Well... It's more dangerous for some people to cut down laws to go after the Devil than others. It's particularly dangerous for government officials to do so. In other words, I would support Terri being rescued through private civil disobedience but not by means of a the governot sending in a SWAT team.

You wrote: It all hinges on whether the feeding tube is simply nutrition and water, or whether it should be regarded as medicine. Actually, I think it all depends on how creative or dismissive you are with Jewish law. It was a very strange article. The subtitle was Jewish bioethicists are split. And the view headlining this is Rabbi Teutsch, director of the Center for Jewish Ethics at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pa. He "insisted" that because “most Jewish bioethicists would classify the feeding tube as medicine,” the question is “whether we should provide additional medicine.” That "insistence" is an interesting choice of words to present the argument of the piece. It informs the rhetorical force of the argument in the piece, but it isn't really backed up. Which Jewish bioethicists are split? We never find out. Then Rabbi Teusch makes the case,"that a feeding tube is comparable to a respirator — that one can make a decision to stop or start it based on what is in the patient’s best interest. And he said it is no different than stopping chemotherapy if the treatment proves ineffective." That is a very strange argument to argue against providing someone with nutrition. Clearly, in TS's case, it is nothing like a person receving chemotherapy, a treatment that is proving "ineffective." Here, there is no doubt, the nutrition was very effective. So you have this guy with a felacious argument and a minority opinion of the Conservative Movement's Committee on Law, whose argument is never spelled out for us, but whose argument is summarized as a tube is not a requirement. We are not told at what stage of the process it is not a requirement, nor whether once it is inserted, it can be withdrawn. Against this you have mainstream Jewish legal thought, which is that feeding is a requirement. Then the author of the piece weighs against this by citing the opinion of "Leonard Fein, a former director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism." We are told his opinion for 5 paragraphs. Who cares what he thinks? He's not a bio-ethicist, or a rabbi. He's a social activist, he's got no standing as an expert on this matter, except in so far as he represents himself and the left, and he seems to think that polls matter in this issue. And it is about politics. Then more rabbis are cited. Then Phyllis Snyder, president of the National Council of Jewish Women is cited. She's not an expert either. And she also addresses politics. And then we are given the opinion of several Jewish politicians who are against nutrition. So what you get, reading between the lines, is that by far the majority of Jewish legal opinion is for nutrition. We don't know about bioethicists, because we only hear a very insistent Rabbi Teusch insisting opinion is split, providing a very stupid argument that undermines the point he is trying to advance. Why didn't they interview Leon Kass, frex? Now he's a well known Jewish bio-ethicist. And since when are social activists and Presidents of the National Council of Jewish Women considered bio-ethicists whose opinion you would consult in life and death matters?

In some ways the issue of whether a feeding tube is "medicine" is beside the point, since she's also under a court order forbidding attempts to feed her by mouth. It's in dispute whether she could eat or drink that way, but even if she can, it isn't allowed by the court. One wonders whether the spoon used to feed such a patient will soon be classified as "medicine", or even as "extraordinary intervention".