Brain Scan May Foster Communication With Vegetative Patients: Experts Say Study May Reinvigorate Right-to-Life Debate

For the brother of Terri Schiavo, Wednesday's news that a team of researchers in England were able to use a novel scanning technology to establish limited communication with a man in a persistent vegetative state was bittersweet. A low percentage of vegetative patients are more conscious than once thought. Bobby Schindler said that while the test using functional magnetic resonance imaging likely holds promise for the families of minimally conscious and persistently vegetative patients, he wishes his sister had been afforded this technology before a court ruling allowed her husband Michael Schiavo to remove her feeding tube in 2005 leading to her death. ABC News