Cite where I said that pls.
It’s clear from all your posts that, even if he wanted to die, and even if he was suffering, you do not think they should have allowed him to.
As we know he wanted to die, and we know he was suffering, it’s clear you want him to have been kept alive despite that.
Why? Why prolong someone’s suffering against their will?
:rolleyes: yourself. Your stated problem is that he was asked this question when he was all woozy from drugs and without any time for consideration. After he was asked to make the decision, he had whatever time it took for all the paperwork to be done, the orders put in, and the vent removed (if the medical facilities I’ve dealt with have been any indication, this was probably at least an hour), plus another five hours after that for the drugs to wear off and him to reconsider. At no point during that time frame, with him presumably getting clearer-headed and more able to wrap his brain around the issue the whole time, did he ask to be put back on the vent. Not even when he began to gasp and struggle to breathe did he ask for further intervention. Rather, he told his family that he was ready to go.
Honestly, what part of that sounds like someone who made a hasty, drug-addled decision and would have changed his mind given a little more time, rather than someone who had previously given the matter deep thought and made a decision that, while made in the abstract, didn’t change in the face of reality?
You keep talking about the high quality of life available to quadriplegics, but your idea of high quality of life and someone else’s may well not be the same thing. I could have a good quality of life as a paraplegic–I’d have to make some changes but could continue with most of the things that give me pleasure in life. But as a quadriplegic? If I could never knit or spin or sew or root around in the garden or cook a meal or scritch my critters under the chin or have any sort of meaningful sex with my husband? Fuck that shit.
I was giving you the benefit of doubt. That doubt has been removed. You don’t appear to understand the gravity of this man’s situation. He already expressed his wishes verbally prior to his condition and they woke him up for a confirmation of those wishes. He wanted out like a great many people would.
When I first heard the story, I thought it sounded too quick, but then I thought about it and realized that we all make decisions based on lack of information all the time. If we require full information in order to make a decision, we can’t make a decision. So the difference is just where we draw the line and call it information enough.
I have a lower standard for a patient having enough information than I do for others. For me, a patient gets to make a decision based on much less information than someone making decisions for the patient. Because it’s a difference between doing something to another and making personal choices.
“He might have felt better about it later” is not an argument I find compelling.
Apparently, that was supposed to be a rhetorical question - my mistake. I thought maybe I misread your posts at first, and you were upset that the family didn’t want to accept a terminal situation so they woke the guy up just to ask him if he wanted to die right away or be hooked up to a ventilator first.
But you think maybe the family pressured him to give up hope prematurely? Well, it’s hard to say based on just the article, but it’s certainly open to that interpretation - in which case, I’d agree that they ought to have been more supportive. On the other hand, everything you’ve said in favor of them acting differently reads like a page out of the “suffering is good for the soul” playbook, so I’m not sure where that leaves you.
Suicide is a personal decision. I’m sure they didn’t coerce him into it. All of you who are ‘disgusted’ haven’t had to personally deal with a shitty situation yourselves. Trust me, he made the decision, and I support him in that. I am unemployed and have PTSD, I decide every day to live… and I wonder why. Still unemployed - despite being an amazing employee in the past… I f#$% hate my life. I wish I hadn’t been talked out of it years ago. Now I live a miserable existance simply because I have kids, and because I’ve saught treatment. I’m no happier, I just have coping mechanisms… Don’t talk people out of suicide, its selfish on YOUR part.
That’s a big ass assumption, that is the basis for your entire rant. There’s too much here that nobody on the outside knows. Your indignation should be prefaced with a footnote that **you don’t believe **it was a carefully made choice, not that it wasn’t one. :rolleyes: