I am a resident of Stanwood, but I am very concerned about the life of a woman in Florida. She is Terri Schiavo, who has only a short time to live as things stand now.

An Associated Press article recently reported that Schiavo “is in a vegetative state, with no consciousness.” But I looked at the “Terri’s Fight” Web site, and saw her responding to her mom, following a balloon with her eyes, and reacting to a swab rubbed over her lips and inside her mouth. She is not on life support of any kind, just a feeding tube because she does not swallow. That is something she ought to be able to re-learn, with therapy, but she is denied therapy.

If her feeding tube is removed, as Circuit Judge George Greer has ordered, she will die of starvation. And, I fear, her case will be used as a precedent nationwide for withdrawing life support or feeding tubes from vulnerable people who deserve a right to life.

I urge people to check out the following two Web sites to see Schiavo for yourself, and to read how her lawyer described her encounters with Schiavo (www.terrisfight.org and www.family.org/cforum/fosi/bioethics). She went into the room expecting that Schiavo’s parents may have imagined more awareness in Schiavo than actually existed, but was surprised to see for herself how aware Schiavo actually was.

And please urge Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and your representatives to vote in support of Terri and others like her when The Incapacitated Person’s Legal Protection Act of 2005 comes to a vote.

Ginger Kauffman

Stanwood