Robert Scott Stewart in Metapsychology:
Withdrawing and/or withholding life support has become completely common in American hospitals. For example, 65,000 chronic dialysis patients die each year in the U.S. due to withdrawal from dialysis (Moss, 2001), and the number of deaths in neonatal intensive therapy units due to the withdrawal of therapy has increased nearly fivefold in the last thirty years from 14% to 66% (Shooter and Watson, 2000). This is why, as the editors say in their introduction to this indispensable collection of material on the Schiavo case, “[t]o many in the bioethics, theology, and legal communities, the bitter battle over the fate of Terri Schiavo was a complete surprise. From an ethical and legal point of view many of the key issues that were being keenly debated regarding Terri Schiavo had been settled”.
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