The Village Voice's Nat Hentoff says of Terri Schiavo: "Her crime was being disabled, voiceless, and at the disposal of our media."

An excerpt:

For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.

She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists.

Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case — Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him — to have her own lawyer represent her.

Greer has declared Terri Schiavo to be in a persistent vegetative state, but he has never gone to see her. His eyesight is very poor, but surely he could have visited her along with another member of his staff. Unlike people in a persistent vegetative state, Terri Schiavo is indeed responsive beyond mere reflexes.

While lawyers and judges have engaged in a minuet of death, the American Civil Liberties Union, which would be passionately criticizing state court decisions and demanding due process if Terri were a convict on death row, has shamefully served as co-counsel for her husband, Michael Schiavo, in his insistent desire to have her die.

It's late, and I don't have time and/or the mental energy to argue with this, but I'm not sure which neurologists Hentoff is referring to. He certainly doesn't name them.

As to the ALCU, perhaps it is acting in the belief that Michael Schiavo is actually carrying out Terri's wishes.

His thing about Terri not having a lawyer to represent her interests is ridiculous. The person charged with her interests is her husband.

And if she really didn't want to die, it's a really bad judgment call on Schiavo's part to insist she did, considering lots of money has been offered to him to walk away from all this.

Given the heated feelings, don't be surprised if Schiavo is killed some day by someone who will murder in the name of protecting life.

Hentoff says Judge George Greer has never gone to see Schiavo, but then again, why should he? He's not a medical expert. His role to is to take evidence from medical experts, weigh it, and apply the relevant law.

As to Hentoff saying Schiavo is "responsive beyond mere reflexes," how would he know? When did he have time to earn a neurology degree between "Liberty Beat" columns?

Here is what an article from MedPage Today, found through CNN.com, said about people in a persistent vegetative state:

Patients in a persistent vegetative state like Terri Schiavo are a subgroup who suffer severe anoxic brain injury and progress to a state of wakefulness without awareness.

It is judged to be permanent after three months if induced nontraumatically. After 3 months, recovery is rare and life expectancy is approximately 2 to 5 years.

Patients in a persistent vegetative state do not feel pain, nor do they "suffer," says Michael De Georgia, MD, head of the neurology-neurosurgery intensive care unit at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation here.

Pain, as well as suffering, requires consciousness, which is lacking in a person in a persistent vegetative state.

For tonight's purposes, let me say that everyone, please -- get a living will made out as soon as possible.