How to Prove You're Not Vegetative?

Mickey Kaus describes a chilling story he heard on NPR's Day to Day:

I heard an eye-opening interview on NPR's Day to Day with a woman who says she was near to being diagnosed as being in a "persistent vegetative state" and was trying desperately to signal her doctors and nurses while they debated the most convenient time to kill her--sorry, I mean, exercise her "right to die."

Kaus then asks a very pertinent question:

How does a) the number of innocent people who will be executed under death penalty procedures compare with b) the number of innocent, live patients who will be killed under a tendentious diagnosis of PVS? I'd guess the ratio is probably one to 100, maybe 1 to 1,000. But the American left makes a huge (and legitimate) fuss about the former while it actually promotes the latter.

I doubt many will get to the heart of this like Mickey Kaus. Just as the results of the Innocence Project on death rows across the nation have cast doubt on the death penalty, cases like this should give anyone pause who agitates for killing people based on the judgment of imperfect people.

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