LONDON -- While U.S. politicians and courts debated the implications of removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, the rest of the world looked on this week with a mixture of revulsion and approval.
Many commentators disagreed with the intervention of President Bush and Congress in the case of the brain-damaged 41-year-old, saying such vital, complex decisions are best left to courts, physicians and the family. They accused Bush and his religious-right allies of hypocrisy and political posturing.
Other commentators gave plaudits to Bush -- or at least welcomed the attention on Schiavo, saying it had revived much-needed public debate on when and how to prolong life in apparently hopeless cases.
"American moral melodramas quite often prove to be soap operas, but at least serve some useful purpose in focusing public attention on important issues that might otherwise be ignored," Australia's Canberra Times said about the Schiavo case.
Across the globe, there is no consensus on a patient's right to die. Many developing nations simply don't have the medical resources to keep coma patients alive indefinitely, nor the expectation that anyone would do so.
In Western Europe and in Australia and other developed countries, however, the question of when to allow patients to die has been argued for decades. Several countries have adjudicated cases broadly similar to Schiavo's, and European courts in recent years have tended to allow life support to end if physicians and a competent patient or guardian agree the case is hopeless.
Belgium and the Netherlands are the most radical. Both countries allow doctors to commit euthanasia, or mercy killing, of patients who state that wish and who are deemed to be suffering unbearably with little or no hope of recovery. Other European countries have backed away from that, fearing the authorization could be abused.
"I do make a distinction between giving a lethal injection and withdrawing treatment," said Dr. Piers Benn, a lecturer in medical ethics at London's Imperial College.
The Schiavo case is additionally troubling because the patient, although in what doctors say is a persistent vegetative state, is not otherwise in a crisis, he said.
"If there is a proper diagnosis of persistent vegetative state, and if there is no prospect of any conscious life, and there is another [medical] crisis, then I think it would be legitimate not to resuscitate," Benn said. Absent a crisis, he said, he is not sure.
