Schiavo and Quinlan
From the Star Ledger, A name to revive ache in N.J.: Karen Quinlan:

To the surprise of many, Karen Ann was able to breathe on her own and lived in a coma for nine more years in a nursing home.

During that time, she was given nutrition, hydration and vitamins but was not treated with medicines, including antibiotics.

Ironically, the Star Ledger yesterday had a story titled, Where there's hope, there's life.

One question for those who state that Terry Schiavo's brain dead: If she's brain dead, why is she being given morphine?

Update Previously I had posted that the Elian Gonzalez case had established a precedent used on the Schiavo case, in that "requirements for a moving party seeking federal injunctive relief - first among them that the moving party must have a substantial likelihood of succeeding on the merits", as Paxety Pages explained. Today the WSJ, in Selective Restraint: Liberals cheered when Janet Reno defied the courts to seize Elian Gonzalez

In both cases, those who were unhappy with the courts' decisions strained to assert the federal government's power to produce a different outcome. The difference is that in Mrs. Schiavo's case, Congress backed off after passing a bill that merely asked a federal court to hear the case from scratch, something that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore declined to do. By contrast, those who wanted the federal government to intervene in Elian Gonzalez's case went all the way, supporting a predawn armed federal raid on the morning before Easter to seize the 6-year-old boy despite a federal appeals court's refusal to order his surrender.