Right-To-Die Court Case Splits Wife And In-Laws

RICHMOND, Va. - Although Michele Finn won the battle to end life support for her severely brain-damaged husband, she and her children lost something in the process: a relationship with his family.

Four months since Hugh Finn died after his feeding tube was removed, the bitterness and anger that marked the case still linger.

Most of his family angrily maintains that Hugh Finn's death was the euthanasia of a healthy man. And Michele Finn no longer speaks to her sister, who sided with Hugh Finn's parents during the legal battles.

"I think that the relationship between Michele and I is over," said Elaine Glazier, Michele Finn's sister. "We're hoping that when the children become of age, we'll re-establish contact and they'll understand what we tried to do."

Hugh Finn, a former Louisville, Ky., television news anchor, was critically injured in a March 1995 car accident. His doctors said he was in a "persistent vegetative state" - unable to think, walk, talk or control his body.

In June 1998, Michele Finn told her husband's family that she planned to let him die. Under Virginia law, food and water may be withheld from people who are permanently vegetative.

Hugh Finn's family questioned his diagnosis, and his brother, John, unsuccessfully filed suit to stop the removal of the feeding tube. Gov. Jim Gilmore's emergency motion to stop the removal also was rejected.

The emotional toll the court fight had on the family took center stage in the Virginia state Senate recently, during a hearing in which the panel approved reimbursing Michele Finn $48,000 for the state's effort to keep her husband alive.

The animosity between the families was exacerbated by those who counseled Hugh Finn's family to keep fighting his wife's decision, said Karen Finn, Hugh's sister and the one blood relative who supported Michele Finn.

The anger has not subsided. Glazier traveled from her Pennsylvania home to Richmond to tell legislators that her sister doesn't deserve to be reimbursed for her legal costs.

While Glazier said her brother-in-law was "cruelly starved to death," Michele Finn sat outside the hearing room weeping.

"I resent the fact that my sister insinuates that I did not have the best interest of Hugh in mind," she said after the hearing.

For now, Karen Finn said, the two sides undoubtedly will remain apart.

"It's a long process, and we all have to heal," she said. "Michele and (daughters) Keeley and Bridget are all we have left of Hugh. I love being involved in their life. . . . I hope that can happen for the rest of my family."