Well, I've been following this case closely too. There are a lot of ins and a lot of outs as Labowski would say. I see lots of problems in this case:
1) The system of checks and balances is now tiped, how can the legislator go back and overturn the courts. I thought the courts checked the legislator and interpreted their work.
2) It has become a media fiasco! I like listening to Glen Beck in the mornings, but he is a right wing extremeist at times. He has no medical training. He goes to visit her and then comes on his radio show and tells america she in not brain dead! WTF Glen, since when did you learn to read EEG's! This is just as wreckless as those guys up north giving out that kids address and phone number that interferred with that Yankee's game.
3) This has been battled in the corts for years. She has shown NO IMPROVEMENT for 10 years! If the husband didn't care about her he would of divorced her. He is simply seeing to it that her wishes are being crarried out.
4) Smiling is a reflex, bulbular nuclei in the spinal cord and the facial nerve control smiling. It does not require higher order processing (Cortical) to form a smile. i.e infants that smile prior to 3 months of age are doing it reflexively. Even enfants with anencephaly smile prior to their short life ending. For some reason the neural network encoding smiling is in the most primative parts of our brains, the brainstem (in the pons and medulla). Do a pubmed search on smiling and bulbular nuclei. Now I'm not saying there aren't hippocampal and amygdala pathways to these nuclei, of coarse there are! How else would we smile when something tickles us. The bottom line here is that her smiling in not definative of anything. Just look at her eyes, no one is home.
5) As my grandfather would say, It's a giant $hit sandwhich and no one wants a bite. Starving her to death is NOT a humane way to die. The ethical arguments behind living wills, not to mention the moral back ground, is to allow someone to die with dignity. Starving to death is not dying with dignity, its HELL! So what does this bring up, her quality of life. And thanks to our insurance health care system, yes there is a price on life. It's done all the time on indigent cancer patients. So this is now an argument for euthanasia. The writers of the bible (keep in mind the only literate people during this time were monks, maybe there is a little bias in the writings) could have never imagined a situation of euthasia, but we do it to our animals all the time. We are more humane with our Pets than we are with our family. If you say no, then animal euthanasia is totally a finacial decison on your part. Now we come to the fact she is not suffering, just not fuctioning. She is able to maintain her own life status, as long as she is watered and turned, like a frickin plant.
I don't know what the answer her is. She is not in pain that they can tell, she is not miserable (brain dead!) or should I say she isn't aware of her status, her GCS is like a 10, so she realy is not conscious. Consciousness is the fact you are aware you were awake monents ago. She is able to breath on her own, and other than needing G-tube feedings and turning to prevent decubitus ulcers, she is "independent."
With our current laws, societal standards (they'll change soon, they are so plastic) and moral beliefs, I think the right answer is to let her live (only with this logic, my gut tells me to let her go). But, we must honor her autonomy. She expressed to her husband she would never want to live like that, then we must follow her wishes.
This was long winded. I know I would not want to die of starvation, but I also know I would not want to live like her. Lesson learned here is to have a living will and make sure EVERYONE in you family will honor your wishes.
Good to be on the same side with you, Bridaddy. 
