Woman in a vegetative state exhibits brain activity.

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=jay-c]
C3 denotes the level of spinal cord injury. The level of injury is the point in the spinal cord at which damage has occurred. The levels are determined by counting the nerves from the top of the spine downwards, and these nerves are grouped into four different areas. These are the Cervical, Thoracic, Lumbar and Sacral parts of the spinal cord. Quadriplegia is when a person has a spinal cord injury above the first Thoracic vertebra, or somewhere in the Cervical area.

If you want to know more, here’s a link with more information about the functionality of C1 - C3 quadriplegics.

I’m actually surprised that picunurse had never seen a C3 quadriplegic survive prior to that patient - I know several. But then again, spinal cord injuries vary immensely for each individual, even if the level of injury is the same. My ex was rendered a C3 quadriplegic in a freak skiing accident. He not only lived, he was able to breathe completely unassisted. By contrast, Christopher Reeve was a C2 quadriplegic at the time of his accident and despite being re-evaluated five years later as a C3, he still required the assistance of a ventilator to breathe, but had way more sensation and function in other regards than my ex did.
[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner. And I’m completely :smack: C-3 was a typo, he was a C-2. His brainstem function was in question at first. He had a pacemaker put in during his early hospitalization. He had stablized by the time I took he on as a patient.

42

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Why, exactly? It seems to me that the former would be torture and the latter would be a release.

“Before its time” is pretty meaningless in this context.
[/QUOTE]

There are people who are afraid enough of death that they are willing to continue living even if all they can do is observe or otherwise experience life passively. Being put to death in that context would not be experienced as a release. Before its time takes its meaning from the individual perspective, and I won’t pretend to be able to decide for anyone else.

43

If this ever happens to me, let me go. And none of this removal of nutrition and fluids pish. Please just increase my diamorphine dose until oblivion is mine! 'k thx bye!

/ maybe I should get that tattoed on my arse.

44

[QUOTE=Gorgonzola]
There are people who are afraid enough of death that they are willing to continue living even if all they can do is observe or otherwise experience life passively. Being put to death in that context would not be experienced as a release. Before its time takes its meaning from the individual perspective, and I won’t pretend to be able to decide for anyone else.
[/QUOTE]

The belief that life is a precious gift does not imply an abnormal fear of death.

See Gill, Carol J. 1999-04. “Facts About Disability and ‘Quality of Life’.”.

45

[QUOTE=mks57]
The belief that life is a precious gift does not imply an abnormal fear of death.

See Gill, Carol J. 1999-04. “Facts About Disability and ‘Quality of Life’.”.
[/QUOTE]

You just can’t get it through your skull that we are discussing specific cases here, can you? Not paraplegics, not quadroplegics, not the mostly disabled who are still clearly able to fucking communicate(or else how are they answering questions, huh?), we are talking about cases where people are so damaged that they are not capable of any-fucking-thing! NOTHING. NADA. No talking to loved ones, no participating in the things going on around you, NOTHING but lying in a bed maybe partially aware, maybe not, being fed through a tube. That’s precious? Why?

46

[QUOTE=Gorgonzola]
There are people who are afraid enough of death that they are willing to continue living even if all they can do is observe or otherwise experience life passively. Being put to death in that context would not be experienced as a release. Before its time takes its meaning from the individual perspective, and I won’t pretend to be able to decide for anyone else.
[/QUOTE]
The problem with that (as XaMcQ so expressively puts) is that many people in this position don’t have brain functions. As far as we know, they aren’t capable of feeling fear. In this case, we can only talk about the situation from the perspective of the families and friends, for whom it would be a tragedy, but a relief nonetheless.

What about the people who are “locked in”? You seem very certain of people choosing a locked in life over death; how can you be so certain? By the very nature of their condition we can’t ask them.

