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March 23, 2005 at 12:18am
by joel The judge says no tube, and the clock starts to tick. But the more I read up on the case (like you should have done before you opened your big mouth, bonehead) the more I realize that yes, indeed, she is in a “persistent vegitative state”, brief aged home video clips (and forwarded emails) notwithstanding, and has been for years. Which makes me pull back quite a bit from where I thought I stood and say…Wow. That’s a tough one. So there’s evidence and more than ample supposition that her husband’s a jerk, but that doesn’t change her state. And barring divine or appellate intervention, she’ll be gone, completely and undeniably, in a week or two. Should we mourn her passing? Or regard her as essentially already gone, and just grieve with her parents for the loss of their hope and focus? I don’t know.
Even so, I still think there should be a better way to resolve this that would allow her husband to get on with his life and allow her parents to pursue whatever therapy they deem worthwhile. I don’t know if there would be any hope were they given a wide open door. I don’t know if she’s still in there somewhere or not. And I don’t know whether or not she had indicated a desire to be “allowed to die” were she ever in such a state. But in this regard I do agree with Bush, that if there is any question, any uncertainty, it should be in our duty as human beings to err on the side of preserving life.
4 Comments
#1. Dad 03.24.2005
No offense to my most intellegent son, but the body laying in that bed is merely that. A body. The Good Lord took the most important part of her home years ago. We weak, mindless humans are the ones that have kept the carcuss alive, if you can call it alive, for the last 10-15 years. Is that what you want if you reach that stage? Or have you been forward thinking ewnough to set up a living will?
We hope all our offspring have looked at the possible things that COULD happen and have made their wishes known.
If you wonder… Neither Deb nor I want to be kept alive by any artifical means, unless by doing so the medical profession can ensure a good quality of live later on. And we’re not talking about 15 years later.
We have Living Wills registered. As our Executor please see that they are carried out.
We love you all, but….
Dad
#2. joel 03.25.2005
…but what? You reserve the right to disagree with me? I certainly hope so :). I actually wonder if you were thinking of my previous post when you commented, since in this post I basically said I’ve started to realize that she really isn’t there anymore. I think the two things that make this one particularly difficult in the right-to-die sense are that the ‘artificial means’ is simply food, not something more involved like a ventilator or something, and that she didn’t make her wishes formally known. You have, and that’s good. As many have started to say, we can hope that one good coming out of this may be people giving more serious thought to the “what if” sorts of things and prepare accordingly.
#3. Dad 03.25.2005
No. We love you all, and we don’t want to leave you, but.. We don’t want to stay if we will be in any sense in her condition.
#4. joel 03.25.2005
Ah, I see. That works too :).