[Drango]

Make sure you put it in writing. Our state has a living will statute, and after it's signed and witnessed, it's got to be filed with your doctor(s) AND with the hospitals before it's honored.

Such a burden is offensive. My life and death belong to me. Not to the state, not to the church and not to the courts.

Dying with dignity means that if I clearly communicate my wishes to others, MY wishes should be followed. I accept the role of the courts to judge if I have clearly communicated my wishes. I DO NOT accept the role of the legislature in making me jump through hoops in order to have my wishes carried out.

[Catspaw]

Dying with dignity means that if I clearly communicate my wishes to others, MY wishes should be followed. I accept the role of the courts to judge if I have clearly communicated my wishes. I DO NOT accept the role of the legislature in making me jump through hoops in order to have my wishes carried out.

Isn't that the crux of the situation with Terri Schiavo? Once she was unable to make her own decisions and her husband and her parents disagreed as to what she wanted, the courts stepped in.

[supercat]

I DO NOT accept the role of the legislature in making me jump through hoops in order to have my wishes carried out.

If there weren't a well-defined procedure for making your wishes unambiguously clear, how could you be sure they'd be carried out?

The procedures are there to ensure that a "person's wishes" are in fact the person's wishes, and not merely the wishes of an adulterous murderous HINO.