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In 2001, the trial court judge stated that clear and convincing confirmation demonstrated that Ms. Schiavo would have selected not to be given life-prolonging action beneath the conditions that were present. This decision was also confirmed by the Florida appeals court and the family was deprived of a hearing by the Florida Supreme Court. When Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was taken out for the second time, in 2003, the Florida legislature fashioned Terri's Law to supersede the court decision, and the tube was for a second time put back. This law was consequently stated an illegal breach of the separation of powers (Quill, 2005). Their dispute, under Missouri law, was to show to the court in a clear and convincing manner that this would have been Nancy Cruzan's desires. The Schiavo case on the other hand raised more difficult matter concerning how to classify relatives and how to continue if affiliates of the direct family are not in concurrence. Both of these cases dealt with a patient's right to die and choose their own fate. The Cruzan decision prompted a lot of substantiation in living wills which clearly articulate a person's desire to discontinue treatment or feeding in specified circumstances.
Terri Schiavo's case fascinated the nation for quite a bit of time during March of 2005 as the dying woman laid in Florida hospice. Mrs. Schiavo had been in a vegetative condition for many years, and her husband Michael Schiavo effectively asked the Florida state courts for a decision requiring the withdrawal of her feeding and hydration tube. Mrs. Schiavo's husband, who was her legal guardian, declared before the Florida state courts that his wife had formerly articulated to him a wish not to be kept living by synthetic means if she became injured. The Florida state courts established that there was clear and convincing confirmation that Mrs. Schiavo would have desired her feeding and hydration stopped, as her husband maintained. Mrs. Schiavo's parents disputed this claim repetitively: in front of the Florida state courts, before Circuit Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, before the Florida state legislature, and lastly before the Congress of the United States. In the end, both the Florida state legislature and the Congress approved unique laws for Mrs. Schiavo's assistance (Calabresi, 2006).
References
Calabresi, Steven G. (2006). The Terri Schiavo Case: In Defense of the Special Law Enacted by Congress and President Bush. Retreived October 6, 2010, from Web site:
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/v100/n1/151/LR100n1Calabresi.pdf
Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. (2010). Retrieved October 6, 2010, from Answers Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/cruzan-v-director-missouri-department-of-health
Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health et.al.497 U.S. 261 (1990). Retrieved October
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp058062
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