Posted on 08/08/2014 6:35:01 AM PDT by wagglebee
Hey, Doc, we’ve decided that YOUR quality of life is unacceptable to us. Report for termination, effective immediately.
Was Kissinger quoting someone else in that book, or was he stating an opinion?
I have had to make treatment decisions for my elderly father and my two aunts. The decision to treat or not to treat should be left solely to the family and the patient’s doctor without any government “guidelines” or death panels. There are times when a do not resuscitate directive is appropriate, but that is up to the family not the government.
Don’t worry, Ebola will lift the heavy burden for the death panels.
OK, #1: the book is by Woodward and Bernstein. It appeared that the book was BY Kissinger when I read the comment.
#2: I’m not finding any context, so it could be leftist misdirection.
Tell that to some guys in their 90’s who skydive.
I’m 80 and I’ve spent most of the last week in the hospital getting the best care my insurance can buy me.
Still, I’m 80 and I’m not really getting any better, only poorer and ever more tired. I can’t say I want someone else to decide when I should die but I firmly believe that choice is mine to make. Sure, I may find myself on the wrong side of the line once I stand for judgement but I’ve made similar choices throughout my life, any one of which might be enough to send me to hell.
I have already made the choice: When the only way I can live is by enlisting technology and an outside power source - pull the plug! There is more to life than maintaining a heartbeat. I am going to die! There is no choice in that. The only choice left is how to reduce the pain and strain on those I leave behind.
Years ago, I'd joke with my kids that they'd one day have to put me out on the ice when I couldn't chew blubber anymore. As the day approaches, it seems less of a great idea. But I would like to die outdoors, when the time comes. NOt soon, please God.
Gee! Maybe we should go back to the days of the enlightened American Indian who would take the elderly out into the plains, give them a bowl of food and water, then abandon them.
If they died in the village they would have to “bury” them. By abandoning them they would not have to go to that trouble.
What’s next? Intellectually challenged? Handicaped? LGBT? Ugly? Christians?
Having been in the hospital 3 seperate weeks over the past year and having people in the same room suffering and unable to do anything for themselves i can tell you that they may be alive but they’re surely not living. They’re beating hearts with a bunch of needles stuck in their bodies. This in NOT the same as denying Schiavo nutrients. This isn’t about starving someone to death which i am bitterly opposed to. He’s speaking of people who are literally dying and being brought back from the dead to just lay there and suffer for some longer period of time.
And I would think that fate would terrify the hell out of people as they become older. Laying in their own filth and writhing in excruciating pain (there are levels of pain no pain reliever can alleviate) hour after hour, day after day. Literally being kept “alive” just so they can be tortured.
Death Panels...now it begins.
“This ghoul is trying to say that even antibiotics should be denied when a death panel deems a person’s “quality of life” is too low. “
No. He is saying that the use of antibiotics has moved the death from the home to the hospital which has the effect of severing the dying from the living.
“CANCELRD”
?
Who’s to say what is quality?
I'm sure he'll be volunteering forced to the front of the line sooner than later. He's the receeding hairline and large belly seated third from the right.
Back row, third from left.
Both pictures are some of The EconEndLife Advisory Group. Wanna bet more than a few have a change of mind in a few years?
Elderly people probably paid the most tax to the NHS too
Truthfully, a lot of this euthanasia problem could be alleviated if conservative and Orthodox religions could create their own “standard of struggle” for the aged and infirm.
Think of it as a standard for “religious permission to die naturally.”
Right now it is religiously open-ended, leading some people to want to die because of a paper cut, and others willing to experience unending agony and dehumanization to cling to the remnants of life.
Properly, people should resist death, and be supported by their faith in this resistance. But there needs to be a point where their faith says, “You can stop fighting, and heaven will not hold it against you.”
Importantly, this does *not* mean euthanasia. Just the acceptance that physical death cannot be denied forever, and the important thing is spiritual survival beyond death.
This was somewhat contained in the final days of Pope John Paul II, in which he knew his body was dying, so his effort was in preserving his spirit. Giving up one fight to pursue the other.
Truly a “death with dignity”. No euthanasia, no narcotic haze beyond pain relief, surrounded by the faithful and caring, not the physicians, surgeons and nurses.
Such a “standard for struggle” would not be easy to codify, because each person is different; but religious absolution should be there to ease the final days.
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