Annie via AfterAbortion dissects polls suggesting the most Americans favor Terri's death via starvation. For example,
That ABC poll also phrased the "feeding tube" question with some extremely inaccurate information: "Schiavo suffered brain damage and has been on life support for 15 years. Doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition is irreversible."Terri is not on life support as the public defines it. Instead, she is fed through a tube. While the poll states that Terri has no consciousness (implying brain-death) it is well-known that this is false (vidoes).
Captain Ed agrees, suggesting, "However, a look at the questionnaire shows that ABC News completely misrepresented Terri's medical condition, which undoubtedly impacted the responses given."
UniversityBlog , MypoicZeal and MountVirtus have a lot more to say on this topic.
The take home message is that a poll can be made to say anthing by framing the questions in a biased manner.
The state of Florida considers a feeding tube "life_support". That would be the Florida "public".
Michael Schiavo is making the same sort of decisions regarding Terri's life that Scott Peterson made for Lacey. Our society is so pathetic that it calls one decision "the right of the spouse," and the other "murder." Obviously, all spouses were not created equal. Warning! Warning! Warning! Michael Schiavo ... another reason not to get married.