47

[QUOTE=Gorgonzola]
And while it might be tragic to force some people to live past their point, far more the horror to unknowingly snuff out a life before its time.
[/QUOTE]

This might seem like a clear and obvious line, but its really not. Especially as medical technology improves, we increasingly have the capability to keep bodies alive in worse and worse conditions for longer and longer. Your standard of “before its time” might lead us into an era where no one ever really dies: they instead spend decades on life support despite near total brain death. It’s easy to get all worked up about Terry Schiavo, but what if nearly EVERYONE that had heart failure could be repaired to her status, but in many cases no farther and in many cases worse. What if medicine beats physical death without being able to heal the brain (and even if it can heal the brain, it seems most likely that this healing would be more akin to a brain transplant than bringing the original person back)? We’d end up with more living dead in hospitals than living.

I would say that that situation would make “before its time” kind of a bizarre perversion of the original concept of letting nature take its course. We ALREADY are not letting nature take its course, we are ALREADY determining when “its time” will be.

48

The discussion above is more or less from the standpoint, that because the woman’s brain react on the outside world, she is fully aware and as such locked in a body. Truly nightmarish.

But can we draw that conclusion? – I’m certainly no expert, but my understanding from what I read, is that when a person wakes up from a coma, they’re not able to make a resumé of what everybody did around them while laying there. As far as I know, it’s more like waking up from a dream, or just a long sleep.

Perhaps the brain reacts on stimulus without a conscious being there to suffer from it? We know that we react on stimulus while at sleep, but as far as I know, we don’t necessarily remember it or “register” it. The reactions we see in the experiment might be unconscious, like reflexes of the brain. (Which in itself would lead to an interesting discussion regarding brain functions/the unconscious, etc.)

In short: While the brain reacts to stimulus, like words spoken, how to we know that the woman actually experience it consciuosly? – Can we draw such an conclusion?

49

[QUOTE=Gorgonzola]
Before its time takes its meaning from the individual perspective, and I won’t pretend to be able to decide for anyone else.
[/QUOTE]

But you are deciding for someone else, in both cases. The patient is unable to communicate his wishes, and you’re the one deciding on his behalf. Actually, if you refuse to decide, he will die, because he can live only if you are proactive, by putting him on life support, feeding him, etc… IOW, you decide for him that despite being in utter misery, he should live, and take steps to make sure he will. You are in charge, whether you like it or not.
Why, not knowing what he wants, are you more concerned about letting him die (possibly against his wishes) than about making him live in misery (possibly against his wishes)?
Taking an extreme example, it reminds me of the scene in “the last of the Mohicans” (the movie, I wouldn’t know if the scne appears in the book) when the hero shot dead from a distance his former rival who’s about to be burned alive. I suspect few people would object to this action on moral grounds. But actually, maybe the other guy would rather live for 15 more minutes despite the pain? Maybe he has, or still hope he has a slim chance to escape? The hero in this case too, decides for someone else, and chose to put this person out of his misery.
I said it’s extreme, but actually, if you look more closely at this example, the hero has to act to make sure his buddy will die and stop suffering. In the case we’re discussing, you have to act to make sure the person won’t die and will keep suffering. Are you sure you’re holding the moral high ground, here?

50

[QUOTE=Wakinyan]

In short: While the brain reacts to stimulus, like words spoken, how to we know that the woman actually experience it consciuosly? – Can we draw such an conclusion?
[/QUOTE]

No, we sure don’t. But the mere idea that she maybe could be aware (or even somewhat aware) is frightening many of us. More or less like being buried alive, except way longer and possibly painful.

51

[QUOTE=XaMcQ]
You just can’t get it through your skull that we are discussing specific cases here, can you? Not paraplegics, not quadroplegics, not the mostly disabled who are still clearly able to fucking communicate(or else how are they answering questions, huh?), we are talking about cases where people are so damaged that they are not capable of any-fucking-thing! NOTHING. NADA. No talking to loved ones, no participating in the things going on around you, NOTHING but lying in a bed maybe partially aware, maybe not, being fed through a tube. That’s precious? Why?
[/QUOTE]

If you want to flame people, do it somewhere else.

