Ramesh:
I think you are being purposefully obtuse. Prof. George blotted his copybook by presenting as a revelation (“What’s really going on here…”), that his readers might face with great reluctance (“I don’t think we can afford to kid ourselves about this”), a piece of common sense that most human beings would take as obvious and unobjectionable, and that our laws wholeheartedly support.
“Terri’s husband has decided that hers is a life not worth having… He has presumed to decide that his wife is better off dead.”
That is Mr. Schiavo’s decision and presumption, in custom and in law. If that were my wife lying there, I should take them as my decision and my presumption, too, and would jealously guard them against the intrusions of politicians, religious dogmatists, and theory-mongers.
To present this simple fact about conjugal responsibility as if one were revealing the secrets of the Rosetta Stone is, from a person as awesomely credentialed as Prof. George, a blotting of the copybook.