Attorney urges right-to-die discussion

Bill Colby wants you to think about death this holiday season.

Colby, a Prairie Village attorney who represented the family of Nancy Cruzan in a landmark right-to-die case, says the holidays are the perfect time for families to talk about their last wishes.

And now that a similar case involving Florida resident Terri Schiavo has made national headlines, the timing couldn’t be better for that talk, he said.

“That’s the great lesson out of all of these cases,” he said. “Thanksgiving is coming up, and families should bring up Terri Schiavo and Nancy Cruzan. They could spare their loved ones significant grief if the unthinkable happens.”

Colby, a 1982 graduate of Kansas University’s law school, also was an adjunct professor there in the late 1990s and a visiting professor during the 2001-2002 school year.

He was hired by Cruzan’s family in the late 1980s to help them convince the Missouri government to allow them to remove a feeding tube from Cruzan.

Cruzan was left in a vegetative state after a car accident in 1983. She was placed in a state hospital that wouldn’t allow the family to stop feeding her.

The case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990. Justices allowed the family to remove the feeding tube.

While representing the Cruzan family, Colby, 48, became an advocate for a family’s right to end a relative’s life if that was the relative’s wish.

“It became clear to me quickly in the case that it should be the family’s decision,” Colby said. “They loved their daughter, and they had to choose between two bad options.”

Colby in 2002 wrote “Long Goodbye: The Deaths of Nancy Cruzan” about the family’s experiences.

Colby and his book have received new attention in recent months because of the Schiavo case. He has appeared on CNN and MSNBC in recent weeks and will be on the Montel Williams Show on Dec. 4.

Terri Schiavo has been in a vegetative state similar to Cruzan since a heart attack in 1990. Her husband claims she had previously made comments that she would want her feeding tube removed if in that situation, but her parents are adamantly against the tube’s removal.

A Florida court ruled her husband could remove the tube, but the Florida Legislature quickly passed a law allowing Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene. Bush ordered the tube to remain. That order is being challenged in court.

Colby said he was confident the court system would overturn Bush’s decision and Schiavo would be allowed to die.

“It’s pretty clear to me the step they’ve taken crosses the line,” he said. “And they’re missing a chance to educate people on both sides on right-to-die issues.”