Very well said. I would rather pass on our fairly limited resources to my children than give it to medical devices companies. I am seriously worried about big government bad laws being passed that might limit my freedom of choice.
I have a living will. I have no desire to provide one more vacation home for my doctor. But here's the problem, people like us are put in a spot when dealing with Terri. We fear the unintended consequences of lawmakers generalizing. Disappointing judges made it worse. They're the people who should cut the gordian knot, not wallow in elitist fears. How could they not respect for a woman who easily could have been abused? Can't they see this case is different?
I stand with Terri. Terri, the person. Not "Terri the life at all costs and misery" concept.
I slept on a hospital floor to safeguard my fathers last request not to be hooked to machines to prolong his painful death from cancer. He asked all of us to make sure that didn't happen and we stayed at the hospital in shifts to protect him from overzealous nurses.
Terri's different.
Maybe freepers can figure this problem out -- the judges are an embarrassment- coming across as unthinking control freaks.
Good people will have to solve this. People like you. People like me. The great unwashed. There's a man named Hentoff or something like that who writes for the Village Voice. He seems capable of seeing both sides. I'm sure there are others.
Thanks for your comments. You're a good person -- and honest. Maybe with good people trying, a fair solution can be found.
Living Wills would seem to be the answer, but in so many cases, a person's desires, as expressed in their living will are discarded because a loved one can't stand to let go or are pressured by doctors.
The doctors seem to be more than willing to disregard a persons Living Will requests and that is what's so ironic about Terri. Schiavo, Greer, and her doctors are going against what would normally be suggested even for an elderly person.
In our experiences, the doctors wanted to place feeding tubes and ventilators in my in-laws even though they had expressed otherwise in their living wills.
The Health Care Surrogate documents, we had, made it legal for my husband to insist that his parents wishes be carried out.
That is the slippery slope, because life does end. A feeding tube in every patient that is terminal does nothing but prolong suffering and put money into the doctors pocket (it must also be noted that a feeding tube makes it much easier for medical staff...instead of spending a half hour trying to get a person to eat a bit of nourishment, they can accomplish the same thing in minutes with a feeding tube.)
When my MIL and FIL were dying, we visited them 3 or 4 times a day, trying to coax some nourishment into them, because since we had refused the feeding tube, it didn't seem like the hospital staff had the time to spend to accomplish the task.
IMHO, feeding tubes have their place, but not in the terminally ill.
I don't categorize Terri as terminally ill, so I agree that removal of the feeding tube and denial of hydration and an attempt to feed her, could be deemed intentional euthanasia.