Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (13917)	10/26/2003 2:16:32 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793624

But the point isn't whether she will recover, but whether it is ethical to stop her life merely because she isn't self-aware. CB, I don't know if you haven't answered my question because it slipped by you or because you chose not to. Please don't feel pressured by my repeating it. I'd like to know your thoughts but if you've had enough of this, that's OK, too. What I'd like to know is whether and how you'd change the generally accepted current procedures for dealing with patients in persistent vegetative states. Would you not allow courts the latitude to authorize "plug-pulling" unless there was a formal advance directive, that is, never based on what you called "hearsay?" That is my impression from what you're written. Is my impression correct?

To: Ilaine who wrote (13917)	10/26/2003 4:56:50 PM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 793624

Re: Clinging to life- the drive to survive seems to continue in our bodies long after the point when conscious thought gives out. I think making an informed decision in advance that you don't want to survive in that state, even if your body is willing to go on for years artificially sustained, is understandable and should be respected. Lke you, I would care for my child as long as he was warm and breathing and fight to the end to do so, unless he had left very specific instructions to the contrary. I can imagine making no other choice. But I think that we need to be very, very careful about the circumstances and decisions about someone who has left no directives. Careful to the point of erring on the other side, if need be, which is why I said what I did yesterday. Which says nothing absolute about anything, I know, except the way I feel. I don't know if Kevorkian is evil or not. I have always assumed he believed absolutely in what he did. That kind of belief is very alien to the way my brain works. I see in later posts you have started taking this much farther- bringing in Alzheimer's and the profoundly retarded. Do we make any distinction between the indefinite use of feeding tubes and life support on people with black holes where their cerebral cortex used to be and these types of cases? You mentioned that Terri is young and strong. Dan;s grandmother was in a nursing home in her 90s and a feeding tube was inserted without the family's permission. Then when they objected, they were told that the tube could not legally be removed once it was in. The woman was completely unaware of anything by that time and her own body had been shutting itself down gracefully, and here come the doctors, keeping it alive actually against its own will. This seems ridiculous and unnatural to me. Do we make exceptions then for old age? Slippery slopes for sure. I often feel like we're skiing down a black run with no poles.