The point is that there is a huge gap between people’s fears and reality, concerning severe disabilities and quality of life. They may say “I wouldn’t want to live if X happened to me”, but in reality, people are much more adaptable than they think they are capable of. That’s why it’s dangerous for people to make decisions for others based on their own fear of disability.

52

[QUOTE=mks57]
If you want to flame people, do it somewhere else.

The point is that there is a huge gap between people’s fears and reality, concerning severe disabilities and quality of life. They may say “I wouldn’t want to live if X happened to me”, but in reality, people are much more adaptable than they think they are capable of. That’s why it’s dangerous for people to make decisions for others based on their own fear of disability.
[/QUOTE]

There’s a much bigger gap, which you have consistently ignored, between losing the use of your limbs and being in a persistent vegetative state. The later is not a “severe disability.” It’s a living death. Trying to bring quads and similarly disabled folk into the debate lies somewhere between “disingenuous” and “dishonest.”

53

[QUOTE=mks57]
If you want to flame people, do it somewhere else.

The point is that there is a huge gap between people’s fears and reality, concerning severe disabilities and quality of life. They may say “I wouldn’t want to live if X happened to me”, but in reality, people are much more adaptable than they think they are capable of. That’s why it’s dangerous for people to make decisions for others based on their own fear of disability.
[/QUOTE]

Darling, that was not a flame, that was emphasis. Flaming would be me calling you a brain dead moron, just for example, which I am not, because flaming is against the rules. I am, however, giving up on you, because you can’t come up with an argument of your own or debate at all, as far as this specific case is concerned . If anything, you have skated right up to the edge of flaming ME by portraying me as some heartless monster out to put people to death for being disabled. You have consistantly refused to listen to anything I or the majority of posters on this thread have had to say about their fears and concerns for themselves and their loved ones, prefering to instead scream stridently about us wanting people to ‘hurry up and die’ and posting links to a very biased organization to make your arguments for you.

And rant though you may from now until the sun goes nova, you will never convince me that I could ‘adapt’ to being trapped in a body where I could not even speak or communicate by grunting or winking or whatever. In my opinion, the BEST case scenerio in such a case is that you go mad and fall into constant dreaming. If I wanted that kind of life I would just take up herion now.

Xa, waving bye-bye to mks57 now.

54

Paging dr. Kavorkian dr. k please answer when we need you.

55

[QUOTE=clairobscur]
But you are deciding for someone else, in both cases. The patient is unable to communicate his wishes, and you’re the one deciding on his behalf. Actually, if you refuse to decide, he will die, because he can live only if you are proactive, by putting him on life support, feeding him, etc… IOW, you decide for him that despite being in utter misery, he should live, and take steps to make sure he will. You are in charge, whether you like it or not.
[/quote]

He will die in any case, to be sure, since the technology described above to keep someone alive perpetually doesn’t exist yet. My concern, as it would be for anyone, would be that the helpless person could be allowed to die a good death, and that means a good death on his terms, not mine.

[QUOTE=clairobscur]
Why, not knowing what he wants, are you more concerned about letting him die (possibly against his wishes) than about making him live in misery (possibly against his wishes)?
[/quote]

If I don’t know and I can’t reliably know how aware he is, I don’t see why it is so much easier to imagine that he’d be suffering horribly than it is to imagine the horror he’d feel while we prepared for and carried out his euthanization while he lay there fervently hoping he’d be allowed to continue to experience life in what little form he could. I guess the main difference is that one horror would undoubtedly take less time than the other, ultimately, but time spent in whichever horror you get is really not enough to make the decision for me. I can lessen his misery while he’s alive, by making sure he has excellent care, for instance. The only way I can make euthanasia easier on the guy who wants to live is to plan and prepare and execute it in secret, which would be questionable at best in a health care setting.

