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Lawmakers Intrude Into Family Privacy
The Ledger
Imagine watching a loved one dwell in a permanent unconscious state, hooked up to feeding tubes and other lifesupport machines. Lingering in the shadowy realm, halfway between life and the hereafter, for months or perhaps even years.
It is the literal definition of a life sentence for the terminally comatose. It is also cruel-and-unusual punishment for having committed the "offense" of neglecting to leave a living will that clearly spells out one's desires in regard to end-of-life treatment.
And of course, the parent, wife, husband or guardian of a patient who has no reasonable hope of ever regaining consciousness would be similarly sentenced to long years of pain, emotional anguish and perhaps even financial ruin.
All because members of the Florida Legislature cannot resist the urge to play God, especially in an election year.
This all began, of course, as an extraordinary intervention by Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature to keep Terri Schiavo, a Pinellas County woman in a "permanent vegetative state" for many years, alive indefinitely. This despite a series of court rulings that found that her husband had the right to disconnect her from life support.
The special law passed on Schiavo's behalf is almost certain to be overturned by the courts. But lawmakers, eager to score points with the religious right, already are working on a broader measure that is much more frightening in its implications.
Legislation considered by a House committee this week would presume that comatose patients who failed to explicitly put their end-of-life treatment intentions in writing wish to be kept alive indefinitely through the use of feeding tubes and other extraordinary measures. That legal presumption would hold despite the wishes of a comatose patient's family members and loved ones.
Reportedly, the only thing that kept the measure from getting preliminary approval this week was a concern over whether such a law would force parents of brain-dead children -- who are too young to legally make their own end-of-life decisions -- to maintain them on life support indefinitely.
As Chris Nuland of the Florida Chapter of the American College of Physicians told the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, the bill "would eliminate the ability of a family, even when there's no dissent, to withdraw life support."
This bill has the potential to put enormous additional stress on already grief-stricken survivors of terminally ill patients. And taking end-of-life decisions out of the hands of families and giving it to the state also could oblige the taxpayers to spend large amounts of money to keep "alive" patients who have virtually no hope of recovery.
Ideological and political motivations aside, this legislation is simply an unjustifiable intrusion of government into decisions that are better left to families. Florida case law already has established the right of family members to have a patient removed from life support on the basis of previous "oral declarations" when no living will exists.
"The fact is that we have a system in Florida that has worked well for the past 12 years," George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, told reporters this week. "Because of the notoriety of the Schiavo case, which is one isolated case out of tens of thousands over the years, I think the Legislature is politically motivated to look like they are doing something. But I think it makes bad policy and it is not good sense."
This legislation will very likely make its way through the House, if only because House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, R-Plant City, is running for the U.S. Senate and is in hot pursuit of the religious-right vote. The good news is that Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville, has expressed skepticism about the whole notion of legislators playing God. We hope King and other responsible members of the Florida Senate will resolve to block this ill-conceived legislation.
In the meantime, all Floridians would be well-advised to fill out a living will, if only as a matter of self defense against meddling politicians. The alternative is to risk a life sentence to medical limbo, suspended indefinitely between this world and the next.
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Felos is full of demons.
What "The fact is that we have a system in Florida that has worked well for the past 12 years," George Felos tells me is "We've gotten away with this for 12 years now and are really angry that someone finally had enough chutzpah (probably misspelled, LOL) to call us on it."
Let this post serve as a sad, prayerful bump for LIFE!
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