You see, I am undecided on euthanasia - mainly because I've never had to face a hard a situation where it's come up as a choice for anyone I know. But I'm wondering how many on this board will be content to see Medicare keep thousands of baby boomers alive indefinitely. I see this issue as becoming a lot hotter over the next 10 years.
It can be pretty expensive to pay for someone's medical care when they're disabled. Terri was awarded about $1.3 million, but most of that has been spent on lawyers to have her killed. A lot of other people have no insurance and no money to pay for their medical care. It would save us an enormous amount of money if we just starved and dehydrated them all to death. Useless eaters!
I expect that involuntary euthanasia will be widely practiced, albeit discreetly (religious sensibilities are too strong). Even now, nursing homes are full of people who rarely, if every, have a visitor, so who would notice, much less care, when they die?
Right now, we're spending money in this country like the proverbial drunken sailor on leave. The cost of supporting and providing medical care to the Baby Boomers will break the bank. I'm afraid that we'll go to the other extreme, involuntary euthanasia, in a desperate, and perhaps futile, attempt to stave off national bankruptcy.
A democracy inevitably destroys itself, morally and economically, and is replaced by a dictatorship. I think that this is where we are heading for within about 30 years.
A "decision" on Euthanasia based upon personal convenience and money is suicidal for the culture - We will destroy ourselves. "Alive indefinitely" - that's how long we are all alive. Stop feeding us and we will die. These are all red herrings.
I have suspect some of those who troll the Terri threads are selfish bastards who don't know when to 'let go', suffer survivor's guilt, are inexperienced or refuse to recognize the point when treatment sucking away every last ounce of dignity, making the patient unrecognizable to friend or family and they to him or her.
My view is Terri's "dead" but her body hasn't caught up with this reality. There's no viable ethical argument, however, to starve a patient to death. So long as food, rather than artificial respiration or similar means, is all that keeps her from dying she should be fed.
She'd have been better off if she'd been killed by her original illness. Her parents are just as sick as her husband.