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Joshua Perry, JD, Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Larry Churchill, PhD, Professor of Medical Ethics at Vanderbilt and Howard Kirshner, MD, Professor of Neurology at Vanderbilt argue in their article "The Terri Schiavo Case: Legal, Ethical, and Medical Perspectives" that appeared in the Nov. 15, 2005 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine:

“In our opinion, the law did not fail Terri Schiavo. In fact, no end-of-life guardianship case in U.S. history has generated as much high quality evidence, judicial attention, or legal scrutiny as the Terri Schiavo case…

The Florida guardianship was clear, and the law was followed. The judiciary was charged with 2 questions: 1) What was Terri Schiavo’s medical condition? 2)In such a condition, what would she choose to do? In the midst of an intense and intractable family dispute, amid dizzing media attention and unprecedented political intervention, the judicial process produced 2 answers. The process and the resulting answers were reviewed repeatedly by cautious, nonpartisan judges who demonstrated restraint and care in adjudicating Mrs. Schiavo’s case pursuant to her individual liberty and privacy interests. “

Nov. 15, 2005