answerable for action than for inaction, but it seems to fit some sort of primitive moral intuition.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do we have Ms. Shiavo buried yet, at least for the purposes of this Digest? PAT]