[the_devils_advocate_666]

The actual “food” they pump into this body may be a trivial expense but the “cost” of providing care 24x7 is nothing trivial.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Providing Care 24x7" for a person in a coma is not that burdensome. I speak as one who did it for my father --- not in a coma, but bedridden and very debilitated for months before his death.

The local Home Hospice Service (paid for by Medicare) sent one CNA to our home to bathe him daily, which took 20 minutes. We (my husband and I) changed his undies, shifted him around to prevent bedsores, turned on the radio to his favorite classical music station (while he could still hear), and so forth. We also fed him nutritious liquids with a 20 cc syringe (no needle) orally, and ice cream with a spoon.

The "bother" was comparable to care and feeding of the tropical fish in my kid's aquarium.

It's just a matter of common decency. It's what human beings do.

[wagglebee]

The actual “food” they pump into this body may be a trivial expense but the “cost” of providing care 24x7 is nothing trivial.

So then, if the cost of caring for someone is "not trivial," are you saying that human life is "trivial"?

Who gets to decide? If someone wealthy is hospitalized and his family determines that they can get an extra hundred thousand dollars or so by "speeding up" death, should they be allowed to do so?