Anyway, the whole sordid affair is almost past us.
I don't think so. I think this is a watershed event in our history, like Dred Scott or Roe v. Wade, and the repercussions will continue to affect us for generations. Hopefully, some good will come of it.
It has nothing to do with trust in my own wife, and everything to do with the privacy of the marital relationship.
Personally, I'd like to see a provision in the law that a person with a conflict of interest can't make life or death decisions for an incapacitated person, or at least that there is a way to remove them from that status in the event that a conflict of interest becomes patent.
Under the common law, there was no legal ability to make such decisions, the default was an obligation to maintain your spouse's life by whatever means available, but there just were not many options.
These days, technology has advanced faster than our ethics. Your ethical position make sense if, and only if, we assume that spouses share ethical values. Having handled hundreds of divorces, I think that assumption is touchingly naive. |
