Spelling it out

Medicine | Schiavo case shows the need for very specific advance directives | Lynn Vincent

As Terri Schiavo's tongue bled and her eyes sank from the effects of dehydration, her husband's attorney, George Felos, announced what may be the first autopsy ever scheduled for public-relations purposes in advance of a person's death. Michael Schiavo, his lawyer said last week, hoped the results would show "the full and massive extent of the damage to Mrs. Schiavo's brain," and prove to the public that she wasn't cognitive, responsive, or cruelly starved to death.

But interpreting brain autopsy results can be a fairly subjective medical discipline, notes Eileen Bigio, director of neuropathology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine—and besides that, she said, the Schiavo case isn't just about medicine.