Sorry.
No and no.
Hmm. As a service to your loved ones, you should probably have that tattooed on your forehead, just in case one of them starts thinking about giving you a medical PoA.
It is not my decision to make, and I am not sure there was nothing left of Terri, and I feel her parents should have been allowed to care for her body if they wanted. Terri herself was never in any danger, either in or out of her body. The fight was really over a body. The only difference being her husband couldn’t marry his mistress, and then there was the long shot that Terri just might wake up. That would have really stirred the stew. Stranger things have happened. Life is complicated. Nothing is simple.
No as in you would resign as attorney, or no as in you would act as attorney contrary to the wishes of the person for whom you were acting?
I understood the question as having the responsibility suddenly given to me, without control.
As a service to your loved ones you can tattoo on your forehead “I’m willing to pull the plug”.
Everyone who’s ever spoken with me about this subject knows my position. Should anyone ask I would inform them of my beliefs and let them decide if I am a good option for them.
And just before anyone says so, I know several people who would agree with me even if I’m not on their list.
Nonsense. You are ignoring the facts.
When it comes to POAs, a person can pick the attorney and give directions such as “pull the plug,” “do not pull the plug,” or “do what you think is best in accordance with your convictions.” It is a pity Shiavo did not have a POA, for that may have prevented the most disgusting special interest and politicial circus that arose.
I guess that says a lot about christian compassion!
Sometime the responsability to make a final decision is forced upon a person with no warning and no way to avoid it and forcing your wants/beliefs on a terminaly ill or braindead person is just as cruel as torture.
I hope that you never find yourself in the position of having to honor a loved ones last wishes, I am also glad that I am not related to you and that I will never have to trust you to carry out my last request.
Peace
LIONsob
Do you care about Terri’s own wishes?
As someone who’s been involved in that type of situation three times over the past six months – twice involving others, once undergoing rather elaborate surgery myself – I have only strengthened my convictions. And have told my family, friends, doctors, lawyers and anyone else that would listen, that the day I suffer brain-damage (beyond what I already have) and need to be kept artificially alive basically for the sole egotistical purposes of others who’d like to deny death, that I WANT that plug pulled ASAP.
Cruelty, egoism and a side of freak-show are not my bag.
I think at this point, the answer is obvious.
Perhaps we should stop burying or cremating corpses? After all, they might wake up! Stranger things have happened.
Simply insane bullshit. A horse with a broken leg gets more humane treatment – as in being put out of its misery.
Jebus! When will this pre-medieval thinking go away? To think we’re in the 21th Century and it prevails amongst the willfully ignorant.
No. She. Never. Would. Wake. Up.
She no longer had a brain. Just a mass of liquid in her skull. HOW many times does this have to be pointed out, lekatt?
It says more about your lack of understanding about compassion and reading comprehension.
If the person has such clear instructions, I don’t know why they need me. The idea that a person forcing his beliefs on me (making me pull the plug when I don’t want to) is somehow better than me forcing mine, is ridiculous (even if I’m not forcing anything).
How do you know we are not related?
I always wonder in these debates why anythyng else I dying person does is always legally suspect (buying, selling, marrying, writing wills).
You did read the whole quote, didn’t you?
I’d rather you did not call me willfully ignorant without explaining specifically what it is I am ignorant of.
Is it more humane to kill rather than alleviate pain?
I am of the OPINION (and that’s all it is) that yes, sometimes it may be a kindness. A favorite uncle of mine developed cancer. It hit him fast. It hit him bad. The doctors kept giving him stronger and stronger drugs, eventually morphine. The problem is, as the cancer progressed, pain killers had less and less effect. The only good thing about it was, he went fast. So. What happens when the pain killers aren’t working anymore, and the disease has progressed to the point that the person is simply dying? Prolong the agony? I would say no. There comes a time when the ONLY decent thing to do, is to let go. Anything less is cruel and barbaric.
(my bolding)
Agreed.
Let me get this out of the way. I honestly believe the poor woman was brain dead. But, how does ones brain become a mass of liquid? I’m not trying to be snarky. I’m just curious.
Excess spinal fluid around an atrophied brain? Tissue degeneration? I’m just supposing.
In the first place, plenty of dying people do those things and their actions are held to be legally valid (do you really imagine that dying people in general aren’t legally allowed to make wills, if they’re mentally competent?).
In the second place, we’re talking about decisions people made before they were dying. If a healthy person expresses a preference not to be kept on life-support in a permanent vegetative state, then it seems to me that if that person eventually ends up in a permanent vegetative state, that preference should be respected by family members and caregivers.
Yes, I agree that it’s smart for a healthy person to state their preference explicitly and officially in a legal document, but I don’t see why being brain-dead should somehow make it “legally suspect” for a person to have rejected the option of life support back when they weren’t brain-dead.