For eons, the great unanswerable question has been, "What is the meaning of life?" (The answer is 42, for all you non-Hitchhiker's Guide folks.) But these days, the question has become, "when does life start, and when does life end?" The latter half of that is weighing on everyone's mind. At what point do we declare brain death? For me, the distinction has always been when artificial life support is needed to keep the heart and lungs going when there is a total loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by a lack of measurable brain waves. But what if the body has the ability to breathe on its own and its heart pumps gamely along without artificial intervention, yet there does not appear to be any brain activity? Is that dead? Terry Schiavo's husband thinks so. Vegetable=Dead. Any so-called response is just a reflex, not a cognitive reaction. She's dead, so let's hurry up and bury the body. For seven years he's fought with his inlaws to have the right to turn off the artificial life support system to allow her to die. The lungs work, the heart beats, but because swallowing is difficult, let's pull the feeding tube and let her starve. She's been dead for years, right? Right? Perhaps. But in my mind, I think it would be a far nobler thing for him to give up guardianship to her parents and let them support and love Terri for as long as they possibly can. Maybe it is a waste of resources, a waste of money, a waste of a nursing home bed. But what if we're wrong, and she's really still in there, disabled but not truly dead? How far-reaching will this decision be? Will it effect euthanasia cases? And can starvation truly be considered a form of euthanasia since it's hardly quick or painless? A woman, not a body, is starving to death today, and our legal system appears to be helpless to prevent it.