A FEDERAL JUDGE has set a hearing for later today after Terri Schiavo's parents filed suit asking for a federal review of the case.

The significance of the Schiavo case explained:

"Her condition is hardly unique. In 1995, when the American Academy of Neurology published its report on people in a persistent vegetative state, it found that there were as many as 25,000 adults and 10,000 children in this country who suffered from PVS. Based on the best studies the Academy could find at the time, some adults in a vegetative state 12 months after a devastating injury or heart failure could recover consciousness and some human functions. The chances that such a recovery will occur are very small, but they are not zero.

If they are not zero, then withdrawing a patient's feeding tubes and allowing her to die from a lack of water and food means that whoever authorizes such a step may, depending on the circumstances, be murdering the patient. The odds against it being a murder are very high, but they are not 100%."

"Keeping people alive is the goal of medicine," Wilson concludes. "We can only modify that policy in the case of patients for whom death is imminent and where all competent family members believe that nothing can be gained by extending life for a few more days."

All competent family members are not in agreement on whether Terri Schiavo should live or die. Her parents want her to live, and it can reasonably be assumed that if they thought that she had no chance to recover from her state then they would not be fighting so hard for her continued life. They do not appear to be sadists. Her husband -- curiously -- is determined to have her die. The motivations for his stance, since he seems disinclined to elaborate, remain unclear. His comments yesterday that "congress...has better things to do" are both nonresponsive to the issue at hand, and frankly rather pathetic.

If an error is to be made here, it must necessarily be made in favor of Terri Schiavo. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this country is paramount. If there is a realistic chance -- however small -- that Terri Schiavo could someday recover from her current state than it is imperative that her life support be reinstalled without delay, regardless of whether Michael Schiavo and some others stand appalled.