This Letter to the Editor comments on an earlier article & questions why withholding food & fluids from severely deformed newborns or persons in persistant vegatative states is not considered morally-forbidden intentional killing but that doing so for normal newborns or nonvegatative persons is. The author responds that for normal persons, the withholder’s intent would be to do them harm whereas it is debatable that to deprive a person in a persistant vegatative state is really to do them harm.