Poll: Two-Thirds Back Spouse in Right to Die Cases

March 15, 2005 — -- In family disputes over life support, a broad majority of Americans think final say should go to a patient's spouse rather than his or her parents -- placing the public firmly on the side of Terri Schiavo's husband and the Florida courts that have ruled in his favor.

Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state after suffering extensive brain damage brought on by heart failure in 1990, when she was 26. She left no living will, and her parents and husband have been locked in a dispute on whether to continue life support. Her feeding tube is to be removed Friday, though legislators may intervene.

In a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 65 percent of Americans say the spouse rather than the parents should have final say in such disputes; 25 percent say it should be the parents.

Schiavo's husband, Michael, wants to discontinue life support, saying that would be her wish. Her parents want life support continued. Here, too, the husband's position is in line with what most Americans would want for themselves: Eighty-seven percent say that if they were in this condition, they would want life support terminated.

A living will or health care proxy is intended to avoid disputes like the Schiavo family's. But, like Schiavo, most Americans lack such a document: Fifty-seven percent say they don't have a living will or health care proxy, unchanged from an ABC News poll in 2002. Such documents can include instructions for care if the patient is unable to express his or her wishes, and designate a person to make medical decisions.

As Schiavo's case illustrates, brain damage can afflict people of all ages. But older Americans are far more likely to plan for such instances. Seven in 10 senior citizens say they have a living will or health care proxy; that declines to just 25 percent of people under 30, Schiavo's age group when she was stricken.

Better-educated Americans are also more likely to have living wills.