I’m getting a number of emails like this:

I completely agree with the husband of Terri Schiavo…you don’t know about persistent vegetative states until your loved one is in that state. My [spouse] developed a persistent vegetative state about 1.5 years ago, and [our family] agreed it was most important to not let [my spouse] linger…it only tortures you the most. Let the woman die!
This sentiment is understandable, but I think it misses the point. Based on what we know about the case, there is abundant reason to doubt that Terri Schiavo is actually in a persistent vegetative state. If, upon a judicial review, hopefully including a more searching and objective examination, it turns out that she is a PVS case, this becomes a much stronger case for the husband. For many of us, it would still be critical that a reviewing court affirm the state court finding that Terri actually expressed a desire not to have sustaining treatment. But what we are principally arguing here is that, before a decision is made that will result in death (particularly an agonizing death), we should be reasonably certain both that she is actually in a PVS and that she personally did not want sustaining measures – not that a self-interested person has deduced that she would have wanted it that way.
If those things were established – especially by testing, like an MRI, that is evidently standard in PVS cases but has not, for some reason, been done in this case, then my lips are sealed.
But imagine if some state tried to pass a law that said: “a sentence of death may be imposed after the offense of murder has been established by something less than proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt, and the said sentence is not subject to review by federal courts to determine whether fundamental federal rights were violated in the state trial proceedings.” Americans would be profoundly offended by such a law, as well they should be. Yet, that is pretty much what Florida has done here: even though this is life-and-death, the facts of the Schiavo case have not been determined on our highest standard of proof and the case has not been reviewed to ensure that there has been no violation of federal law.
Conservatives also seem troubled by the federalism aspects of this case. Such concerns are natural but they are overwrought here. A federal court is not going to be able to reverse the Florida rulings here absent a showing that some recognized federal right (such as the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments). If a federal court were, for example, satisfied that the state proceedings complied with applicable due process standards (which tend not to be terribly demanding), it would not be empowered to reverse the Florida courts simply because it would have decided the case another way.