It may not be wise to have a living will but, instead, a "Will to Live," as the National Right to Life Committee describes it.

The concept of a living will was aired in various reports about the tragic court-approved dehydration and starvation that led to Terri Schindler Schiavo's death March 31.

A typically worded living will may not respect the beliefs of a pro-life Christian, according to the National Right to Life Committee and the Christian Medical Association.

It's important to be specific about your end-of-life wishes, they say.

Burke J. Balch, director of the NRLC's medical ethics department, noted in a commentary on the right-to-life organization's website, "Denial of food and fluids to people who cannot speak for themselves has been going on for 15 years in this country. It is routine practice in hospitals and nursing homes across the country.... Only in the comparatively rare cases when there is some dispute among relatives [such as the Terri Schiavo case] do these cases reach public attention, normally in the context of lawsuits.

Legal surrogates such as the closest relative or a guardian, or in some cases, even the person's doctor "are daily authorizing the cutoff of food and fluids to patients who are unable to speak for themselves and never gave any indication that they might want to be starved," Balch reiterated.

David Stevens, executive director of the 17,000-member Christian Medical Association, said in a statement after Terri Schiavo's death, "If anything remotely positive can come of this tragedy, it will be a fresh awareness of the need for patients to protect themselves by designating a proxy who will stand up for their clear desires in a case of incapacitation."

Schiavo's life was "unnaturally cut short" by starvation and dehydration that "led to a slow and painful death," Stevens said.

Both organizations have posted documents on the websites by which people can stipulate a pro-life approach to their care if they become incapacitated.

At the National Right to Life Committee website, www.nrlc.org, click on "Will to Live."

At the Christian Medical Association website, www.cmdahome.org, click on "Advance Directive."

Schiavo had no living will but her husband's-initiated court-approved death was strongly opposed by her parents and brother and sister for years, who felt Terri had been denied proper rehabilitation by her husband after a heart stoppage left her brain-damaged in 1990.

Balch noted that "the prevailing view in the judiciary, as in the medical profession, is receptive to the quality-of-life ethic [to sanction a death such as Schiavo's]. Judges are often dismissive of our position that all human beings possess dignity and the right to live, regardless of their age or degree of disability."

In fact, Balch added, "the current battleground is over efforts by health care personnel to cut off food, fluid and life-saving treatments from patients they think have a poor quality of life against the wishes of the patient and family. A large body of medical and ethical opinion holds that even when there is no doubt that a patient wants to live, or when family members are united in saying the patient should get life-saving treatment, doctors and hospitals should be able to say no."