Anne Applebaum says in the Washington Post:

Yet, although we see video images of death all the time -- movie shootouts, scenes of faraway warfare -- we don't much like dwelling on the medicalized environments in which most people in our society actually pass away, and we don't like thinking about the murky ethical dilemmas that their deaths often present. In some sense the Schiavo case has attracted so much attention precisely because it brings, almost for the first time, a very common, very painful, but usually very private dilemma into the public sphere.

Can we just not politicize this any further?

The fact that this has drawn so much public attention doesn't mean the general issue is now a public one.

IF Republicans try to extend this to a debate over whether parents or spouses are the default legal guardians...a totally stupid discussion unless the parents are still listing the person as a tax deduction...I would suggest Democrats take the position that current case law is clear, states can pass whatever they like to modify applicable law, and move on.