When a Texas hospital took Marlise Munoz off life support last week, I recalled a similar case 19 years ago here in Baldwin County.

The Baldwin County case was simpler. Correan Salter had suffered a stroke in 1987 at the age of 69 that left her comatose and in a fetal position. She had left no Advanced Medical Directive and was placed in a bed at Westminster Village in Spanish Fort. Machines kept her lungs and heart functioning and she was fed through a tube. Tests showed she had no mental activity. This went on for 8 years.

Salter’s children (her husband had predeceased her) sought to remove her feeding tube, but Baldwin County Circuit Court Judge Pamela Baschab ruled they could not do so, based on the Alabama Natural Death Act of 1981.

Attorneys for the Salter children were appealing the case to the Alabama Supreme Court in March of 1995 when Mrs. Salter died of natural causes. Two years later, the Alabama legislature amended the Natural Death Act to allow surrogates to make medical decisions for brain-dead patients with no Advanced Medical Directive.

The Texas case was more complicated. When Marlise Munoz’s husband Erick found her unconscious from a blood clot, she was 14 weeks pregnant. After doctors determined she was brain-dead and that her fetus had suffered incapacitating mental and physical abnormalities, Erick sought to end life support. But pro-life activists sued to block the move in order to save the fetus. Last week a judge ruled in Erick’s favor and Marlise was allowed to die. The fetus was at 23 weeks’ gestation and was not delivered.

Legal questions aside, where does one start to unpack the moral and philosophical issues raised by these cases? No one opposes life. Even the most fervent pro-choice activist is in favor of life. But what is life? Maybe it’s a matter of how we define the word.

Do a beating heart and expanding lungs constitute “life?” Did Correan Salter and Marlise Munoz have a “life” when their brains had stopped functioning and their bodies were sustained by machines? Would Marlise’s fetus have had a “life” if it had been delivered and never been able to leave the incubator? What difference would it have made had her fetus been healthy?

And who is to say what life is? Someone’s family? The church? A doctor? The state legislature? A circuit judge? The Supreme Court? God? God may have an opinion, he hasn’t told anyone what it is, or at least not so as to command unanimous assent.

I have an opinion, too. I believe life is God-given and has a sacred purpose. The purpose of a human life is to glorify and enjoy God. We do that not only in worship, but in acts of service and in loving relationships with other people and the rest of God’s creation.

By that understanding, Correan Salter “died” in 1987, and to have disconnected her tubes then would not have “killed” her, but merely acknowledged a fact. The same would have been true had Marlise Munoz’s tubes been removed the moment doctors determined she was brain-dead.

The reason many people oppose abortion is that a healthy fetus is a potential life. It can become a person who glorifies and enjoys God. This was not true, however, of Marlise Munoz’s fetus after its oxygen supply had been cut off for several minutes following her stroke. Her fetus was no longer a potential life; it would never have been capable of glorifying and enjoying God. To have aborted it — even if Marlise had been expected to recover — would not have terminated a life.

Many thoughtful people disagree with me and sundry perplexing questions remain about ending a life. What about capital punishment, euthanasia, war and “Stand your ground?” There may never be consensus on these matters. To some questions, the only honest answer includes yes, no, if, when, perhaps and however.

But I’m sure of one thing: You can do your next of kin a huge favor by doing what my wife and I have done: Fill out an Advanced Medical Directive and give copies to you next of kin. An excellent resource is “Preparing for Death,” available for $3.95 at

forwardmovement.org.

Richard H. Schmidt is a retired Episcopal priest, editor and author who lives in Fairhope. He can be reached at courier@gulfcoastnewspapers.com.