Introduction to the contest

In 2005, following a series of interventions by family, doctors, lawyers, courts, politicians and the media, all nutrition and hydration were removed from Terri Schiavo. She had been diagnosed as being in a ‘persistent vegetative state’ (PVS) but with tube feeding looked like living for many more years. Without it she died, on 31 March 2005, aged 41.

Schiavo’s is one of a string of legal cases in the United States, Canada, Britain, Italy and Australia regarding assisted feeding and hydration. Because modern Western cultures are so divided over issues of human nature, life and death, dignity and rights, relationships and social responsibilities, such cases are given a high profile. Certain fundamental differences that might once have been recognized as arguments in metaphysics, ethics and religion are now played out in hospitals, courts and the media. Underlying conflicts of values and beliefs are often left unidentified, with people talking at cross-purposes, each assuming the other is homicidal or vitalist, authoritarian or uncompassionate.