Was her husband in the right (he wanted to unplug her)? Or her parents (they wanted to keep her on life support)?

I'll put up a general poll on end of life care/unplugging.

Pull the plug, jack

Total shit show.

Needs moar living will

Kinda her fault.

The parents had no standing.  It should have been a non-issue.

This, and pull that plug.

No brain activity and the machine was keeping her alive for years, he made the right call.

Told my fiancé pull that f-ing plug or when I die I will haunt her ass.

Who would want to live in that condition?  Pulling the plug was the right call.  

Her husband made the right call as they had covered itin previous conversion.

While I understand the parents position i gotta go with the husband (or a wife as the case may) in being the one that makes the call.

Nothing good came out of that sort of media invasion.

Terri Schiavo is kinda alive'o

Legally, it is the husband's right.  Morally, everyone should have been on board with the decision.  It's a tough decision, and definitely not black and white.

Who knows what was really going on with the family.

Note:  I would want the plug pulled if I were in her situation, but I understand her parents' grief.  I just pray I'm never in that position.

Her husband was an abusive scumbag out for money

Exactly.

Big government Republicans screwed that one up big time.

Her fault in that her husband may have put her into that condition?
The entire thing was messed up on many levels.  
But the parents should have had some say, especially if he would have nphad no further obligations.    
So she became like a slave or bag of meat, that the state decided on who could decide her outcome.  Very totalitarian.  
Each side aired videos that suited their agenda.   No one here I doubt really knows what her true condition was.

She should have had a living will.  Saying goodbye to a loved one is never easy but when they are still (technically) alive it has to be a nightmare for anyone to pull the plug so I do understand why her parents fought to keep her alive.  On the other hand, brain-dead and being kept alive by machines is living and that's why my living will clearly states for my family to pull the plug.

Was a shit show here.

I already have a living will, I wanted em to put me in a plane and just push me out if I was in a coma and on life support. But the lawyer writing it said that wasn't an available option.

She wasn't on life support.  They didn't pull the plug and let her body die; they removed a feeding tube and starved her to death.

The lights were on but nobody was home.  

Hmm... a tube. One that supports life... could that be? No it couldn't be life support? Could it?

I signed and have a DNR statement on file with my dr.
 

I figure, when it's time it's time....

 

Typically when people mention life support they're referring to machines that augment or replace the function of heart or lungs, such that when the plug is pulled, death by respiratory or cardiac failure quickly follows.  By your definition, your neighborhood McDonald's constitutes life support.  I hope this explanation has cleared up the misunderstanding and allows you to contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way from now on.

If the person made pre-arrangement for extraordinary measures (or court-acceptable documents to that effect exist), and someone is willing to pay, keep them alive.

Otherwise, brain dead is dead dead.

pull the plug.

I always LOVED when a patient was rotting away and the trash family would be screaming "don't let them die, you can't play god" while
Usually throwing a threat or two in there.

And then? The first of the month rolls around and they all disappear and withdraw care. Why? Apparently If you die mid or end of the month then the family must pay back that months social security check. Gotta hold on til the next month since the check is already spent.

97% of the time it was a vibrant demographic. However never rich.  The other 3% was the whisky tango persuasion with a morbidly obese daughter or a methed out scrawny husband with shitty prison tat sleeves, dirty jeans/boots, and a NASCAR tshirt with the sleeves cut off.

Regardless of the demographic, they all reeked of cigarette smoke that you could smell out in the hall. I'm sure they totally paid the hospital bills for he additional time spent in the ICU.

Bring on the death panels. Seriously

Life support replaces basic biological functions.  Such as the ability to feed one's self.

I don't get the whole thing, personally. If the husband didn't want her but her parents did, he should have been able to hand the keys to them and said "I'm out. She's all yours."  Let the parents have power of attorney/guardianship, get legally divorced. He moves on, and they get to preserve the sanctity of life. Everybody's happy.

The fact that it didn't happen that way tells me that that the whole deal was hijacked by either a broken system, or by ulterior motives.

Yeah I'm pretty sure I know all about the various levels of life support. If McDonald's is the only source of food available and it closes, yeah you just closed off access to something that supports life. She was unable to eat due to being brain dead. Therefore tube feeds=life support

ETA: these days you probably could just unplug a kangaroo pump and it would confuse the shit out of a bunch of nurses. How can I feed without pump?!?!?

Pull plus. Put parents in rubber rooms.

Pull baby, pull.

Problem solved.

