No flames here.
What is happening in Britain is not the same as DNR. The medical authorities are attempting to justify the parcelling of care to people and deciding who is worthy of survival.
Babies who are born who are deformed can be "ordered" to die. That is what they are angling to do: create the argument framework to justify killing infants. They already allow abortions...so why this move?
Right now it is the infants who are at risk of being killed.
"Granny" is just the next step.
I understand families who don't want to let go, having just gone thru that with an elderly relative.
But that is not what this is: this is "medical practioners" deciding for the family: doesn't matter what the family wants, needs or desires. Now the Church is saying its ok....more cover for the "ethical" argument.
That, I submit, is just plain wrong.
"If an elderly invalid is very sick with say, pneumonia, and has little hope of recovery, do you think it is fair to that person for his/her family to demand that the medical team put that person through the trauma (and it CAN be very traumatic, i.e. broken ribs, etc.) of resuscitation, simply because the family just cannot bear to let go?"
The answer is most definitely YES. I want the medical community to PUSH the envelope and EXHAUST the means at their disposal. The minute we start asking them to 'give up', they will.
My grandfather was on death's door when he was 84, and we buried him two years ago at 99. He went to his final baseball game (SF Giants) in person at age 98.
As for me and mine - those doctors are going to exhaust all powers, means and skills. If they lose, which they are going to, fine. If not, however, maybe they'll learn something the world didn't know before.
Read recently about the use of Ambien to pull persistently vegetative people out of their comas?
It's like Reagan said to his surgeons, "Today, you are all Republicans."
What do we tell our kids? "Never give up, unless you are too tired to fight, then go ahead."
As for the kids, getting past the labia is even more difficult than it used to be it seems.