Why is life-at-all-costs the default position?

[Dookus]

It seems people are arguing that because Terri didn't write a living will, that the presumption should be that she would want to be kept alive on artificial support.

A few weeks ago, I asked here if people would prefer to remain alive on artificial support or if they'd prefer to die. The vote was over 70 to 0 in favor of dying. ZERO people wanted artificial life support if they were in a PVS.

I've never heard ANYONE in real life say they'd want the tubes and machines. Never. I'm sure most polls would show that the vast majority of Americans would reject such measures.

So why do we default to life-at-all-costs? I propose the default should be to REJECT extraordinary measures to keep a body alive, and only if one has specific written instructions to the contrary should their bodies be kept alive indefinitely.

[KamaAina]

1. A feeding tube is not "life support"

Different rules apply. If Terri actually were on life support, it would most probably have been disconnected years ago. But then how would Randall Terry and Bo Gritz get back in front of the cameras? </sarcasm>

Edited, most appropriately, to add a question mark.

[Dookus]

3. You are mistaken

both legally and medically, it is life support.

[Old and In the Way]

6. Could she live without a feeding tube?

Of course it is "life support". Or in her case, "non-life support".

[Warpy]

10. Yes it is.

However, had her neurological condition not "improved" to the point where she became able to breathe without mechanical ventilation, you're right. She'd have been declared brain dead and the equipment disconnected within six months of the original injury.

Undoubtedly we'll be regaled all weekend with crowds of religious hysterics wailing and shrieking and rolling around on the ground outside the nursing home, demanding gawd perform a holy miracle and allow the object of this hysteria to arise and walk out of that hospice under her own power.

And they won't consider it any sort of answer from the almighty god they claim to worship when she finally dies, instead.

Anything's better than covering tomorrow's nationwide war protests, if you're in the MSM, I guess.

[KamaAina]

11. Okay, here's where I'm getting this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3163861#3163932

"A feeding tube is NOT "life support", no more than a milkshake is. It simply bypasses the mouth and throat and avoids aspiration of food into the lungs (causing pneuommia) for people who have difficulty swallowing."

The poster didn't go into any legal definition of "life support".

edited to add quote from earlier thread

[CindyDale]

17. It's controversial

Legally in Florida now a feeding tube is life support. The legislature may change that.

Anything that is debatable is controversial, and this has definitely been debated.

Many people are confused about this case and think that Terri is brain dead or that it is a matter of pulling a plug. Neither is the case for Terri, and that is why the case is being examined as carefully as it is.

I only wish our national government had examined their decision to go to Iraq with the same care.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Apparently life support is fine for other people

just not for them. So they condemn the lifeless to what, 10, 20, 30 more years of non-life? Who made these people God?

[Freedom_from_Chains]

18. Who made these people God?

They appointed themselves.

However, we let them.

[htuttle]

4. Life at all costs...

...unless you are a brown skinned person living on top of an oil deposit.

In that case, they'd kill you before breakfast without batting an eye.

[wtmusic]

5. Because it's easy

and it is a strict interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath.

Defining "extraordinary" is the tough part. That doesn't mean that it's still not a better solution than "life at all costs".

[Trillo]

7. It's a reflection of the control business-interests have over our lives.

It's good for the medical care sector to empty the wallets of those who may need care. The law's default is "spend then invoice."

Creates jobs, you know, wink-wink.

[guinivere]

8. I don't think it's always

the default position. They pick and choose who has the right to live.

[Technowitch]

9. Two reasons, as far as I can see it

One is the inability to let go of a loved one. This is essentially the Schiavo parents' position. They want so desperately to believe that their daughter isn't really brain-dead, they interpret every gurgle as proof she's not a turnip.

The other is that so many of these quasi-religious folks don't really seem to believe in the 'eternal happiness' of their purported heavenly afterlife. Or in an afterlife at all. I mean, really, if for example I knew that Alzheimer's dementia was inevitable for me, there'd be a shotgun or overdose for me in that future. I'd demand it, simply because there comes a point when a life isn't worth living anymore.

Both I and my same-sex partner have the one thing poor Terri didn't have: Living Wills, with explicit statements regarding the kinds of treatment we will accept and those we won't. This idiotic case demonstrates how important this is.

[TheFarseer]

21. one thing we might be overlooking

"if for example I knew that Alzheimer's dementia was inevitable for me, there'd be a shotgun or overdose for me in that future."

If you commit suicide you go automatically to hell. That's what I was always taught in church. Maybe pulling a feeding tube is too close to that for them to take that chance. Or maybe the person taht did it would be guilty in God's eyes of murder. I don't know. I can only get so far into the heads of religious zealots.

[GreenArrow]

12. It's not about "life"

It's really about fear of death. Death is natural and inevitable. Birth is one door and death is another.

Mortality looms for all of us...

[Guaranteed]

13. Cuz when you die, you're DEAD. For good.

There's no coming back.

So, if you're gonna die, better make sure you've got to be dead.

[wtmusic]

15. Problem isn't that life is so short

it's that eternity is so DAMN long... :P

[Guaranteed]

16. Yeah...eternity IS kind of a long time.

:)

[Ready4Change]

22. That was my thought.

I apply the same thought to the death penalty. Once the choice is made, it can't be unmade. So it behooves one to be as careful and thorough as possible.

I haven't really kept up to date on the story. I take it that the odds that she still has any form of cognizance are nill?

If there were a chance of cognizance I'd be far more torn. Putting myself in the place of a consciousness permanently trapped in an unresponsive body, I personally wouldn't want to linger. But, having talked to my father, I know he would. He's said that he will fight for every chance of life he can get. I respect and intend to honor that should it come to pass.

