I’d say even 50/50 odds aren’t good enough for me to want to stick around in that situation.
My husband has made it clear to me he wouldn’t want to be kept on life support in a vegetative state. Thinking this idea over, the fact that he might have conciousness would make me even* more* willing to remove life support.
If everything that you loved about life was gone, why would you want to live? What’s the point of simply* existing*, clinging to life even if you can derive utterly no pleasure from it?
Huh? How does anyone ever get “away from themselves?” All I can think of is by sleeping–but I was not presuming that we were talking about a kind of brain damage which makes someone unable to sleep.
Well, in my case just to piss people off. But then, I’m a li’l bastard that way.
And inre mks57’s oh-so-melodramatic query: pretty much what everyone else has said. Honestly, would you desire to continue to take up space (because I refuse to concede that lying there unable to do a damned thing is in any way “living”)? If so, why? What possible purpose could be served?
Sorry. As someone plagued by mental health problems, I’m often thrilled at any contrivance that allows me to do just that. Like an easily repetitive video game or to get lost in a __________ (movie/book/etc.) so that you can temporarily not have to cope with whatever is ailing you. Sleep also fits the bill.
Soooooo… all that said, that’s what I was referring to. If I was in a PVS, I wouldn’t be afforded any outside stimulation to alleviate the emotional (or more) pain.
Many many years ago, when Kevorkian had hit the news, I had a conversation with my mother. I asked her, if I were in a PVS or in some other way completely incapacitated or dying (for instance, from aggressive inoperable cancer), would she be willing to help me die. Her answer to me was that she did not have me to watch me suffer. She agreed that she would help me to die with dignity if it were clearly the right choice. We both agreed that deciding if the choice were right would be difficult beyond words. She asked if I would help her die with dignity in the event that she were dying anyway. I agreed that I did not want to watch my mother suffer.
Four months after I became a mother, my mother lay dying of cancer. My very large family arranged our schedules so that she was never without one of her children. I was with her on a Tuesday afternoon. I asked her if she wanted a drink, and gave her some flat ginger ale through a straw. I asked if she wanted to eat, and she indicated that she did not. She appeared to be in quite a bit of pain, and I knew she was due for medication. I very carefully measured out a dose of liquid morphine. As I put the dropper in her mouth, she looked at me with the most pleading expression I’ve ever seen, and which I never care to see again. I KNEW what she wanted me to do. I did not give her what I knew she wanted, what she’d have asked for if she’d still had her voice. I know that she was disappointed, not in me, but in her impending death, and the time it was taking. She was ready to go, long before that afternoon. I had to work Wednesday and Thursday, and I told Mom I’d see her bright and early Friday. She died Thursday night as I was driven to her house after work. I missed saying goodbye by less than 10 minutes. I hope I didn’t let her down.
I’d had many dogs throughout my childhood, and none were left to suffer at the end of life. Each was allowed the dignity that you and I are not. The dignity that I could not give my mother.
“Hurry up and die”? I certainly hope I do. I’ve already insisted to more than one family member and to my husband that I wish to have no life support if there is a less than 80% chance of COMPLETE recovery of all functions. I’ve made it clear to my sister and my oldest brother that these would be MY wishes, and not those of my husband, and that they may have to be the voice of reason if I’m ever incapacitated. I know hubby would have the authority to make all the decisions, but my brother and sister would likely be able to think clearly enough to help him make the right ones for me. To be in a PVS is the most horrible torture I can imagine. I’d be dwelling on “hurry up and die” every minute.
You have a lot of damned gall to not answer the question and then put words in my mouth. A lot of damned gall. How is my asking you to defend YOUR position promoting a policy? I’m arguing a question of philosophy. Is it cruel to keep people alive in persistant vegative states. My opinion is yes, it is. I’m not advocating we go around pulling the plug on all these patients, only that we debate the issue.
I just do not understand these people who are so pro-life that it is “Life no matter what, no matter how piss-poor, no matter how many other lives it might ruin, emotionally and finacially, even as a helpless object of pity.” The only explanation I can come up with is a deep phobia about dying themselves. I hope that’s not the case, because you know what? Everybody dies.
You have a lot of damned gall to not answer the question and then put words in my mouth. A lot of damned gall. How is my asking you to defend YOUR position promoting a policy? I’m arguing a question of philosophy. Is it cruel to keep people alive in persistant vegative states. My opinion is yes, it is. I’m not advocating we go around pulling the plug on all these patients, only that we debate the issue.
I just do not understand these people who are so pro-life that it is “Life no matter what, no matter how piss-poor, no matter how many other lives it might ruin, emotionally and finacially, even as a helpless object of pity.” The only explanation I can come up with is a deep phobia about dying themselves. I hope that’s not the case, because you know what? Everybody dies.
Right, “life unworthy of life”, where have I heard that before.
I’m supposed to kill myself because my “piss-poor existence” imposes a financial and emotional burden on those who wish I would just hurry up and die? What if I prefer life as a crip and a “helpless object of pity” to death?
You know what, I do pity you. You are so blinded by some kind of defensive emotion that you can’t think at all. You seem to think that I am just drooling at the prospect of putting everybody who isn’t a perfect specimen of humanity down and pronto. Tis not the case. I am saying that I think there IS a point at which life is not worth living, and I think most people agree with that, and if most people do agree with that, why is the defacto position still to force them to live unless they have made legal arrangements to the contrary?
Who else thought of “Johnny Got his gun”, one of the most disturbing movies I’ve seen, while reading this thread?
Put me in the “put them out of their misery” camp. I sure would want it for myself (and actually, I’d rather have the needle than having simply the drops being removed and basically dying of starvation, if you don’t mind), and I would be perfectly willing to take the risk of letting die someone who actually would rather live trapped in a dead body and unable to communicate in any way than letting suffer the probably overwhelming majority that would want this absolute nightmare to end.
As a couple posters mentionned, we wouldn’t even inflict such a thing to a dog, nor to a serial killer, and some would support having, say, their mother, endure that because she didn’t thought about writing a living will (something, by the way, that unfortunately doesn’t even exist over here AFAIK)?
Someone suggested that the “pro-lifers” in this debate are affraid of death, but I don’t think it’s related. I’m affraid of dying, but still, I wouldn’t want this kind of “life”. That’s not life that’s “undeath”.
That was the first thing I thought of, though admittedly by proxy of Metallica’s One. That has scared the shit out of me since I can remember.
My wife and I discussed this during the whole Terry Schiavo thing and we both want to be put out of our misery if something like that were ever to happen. The thought that we might be somewhat aware makes this 100x scarier.
It’s a tired christian hangover whose death is long overdue. “Alive” is not “living.” “Alive” is not valuable in and of itself. Alive is meaningless if there is no joy.
Bully on you. I highly recommend that you get that down in writing somewhere and get it notarized, witnessed, laminated and UL approved. Because, despite what you are so desperately trying to make stick, nobody is salivating over the thought of your death (well, nobody I know, anyway. It’s a big world) and wishing that you would, “Hurry up and die, already”. Nor has anyone that I’ve noticed advocated euthanasia just to free up bed space.
Or were you perhaps trying to make some less harsh point?