Is there a right-to-live?

[forgethell]

I won't be able to respond till tomorrow, so I'll just state my opinion right up front. This is a disgrace to all progressive principles that I ever heard of. This is valuing money more than a man's life, a man that doesn't want to die.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4559923.stm


The 45-year-old, who has a degenerative brain condition, won a landmark ruling last year to stop doctors withdrawing food and drink when he cannot speak.

...snip...


Earlier, Philip Sales, for the government, said if the original ruling was upheld, patients would be allowed to demand other treatments, which would have "very serious implications" for the NHS.

...snip...
"It may be interpreted as giving patients the right to demand certain treatments, contrary to the considered judgment of their medical team, that would lead to patients obtaining access to treatment that is not appropriate for them, and to inefficient use of resources within the NHS."

[Deep13]

1. Evidently, in the UK anyway.

Here in the USA? Nope. There is a right not to have the state end your life without due process of law. As far as paying to preserve it? No, not in any practical sense. Anyway, death is part of nature. Just how far society should go to save someone who is dying anyway is a legitimate policy question. We in the USA either know full well that there is a dollar value on human life or else we are delusional. We rely on an inefficient and unfair system of corporate insurance. Those firms have specific formulae for ascertaining exactly how much a particular life is worth.

[sui generis]

2. just in case nobody got it with Schiavo

the idea of withdrawing food and liquids is much less tolerable to some people than assisted suicide or even planned euthanasia, and for some people there is a difference.

I don't know about going too far to either side of this issue - the outcome could be very bad either way.

Either you expend every possible resource to keep someone alive or you find a justification to never expend any resource ever that the patient can't themselves afford, which includes emergency care.

Heck we're already doing it by withholding medicine and treatment for indigent cancer and AIDS people right here in the U.S.

[forgethell]

4. I don't know that

you have to have only one extreme, or the other.

[damntexdem]

3. Health care should be a right; much less food and drink.

He's demanding it; he should get it.

[Michael_UK]

5. should a patient receive any treatment they demand?...

should a woman with a broken leg be able to demand a breast enlargement operation? If she can pay for it, but there has to be some judgement by a medical professional, and finance would play a role.

The next question is whether treatment should be given if it is not beneficial. Funding and the benefits have to play a role

[forgethell]

6. Should they be able to demand

that they be fed? Yes, I think so.

Should treatment be given if it is not beneficial? That's the question, who decides? Are doctors God? NO! they are human beings with a specialized education. "Ethics" are morals for people that don't have any.