Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction Message Board

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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction

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To: Yogizuna who wrote (31604)	4/2/2005 9:02:09 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (2) of 90947

The law is an ass. It does not permit a doc to prematurely end a life with, say, an OD of morphine. It does allow a patient or a patient's designated representative to refuse to allow any artificial means of extending life - and that includes force feeding through a tube. The Schiavo case is an illustration that "hard cases make bad law". She was in a "persistent vegetative state" a long coma. Problem is, very rarely, they do end. This makes the determination that her case is impossible problematic. There is also brain death. In this, the higher centers of the bain are gone. They can not be bought back. Their lack of normal activity is demonstrable. Before the mechanisms of modern medicine they would quickly die. Now they can be kept alive indefinitely with feeding tubes, respirators, etc. There is a very large difference between this and "severely mentally and physically disabled." Brain death is the definition of death in EVERY state now. The person is DEAD. In this case removing a feeding tube is NOT starving them to death "simply because they are severely mentally and physically disabled." There's no there there anymore.

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