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It all comes down to a persons choice. If I choose to end my life with dignity rather then spend the short time remaining in extreme pain or under unbearable conditions then I should have the right to.

   

I agree it should absolutely be your right to choose. What I am asking is that you follow through on that and plan the actual fact.

For example: I have left a directive that there should be no extraordinary means taken to keep me alive. I also have a personal plan, should the time come, on how to end my own life, if I were beset by some too-grim prospect. I am not counting on anyone else to stop my life for me. Personally, I see this as my gift to my family and friends that I not ask them to make a decision of whether or not to help me. And I won't ask a fellow health-care professional to help me either...I believe that is an unfair imposition on someone who is just a human being with a special kind of job---I don't know of any job in our society that needs to include deliberately killing another person. Therefore, I have to assume the responsibility for myself, while I am able.

I have put it in my directive that I would prefer that I be allowed to live, regardless of the situation, rather than have anyone else feel conflicted or compelled to get involved in ending my life.
Lily is right, dying is just part of the cycle. And eventually each of us will die. If I have to be around longer rather than impose on another, so be it.

I know it sounds morbid and it is a horrible topic to have to think through, but it does need doing. Saying the words does not make the act a reality. How do you plan to end your life with the dignity you desire? What if you change your mind? Do you have a contingency plan? There is much to look at here.

And, by the same token, I know many many people who want all means possible used to keep them alive. Far more aggressive tactics than I would ever want, but that is their choice. I have also known people who always insisted on self-determination, but as they became more ill, decided they wanted to stay the course until it's "natural" end. There needs to be allowances for the human factor too.

I am so sorry if this has gotten too serious; I didn't mean to be the queen of downers.

Aanii.

   

No argument from me there. But if you were in a coma and were unable to state your will I would have a serious problem with anyone or any judge who ordered that you should die.

As I've said before many times, were Terri Schiavo my daughter her husband and Judge Greer would be in a "persistent life-challenged state" if that's what it took to save her life.

   

Again this Terri Schiavo !

She was not murdered. She died of natural causes, as she would have if all those machines were not there.

   

The only machine she had been on was a feeding tube. Judge Greer prohibited feeding her and he also prohibited water to her as well.

If starvation and dehydration are "natural causes" then it won't be murder if I lock someone up in a room and let them die of those "natural causes", right?

   

I don't see the point. She was not held in a room, she was brain dead.

   

Terry Schiavo was murdered. God forbid the day comes when everyone who needs assistance with eating is considered less than human.

   

Terri Shiavo would have died without the feeding tube being inserted. It was playing God to put them there in the first place. Get over it.

   

She was no more brain dead than you are...well, perhaps she had more brain activity than you do, but still, she was not brain dead. She breathed on her own, her eyes were equal and responsive and she could focus on people and was cognizant of others in her presence and would trun and look at them when they spoke to her. That is not "brain dead".

   

Any infant would die without the same assistance.

   

Babies are already "less than human" before they are born and for the 28 days after they are born in the Netherlands.

I hate to say, but the day is here.

   

Unfortunately when people don't have those talks with there loved ones then that the decision rests whith others. In the case of T.S. the pathologist report showed that the people saying she was cogniscant were simply wrong. She was never going to make a recovery. Her husband made a difficult decision.

A coma is not a painful, degeneritive condition that would qualify for euthanasia. Terminal cancers and other massively debilitating diseases are when this line of though comes into play and almost every patient is making the choice for themself.

My family had to make that painful choice with my mother when she died of cancer. It isn't easy and it sure wasn't fucking murder. The doctor told us that many very conscious looking actions are simply reflex actions, actions as complex as attempts to pull intubation tubes out. Terry wasn't murdered either. She stopped being terry when she lost all her higher brain functions.

   

Whether or not it was "playing God" to insert the feeding tube, why would it be okay to play God again by withholding nutrition? That feed tube was inserted with the best of intentions to support life; there were no best intentions in choosing her death.

The conflict around Terri Shiavo in the her last days looked like nothing more than a pissing contest between family members, lawyers, politicians, special interest factions, the press. Mrs. Shiavo's poor little life was being used to highlight other people's agendas. There was way too much cock-walking going on around that lady's dying and not much apparent true concern for her or her own spirit.

A Person died and that Person deserved better protection and support than she received. May she rest in peace.

Aanii.

   

Here she is a few months before her death by starvation:



Here she is a few weeks after her 1990 heart attack:



Here she is reacting to her mother's kiss:



"Brain dead" my ass.

   

Loss of higher functions is exactly what she had. Are you disputing the findings of the pathologist?

She was not going to recover. The decision belonged with her husband. It isn't easy to accept but there it is.

   

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