Got it.  I agree with this definition, but there's just some haziness around some of the edge cases.  For instance, would a nursing mother's breasts be considered life support for an infant, or would the entire mother count as life support due to her role in cleaning and clothing the baby?  Regardless, this definition lends new clarify to a lot of things.  When the Spartans left an infant to die on a hillside, they weren't committing infanticide--they were just taking it off life support!

I actually understand the distinction you're trying to make, but if the only way to apply a term is by defining it in a way that makes it useless, then the term isn't applicable.

She should have had, and everyone should have, a living will. That said, I have no problem with the husband having pulled the plug. I've told my wife to do the same thing if I'm ever in a similar situation, and she feels the same way. I'd rather be dead than a vegetable. Having spent 8 years working in hospitals, I'm very aware that the game of life is about quality over quantity.

As a vegetarian I was rather upset by her husband's actions.

I've made the decision to "pull the plug" twice.  There was never any doubt that it was the right thing to do.  

Ten years ago my mother, age 76 at the time, had a heart attack and stroke and was, as per the doctors, brain dead.  She lingered on with wires
and tubes keeping her alive.  No brain activity.

After three weeks of no sign of change, on Friday night we had a meeting at the hospital with her three doctors, the head ICU nurse, another
nurse that attended her, a "patient advocate" from the hospital.  My father, my three siblings and I, and our spouses also attended.  I had kept
the originals of Mom and Dad's Living Wills in my safe at home, and the hospital already had a copy on file.  I made copies for everyone, passed
them around, and they all read along as I read the original so that we all knew we had accurate copies.  It was plainly stated that she did not
want to be kept alive on machines, and that if she ever got to that condition, to unplug her and let her go.  My parents were both medical
professionals and fully understood all that entailed.

It was decided, and all agreed, that we would unplug her the following Monday morning.  Dad came to me after saying he just couldn't do it, and
asked that I be there to do it.  I am the one in the family that was always assigned the dirty work, take out the trash, pick up the roadkill skunk in
front of the house, the stuff nobody else would do, so once again a dirty deed fell to me to take care of.

I walked into her room in ICU at the designated time, 08:00 Monday morning, and the room was empty.  Bed stripped, room cleaned up, floor looked
to be freshly waxed.  I stood there and thanked God for taking my mother during the night so I didn't have to carry the burden of killing my mother, or
rather, give the order to do so.  And nobody bothered to call me saying she was gone.  I had driven in from out of town.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, I jumped 3' off the floor.  It was an ICU nurse.  "You mother came to last night and we moved her to a regular
room."  Yes, my mother woke up, had brain activity, and after removing the tube was breathing on her own, and could speak a little, though her throat
was sore.  Less than a week later she was home and soon was driving herself to physical therapy.

We've had her with us now for 10 years.  She's nearly 87 now, and has seen her grandkids graduate from school, seen some married, has held and
fawned over great-grandchildren, and every day has been a blessing for the family.

When the Terry Shiavo thing was going on I thought I knew what was what.  Let her husband go on and unplug her, poor thing.  She's already gone.  
But I now know that it is not my decision.  Faced with the same situation again I don't think I'd be able to unplug the person and let them go.  Not my
decision.  I can't do it.

And every time I think of how close I was to doing this a shiver runs down my spine.

This.

Unless it was his fault she ended up like that.

At the time t shirt hell had a shirt that said To hell with Terri Schiavo, quit feeding Kristy Alley.

I believe in quality of life above all else. I would never,ever want to "live" simply existing in a bed and would never subject a loved one to such a terrible.terrible fate.

I believe she had major brain damage but I dont think she was brain dead was she?
Either way its a touch decision that I hope Im never faced with.

The South Park about Terri Schiavo was brilliant (Kenny was the one on life support, and Cartman wanted to pull the plug).

Their view was the people wanting to keep TS alive were wrong, but for the right reasons.  The people who wanted to kill TS were right, but for the wrong reasons.

The fact that he didn't shows that he wanted to end her suffering. I imagine that he didn't want his wife to rot away as a vegetable.

That was a very poignant episode.  

Yes, if I'm ever in a vegetative state I want the plug pulled on me fairly quickly.

My family knows to pull the plug on me. That's no way to live.

Not even a good case...she was fucking brain dead

Am I in before "Only Osiris or Anubis can determine when someone should die"?

It will be known to mine as well.

Not only would my family pull the plug on me, they'd hold a pillow over my head to make sure I croak.

They'd probably be smiling through the whole thing too.