There is no perfectly satisfying answer to this question in the example described, since by definition we are unable to ask the poor victim what his wishes might be. Everyone else is using “This is what I would want/not want” to project their own wishes on to the victim. I am merely pointing out that he may very well have made peace with his condition, or fear what comes next enough to pay this price to avoid it. Are you comfortable with euthanizing him under those circumstances? I’m not. Is that the moral high ground?

56

TWEEEEEEEET!!!

I know this is an emotional issue, but we have gotten (mostly) through just over a page without any direct insults.

I strongly urge everyone to refrain from making any personal observations aout other posters, regardless whether those observations describe what one poster believes to be true about another or describes actions that one poster believes another poster should perform.

Cool off.

[ /Moderating ]

57

[QUOTE=Gorgonzola]
He will die in any case, to be sure, since the technology described above to keep someone alive perpetually doesn’t exist yet. My concern, as it would be for anyone, would be that the helpless person could be allowed to die a good death, and that means a good death on his terms, not mine.
[/QUOTE]

But you can’t know his terms. So, what exactly makes you think that the default choice in this case should be to actively keep him alive?

58

Don’t you think, all other information being absent, that attempting to keep the person alive should be the default position?

I’d hate to have someone peer into my non-responsive eyes and pronounce, “Yep. He wants to die. I can tell. Oh, and we’ll just let him starve while he thinks about his slow impending demise.”

If I’m in agonizing pain or emotional stress, that’d be fine, maybe. But perhaps I’ve made peace with my state, and I’m extracting whatever enjoyment life still offers by thinking deep thoughts and pondering the whichness of what, while singing favorite songs to myself in my head. Or if I don’t even have that much brain function left, maybe my little atrophied brain occasionally feels waves of pleasure from a particularly beautiful quality of light and the soft voice of a favorite nurse.

I do think we need to be very, very careful about when and how we choose to pull the plug on people who cannot express their own wishes. I think I’d want to see pretty much zero brain activity, and/or signs that there is significant suffering going on.

59

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
Don’t you think, all other information being absent, that attempting to keep the person alive should be the default position?
[/quote]

Obviously not, since I’m advocating removing the plug. The concept of being trapped in an unresponsive body, unable to communicate in any way and still conscious appears so nightmarish to me that I can hardly envision the idea of someone prefering to live this way as more than a rhetorical argument, maybe a little more likely, but barely so, than the example I gave above of the guy who would rather live 15 minutes more being burned alive than being shot dead.

In any case, I find way more barbaric to impose a life of misery and suffering on someone who wants to die than to kill someone who would rather live. Again, you’re making a choice for him in both cases, and the first one seems just too awful to me. I see no reason for this be the default stance. Especially not since in this case you have to make a lot of efforts to make him suffer. So, you’re even more responsible for the suffering inflicted against his wishes than you are for a possibly unwelcome death.

I mentionned above that I rather favor the needle. It seems just hypocritical and needlessly cruel to me to remove the drops/feeding tubes/whatever. Like, by letting someone dies of thirst/starvation, we would be less guilty and/or responsible for the death than by giving him an overdose of pain relieving drugs. That’s just nonsentical and I don’t understand how it can make people feel better. And once again, we wouldn’t do that to a dog.

Yeah, maybe. And maybe you’re agonizing, in distress, horror and pain. Personnally, I’d rather not being responsible for actively maintaining you in this state for years.

If there’s zero brain activity, then it’s a non-issue. You’re dead in all but name, feel nothing, and I wouldn’t mind letting you plugged. Pointless, but morally neutral. What we’re discussing here is precisely the case of someone who has brain activity.

60

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
think I’d want to see pretty much zero brain activity, and/or signs that there is significant suffering going on.
[/QUOTE]

Not sure that I noticed anyone advocating pulling the plug on people who are showing active brain activity. Or, for that matter, paras, quads or those with really bad hangnails.

But perhaps I simply missed it. Might I be so bold as to request that you show a single instance of this? Howzabout if I say, “Pretty please”?

Until then, you’ve attempted rather ham-fistedly to introduce a tangent that has nothing whatsoever to do with the conversation at hand. Bad form, that.