"In fact, declining food and water is a common way that terminally ill patients end their lives, because it is less painful than violent suicide and requires no help from doctors," the paper maintains.

The Times also cites Dr. Sean Morrison, a professor of geriatrics and palliative care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, who insists that starvation victims "generally slip into a peaceful coma."

"It's very quiet, it's very dignified - it's very gentle," he adds.

Other experts not quoted by the Times, however, disagree.

Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, says that in fact, for a conscious patient like Terri Schiavo, death by starvation will be fraught with agony.

In his book "Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder," Smith reports:

"A conscious person would feel it [dehydration] just as you and I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack.

"They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining.

"They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water. Death by dehydration takes ten to fourteen days. It is an extremely agonizing death."

Of course, if the Times is right - and starvation causes "little discomfort" - the paper may have uncovered a valuable new tool in the war on terror.

One wonders how the Old Gray Lady would react if U.S. interrogators began to starve terrorist suspects in a bid to extract information.

Editor's note: