life support and the lowest of the low
Mar. 22nd, 2005 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luciabJust when I think that Tom De Lay and the right wing can't sink any lower they manage to pull it off. I have been so appalled all weekend at their antics re Terri Shiavo that I can't bear it. It was, of course, a topic of conversation among the family, both the politics and the medical ethics. Mother was impressed by the tapes being shown of Terri that look like she's smiling and responding to stimuli. Everything I've read convinces me that there is no chance of recovery; that the "responses" shown on the tape are random and involuntary and not really in response to any stimuli. The tapes themselves are four and five years old. All medical evidence is that the cerebral cortex is gone. One report said that it "has been replaced by spinal fluid."
The irony of the R's jumping on this is that they used to say they believed that the federal government should be small and not get all involved in running people's personal lives. It's obvious, however, that this belief really extends only to business and not people. Business should be able to do whatever it wants--cut forests, drill and mine in pristine areas, dump poison and waste wherever they want. People, on the other hand, should be regulated as to their sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy and anything else that might possibly be considered private, and the government has the right to snoop in any way it wants to observe any behaviours, because lord only knows what people are really plotting to do behind those closed doors. Oh, sorry, that was a tangent, wasn't it?
Anyway, I want it on record here. Should I ever be in a persistent vegitative state, I do not want to be kept alive by means of a feeding tube. As a separate issue, if resuscitation will return me to a condition where I will still be unable to speak, move or care for myself, and I will not recover enough to perform those functions, I do not want to be resuscitated. Please feel free to print this out and wave copies of it at whoever is in charge. Especially if it's Tom De Lay. Heh.
The irony of the R's jumping on this is that they used to say they believed that the federal government should be small and not get all involved in running people's personal lives. It's obvious, however, that this belief really extends only to business and not people. Business should be able to do whatever it wants--cut forests, drill and mine in pristine areas, dump poison and waste wherever they want. People, on the other hand, should be regulated as to their sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy and anything else that might possibly be considered private, and the government has the right to snoop in any way it wants to observe any behaviours, because lord only knows what people are really plotting to do behind those closed doors. Oh, sorry, that was a tangent, wasn't it?
Anyway, I want it on record here. Should I ever be in a persistent vegitative state, I do not want to be kept alive by means of a feeding tube. As a separate issue, if resuscitation will return me to a condition where I will still be unable to speak, move or care for myself, and I will not recover enough to perform those functions, I do not want to be resuscitated. Please feel free to print this out and wave copies of it at whoever is in charge. Especially if it's Tom De Lay. Heh.
