(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

Passions are running high over the Terri Schiavo case, so I'm not going to comment directly on that. Please don't try and explain it to me: I've read quite enough. I am confident that by the time my body gives out nobody is going to give a flying frod whether I live or die, so it isn't going to be an issue in my case. Just...once you have established that there are circumstances in which a medical practitioner can legally take positive action to end a person's life, you've cracked open a door that can all too easily be pushed back against the wall, and if you trust the leaders of our countries not to take advantage of a handy way of getting rid of people, I don't. The only line that can't be "redefined" is the one on zero.

And if, five minutes after I do snuff it, someone comes up with a procedure which had I been kept alive a little longer could have saved me, I hope they'll have the decency to keep quiet about it till I'm safely in the landfill.

Comments

[armb.livejournal.com]

What are you counting as "take positive action"? Turn off a ventilator? Cease force feeding?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

No, what I mean is what some people have been advocating--giving a lethal dose of morphine or some other drug to "ease the patient out of life." Yes, in the beginning it would only be in case of PVS, or brain death, or total paralysis, or irrecoverable loss of quality of life, but once you can do that kind of thing the conditions under which you can do it can be bent and stretched out of all proportion, and I don't want that to be happening on my planet. Yes, some people are suffering. People do suffer. Sometimes that can't be helped. But once there's a form someone can sign which authorises someone else to take a life that isn't ending on its own, we're in a bad place.

[armb.livejournal.com]

I think where a terminally ill patient is in a position to ask for morphine or similar pain relief, they should be allowed it in amounts that will shorten their life, even to the extent of "kill them fast", if that's what they choose.
In a PVS/brain death case, it's just to make the onlookers feel better, the patient won't feel anything anyway (at least assuming the doctors are correct in their diagnosis).
The difficult case is the one where the patient can feel pain, but isn't in a position to express their wishes. I agree with you there is a danger of abuse, but think that maybe the case where the "form someone can sign" is a living will or similar signed by the person whose life is going to be ended, not by someone else, should override that.
Having said that, studies have shown many people dramatically underestimate how they cope with adversity, and will when healthy say they would rather die than be paralysed, only to find later that actually they are very glad to be alive, although paralysed. But for obvious reasons you can't find out how people who can't communicate and are never expected to be able to feel about it.

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

You know my views, Zander.

I suppose it's "different when it's you" -- please God we never have to find out this way, either of us.