But, since there apparently isn't any such chance here, then to me it's now a matter of costs. Pull the plug.

:( either way.

[liberal N proud]

14. Repukes are for life at all cost, unless:

It is killing in a WAR!
An illegal WAR for the regime.

[area51]

30. Or ...

Or, they're for "life-at-all-costs" unless one can't afford to pay for our extremely expensive, non-universal medical care.

[cornermouse]

19. The sad thing about this is that once the cameras left and the

money was gone, who's going to pay the bills for keeping her in her body? Bush's idea of government? What are they paying for willingly that isn't either Halliburton or military weaponry oriented? Insurance companies? Family?

No one can pay for this kind of support for a large number of people indefinitely. Sooner or later, even they would have to have to pull the plug.

[Quixote1818]

20. It's not based on reason but on Religion. It stems from Abortion issue

I think. People arguing that way are doing so out of anger rather than what they really believe. It's funny but we always put animals who are in pain to death and know it's the right thing to do but we wont do the same for humans. We will keep them alive against their will for years while in severe pain. It's insanity!

Not to mention, if you believe in God then wouldent you want them to move on to HEAVEN???????????????

[Kashka-Kat]

23. another dimension to this discussion is.......

you can be one of the 70 people who say they're in favor of dying-- now when death is far away-- but how do you know that when push comes to shove and youre drawing your last breaths you won't completely change your mind and hold onto your life and relish every last bit if it? People having near death experiences and flatlining for long periods of time report having had all kinds of awarenesses and experiences quite distinct from what we call normal waking reality. The experience of "life", apparently is not reserved for people who are ambulatory and awake! Yeah, I know that some will say that is a hallucination caused by brain dying-- but so what, even if it is, it could be that such experience has some value to the person going through the most profound life change of all (ie death).

Dying is an intensely personal event, some fight it with every ounce of their being, some welcome it, most are profoundly ambivalent or go thru a lot of turmoil before accepting it. I wonder if some of the people who are so passionate about saying this woman's feeding tube should be removed don't have their own hidden agendas, and perhaps are projecting their own fears and dreads onto this poor woman. The sight of someone in a coma, entubed, a shadow of what they used to be makes us really uncomfortable and we say she doesn't have "dignity," but where is that coming from, really? Why are we not granting her "dignity"? What is it about us, that we are not granting her "dignity"? Maybe we're the ones that need to change our attitudes, instead of insisting she die to remove our discomfort.

I don't know, I can't say one way or another because I don't know the woman,and I don't know the people involved-- to make a judgement on only the basis of what I read seems really presumptuous and arrogant. How can I know what she wants? How do I know where she is in the process of dying... and it is a process...

That said, I don't think I'd want to be hooked up to a machine either!

Though I agree w/ person above who pointed out that it's only a feeding tube. Not the full "life support" which would include breathing apparatus and etc.

[Dookus]

25. I should make a macro for this string

because I type it so often:

a feeding tube IS life support, both medically and legally.

[Kashka-Kat]

28. Yes I know, I read it above.

I still want to make the distinction though betw. "just a feeding tube" (which many ambulatory,fully concious, functional, non comatose people have to have to survive)

and having to have the full array of life support units (unable to breath, pump blood thru body, etc. would indicate a more serious condition )

It has to do with degrees of disability/ nonfunctionality (if thats a word) and fearing a slide down a slippery slope. My co workers disabled son for instance has ... gosh I am blanking... I don't remember, some neurological disorder along w/ physical birth defects. He has the permanent tube in stomach thru which he is fed formula, and withholding of it would kill him.

So, the question is what specifically makes this woman a candidate for food withholding and my coworkers son not? In my mind, this act seems closer to "withholding food/water" than it is to "pulling a plug." Those 2 things are qualitatively different and arouse different emotional responses........

I hope that is more clear & that you get the nuances of what I'm trying to say here, that its not just an easy yes- no kind of question.

[eridani]

31. The difference is that the disabled kid still has a cerebral cortex

It may not work optimally, but it's there. Terri Schiavo doesn't have a brain anymore.

[Kashka-Kat]

32. really? do you mean her brain is physically not there--sorta like

...alzheimers patients have actual holes that can be seen? if not then how is that damage measured, and more to the point, how is "a life worth living" measured. Yeah, I know you can say so much oxygen deprivation = so much damage, but to what degree of accuracy? There seems to be conflicting opinions as to the quality and degree of her awareness and that is exactly the problem here. Who decides? I haven't seen the details of the court decision, hopefully it was based on some true wisdom (insteadof control freaks battling over ideology).

FWIW, more and more they're finding that "consciousness" and "emotion" are located in other places besides just the ole cerebral cortex... even the heart is proving to be more than just a muscle.

[Karenina]

24. Bring it down to the basics and it's ALL about

CONTROL.

Who gets to decide?

[carpetbagger]

26. Second. It's a government vs. my body scenario.

We should play this thing till the cows come home. Bill Frist wants to get in your bedroom, tell you what kind of sex to have, what contraception to use if any, and then he wants to drag your wife's body to Washington to testify, so he can decide what she said to you and what her intimate wishes were.

They wanted to drag a woman in a coma to Washington to testify under threat of jail.

[Quixote1818]

27. An NBC poll showed only 7% would want to live on life support so

the probability that she would want to live on is very low. In my opinion since an over whelming majority don't want to live on life support then when their is no sold evidence as to what their wishes are one way or the other the burden would have to be on proving they would want to stay alive otherwise the probability is that you are making a mistake.

[janx]

29. Because it's easy. Not much soul-searching or critical thought

involved. It's a bit like the current popularity of defining people as "good guys" and "bad guys."