featherlou - You are right, it has been helpful for me to talk, both here and IRL, about how I feel and why. One interesting thought that has come out of these discussions is that I could quite possibly change my position when I get older. As I said, I feel that everyone has a time to die, and I just don’t feel ready yet, even if my life would be as limited as Terry Schiavo’s. But when I get to be 80, 90, 100 years old, maybe I will be ready to say, “You know, it’s been a good life, and I don’t need to be kept alive anymore if I no longer have my faculties.” So my current position is not necessarily permanent.
Marley23 - I think part of the issue here is that I am conflating the discussion in this thread with the discussions I have had IRL since the Schiavo case hit the news. You are right that no one in this thread specifically pressured me to change my decision. That is not so IRL.
Siege - Thanks for your support. I knew when I posted to a poll as the only person taking the contrary position that I was setting myself up to have to defend my choice. I just wanted to make sure that the other position was represented (although I am in no way a devil’s advocate here – this is and has been my position for a long time. In fact, when I told my sister that I had responded to a message board poll about whether people wanted life support removed, she immediately said, “You said ‘No’.”) But as I said above, this has been an interesting and enlightening process. It’s also probably the most attention I’ve gotten on this board in my 1500+ posts.
And I do want to reiterate that I am as horrified as everyone else by the attempts of politicians to take away Terry Schiavo’s choice in this matter. I read an editorial yesterday lamenting the fact that the courts had not decided the case in Terry’s favor. My reaction was, “No, they did decide the case in Terry’s favor – they made the decisions that would enable her wishes to be fulfilled.”