by Wesley J. Smith

About the author: Wesley J. Smith is an attorney for the International Anti- Euthanasia Task Force and the author of Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder.

Former news anchorman Hugh Finn was intentionally dehydrated to death in November 1998, when doctors at a Manassas, Virginia, nursing home removed his feeding tube at the request of his wife, Michele. The act was legal. It had the explicit approval of federal and Virginia courts. It took eight days for Finn to die.

Finn was not terminally ill. He was left severely brain damaged by a 1995 automobile accident. His doctors claimed he would always remain unconscious, in what is known as a permanent vegetative state. But there was significant reason for doubt. His brother Ed claimed that Hugh was sometimes conscious...