I think life is a useless marker. Trees are alive, bacteria are alive (and actually make up more of your body in number of cells than human cells), fish, cows, yeast, all alive. What makes human life special? It's not life in general that you hold sacred, right? It's ok to kill animals just cause you like how they taste. That's not murder. But withdrawing support someone whose brain dead already is? Why are humans special? Just because of human DNA? We share the majority of our DNA with chimpanzees.

We assign value to all life. See my points above. We also assign value to people. We'll spend money all sorts of things rather than spend it on keeping people alive. Resources are finite. Some people don't get clean water. Some people don't get shots. Some people don't get food. We have to prioritize (unfortunately). Even if we didn't, though, it would seem disrespectful to keep her body alive when she's brain dead. It's like hauling a corpse around. Like if you made a puppet out of a dead body and walked it around the neighborhood, or something like that.

So do you think all war is wrong? I think Catholicism allows you to murder in self defense, right? To protect innocents, or something like that?

Well you asked what's informing my decision, which is a lot of things besides principles. It's not about data or interpreting results necessarily. I think my principles in this case are: - Respect human bodies even when their minds aren't present. - Don't use resources wastefully. - Don't use religion as an excuse. - It's cruel to keep a suffering being alive (human or otherwise).

How else would you suggest we make those decisions? If you can't consent, either because you're unconscious or a child, then someone has to make a decision for you. Not acting would keep a lot of people from getting life saving medicine or keep them in needless, pointless suffering. Morality aside, what other practical option is there?

I don't think anyone believes death is the cure for all ills, but just like it's the humane choice for a pet sometimes, I firmly believe it's the humane option to offer humans sometimes.