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I Hope My Father Dies Soon

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Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#181

Post by JshWright »

jlgaddis wrote: post #177
JshWright wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a similar position on a fairly regular basis, and I can tall you that DNRs absolutely do matter. It would take the threat of physical violence to get me to perform ACLS on someone with a valid DNR (this is in a prehospital EMS setting). A DNR represents the expressed wishes of the patient. Disregarding that is a serious breach of medical this. I'm not sure how often she came across that particular dilemma. As…

> I'm not sure how often she came across that particular dilemma. Not very often -- AIUI she spent most of her time "freezing" patients (inducing hypothermia). Somehow we got on the subject of DNRs and she explained their policy/reasoning to me. Basically, if a patient w/ a DNR "coded" and a family member was yelling to save them, they would.

That's really lousy of them... A patient's wishes supersedes those of their family, when it comes to their care and end of life decisions.

That really lousy of the families... of the providers... of everyone all around, really. I would absolutely refuse to participate in resuscitation efforts in that situation.

I'm hopeful that if that situation actually came up, they would decide differently (and that this was just a hypothetical conversation)

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#182

Post by jbooth »

tsotha wrote: post #175
jbooth wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we're not talking about the religious motivations of the bazillion people who never even met the woman anymore? We're attempting to impugn the husband's motives by implying he wanted her dead so he could date someone else? How does that even work, why would he need her dead?

I don't know anyone for whom it was about religion. And yeah, the husband had motives for wanting to get rid of her - both because he wanted to remarry and because of money. Is that why he did what he did? No idea. But in this case the parents should have been allowed to make the decision.

The key phrase was "culture of life". For George W. Bush and the congressmen who passed the ridiculous legislation at the time, that was what it was all about.

If you want to claim that that's an entirely secular political viewpoint, fine, go ahead.

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#183

Post by [deleted] »

burntsushi wrote: post #153
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, I live under a government, one that like the US government has been democratically elected, which does allow assisted suicide. So maybe "government" isn't the problem. The people are. But of course it is way scarier to imagine that it's not the government that is making your father suffer, but your friends, family, neighbors and coworkers. Because that would really be too uncomfortable.

I'm not sure what inconsistency you're trying to point out. Not all governments are equal. Perhaps it wasn't clear from my comment; the US government is to blame. Moreover, government is not the only perpetrator of evil things. It's certainly by far the biggest (read: wars), but there are plenty of other evil people and organizations out there. Is that supposed to make me uncomfortable? I'm just calling it like I see…

[deleted]

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#184

Post by melling »

billmalarky wrote: post #146
melling wrote: post #13

The Singularity is about 30 years out, or so we're led to believe. It takes about 10 years and billions of dollars to create a new drug, and that time and cost is not decreasing. Stories like this are a grim reminder of how much work we really must do. "Fixing" the human body is a really hard problem.

What does "The Singularity" have to do with this? (serious question, I've never heard of this).

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzwei...

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#185

Post by tsotha »

jbooth wrote: post #182
tsotha wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anyone for whom it was about religion. And yeah, the husband had motives for wanting to get rid of her - both because he wanted to remarry and because of money. Is that why he did what he did? No idea. But in this case the parents should have been allowed to make the decision.

The key phrase was "culture of life". For George W. Bush and the congressmen who passed the ridiculous legislation at the time, that was what it was all about. If you want to claim that that's an entirely secular political viewpoint, fine, go ahead.

You've lowered the bar a bit there, don't you think? Now I have to claim it's an "entirely" secular political viewpoint?

The reality is both sides of any political question are made up of different viewpoints. Sure, there were people on my side who were coming from a religious viewpoint. But there were also a lot of people who thought the husband's position is hopelessly compromised by his own interests, and since her parents were still alive they should have been allowed to take custody of their daughter.

People on the left have this idea that religious conservatives somehow control the Republican party or set the agenda. It's a mistake to think that.

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#186

Post by jbooth »

tsotha wrote: post #185
jbooth wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key phrase was "culture of life". For George W. Bush and the congressmen who passed the ridiculous legislation at the time, that was what it was all about. If you want to claim that that's an entirely secular political viewpoint, fine, go ahead.

You've lowered the bar a bit there, don't you think? Now I have to claim it's an "entirely" secular political viewpoint? The reality is both sides of any political question are made up of different viewpoints. Sure, there were people on my side who were coming from a religious viewpoint. But there were also a lot of people who thought the husband's position is hopelessly compromised by his own interests, and since he…

You've actually changed my mind here.

My original contention was that the only reason someone would care about a power-of-attorney dispute over someone they had never heard of and had been in a coma for 15 years was religious. You've proven me wrong and changed my mind, though -- apparently secular "go team" loyalty to party is enough on it's own, without sharing religious views or really any reason to care besides rooting for the home team.

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#187

Post by GalacticDomin8r »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #98
GalacticDomin8r wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bible doesn't condemn suicide(or abortion) anywhere in it directly. However, as with any good moral book, it is ambiguous. You can use it advocate any position you chose. > Yet the Christian right insists that the agony be prolonged to a maximum. Christianity didn't always hold this view. I suppose some of the movement comes from the commandment "Thou shall not kill". Of course that is a very poor translation. A…

> Thou shalt not kill IMO, the question at hand is more like: ‘should we keep someone on life support when there is little to no chance that person will get better?’. And is taking someone off life support really the same as murder?

I believe the question is much, much bigger than simply the involvement of life support. Just address that issue, and you've ignored many people who suffer unnecessarily with no reasonable hope. For example, ALS sufferers don't require life support until the very late stages of the disease. This is long after they've lost the ability to move, speak, or interact meaningfully with those around them.

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#188

Post by bzbarsky »

ygmelnikova wrote: post #53
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #26

Since this concerns the U.S. government, I'll say that the vendetta against euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide by the Christian right is puzzling. The Bible has a very ambivalent view on suicide (as with any other topic), the tale of Samson being a prime example. The main argument against suicide comes from Corinthians, but it is starkly contradicted by other passages. A person who is slowly succumbing, immobile,…

Most folk would choose everything medically possible to be performed to keep them going for another 24 hours. Why question medicine and ethics when you can kick a Christian instead?

There's a difference between "going for another 24 hours, lucid and able to wrap up lose ends" and "going for another 24 hours, unconscious" and "going for another 24 hours in constant debilitating pain".

Most people would choose the first of those three. For the other ones, I'm not sure. And if you replace "24 hours" with "a few months" I certainly wouldn't choose either of the latter two options. And neither would most people I've actually talked to about the issue in person. Would you?

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#190

Post by ygmelnikova »

rodgerd wrote: post #99
ygmelnikova wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most folk would choose everything medically possible to be performed to keep them going for another 24 hours. Why question medicine and ethics when you can kick a Christian instead?

Please feel free to demonstrate that the majority of opposition to voluntary euthanasia in the United States is driven by groups other than Christian ones.

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