"schiavo" means "slave" in Italian

I have been trying to avoid mentioning this when discussing such a tragic case, but I can't help myself after reading Majikthise's excellent point

3. Florida isn't a slave state. It is supremely offensive to suggest that Michael Schiavo should give Terri back to her parents. He's not Terri's owner, he's her husband and her guardian. There is clear and convincing evidence that Terri didn't want a tube. There is no evidence that she'd want to be intubated, divorced, and shipped home to mommy, daddy and their creepy cabal of quacks and itinerant friars. Notice the subtext: Terri's desire to control her own body doesn't matter, nice girls sacrifice their dignity to spare the feelings of others.

Now that I have given up, I note too that Schindlers trying to save a life must remind us of Oscar Schindler's list, that their lawyer Gibbs has a lot of energy but it is not useful, because he generates more heat than light (a point about usable energy made by Willard Gibbs) and that Dr Hamasfar doesn't seem to accept the idea that the hemisphere's of the cerebral cortex are necessary for higher reasoning.

returning to majikthise, I do think that in the rest of her excellent post she is rather hard on the Schindlers. I note that she disagrees with Kevin Drum too writing of liberals "The left stands for ... And most imortantly, for universality." and
"4. The Schiavo case is about basic fairness. It's about how everyone ought to play by the same rules. No special dispensations, no do-overs, no trials by legislation for the favored few." although, on her point 4, no one could possibly envy the Schindlers and their extra rights.