Free Republic

OK, after reading this thread, I’m outta here. You people couldn’t be more unattractive.

Moderator please cancel my screen name, thanks.

“Most normal people would associate with manliness”???

Gosh, maybe in the 19th century. And as you pointed out, anyone can stage a photo op or even a photoshop.

“Short, bald, lisping lawyer” - umm, you don’t want to be accused of the John Edwards airhead thing, do you?

Before Rudy was elected Mayor of NYC, women did not go out alone after dark. Period. It was not safe. Then it all changed.

Standing up to the City Council, the race baiters, all the usual suspects, was the most “manly” thing I’ve seen around here, ever. Then came 911 and despite all the cynicism, he was our lifeline on that horrible day; he never wavered.

P.S. Ever seen a photo-op of Margaret Thatcher doing “manly” things? It’s not your race or your sex or your looks, it’s what you’ve got inside ya! (IMHO)

How about some historical perspective here?

Men dressing as women have always looked and sounded hilarious. Whether it’s Halloween or Elizabethan theater or Noel Coward entertaining the troops during WWII, it’s just damned funny.

Rudy is tough as nails, and will certainly get my support.

Now I guess I’ll have to retire after only a week on FR.

If you are very, very ill, and elderly, the health care personnel will automatically shove a feeding tube down your throat and fill you with Ensure or some other godawful concoction. Because you will not “get better” without nutrition. If you refuse, they will say you are crazy and try to give you antipsychotics. Our hospitals today are fearful of lawsuits.

So you have to make a choice at that time.

The sniper warfare on this thread is hilarious!

But I’m still left wondering...

One of the majestic things about the RC Church is its immutability. But sometimes, very quietly, it does change, in response to our development of more human approaches to human suffering. Our evolution as a species. (They’ve just abolished “limbo”, right? That always seemed an extraordinarily cruel concept, anyway.)

So my question is, an elderly person decides, no feeding tubes, no drugs, I will gracefully accept death. Ok, that’s clearly right and natural and the will of God.

But a 25 year old with a unspeakable, and always fatal disease cannot make the same decision?

What is the age cutoff thing here? That seems kind of fraudulent to me, especially in light of the “immutability” of Cathlic teaching.

Maybe it’s time for the Church to reconsider the right to die?

I don’t mean to be disrespectful - especially since I’m a newbie - but can you tell me how this can be true? That it is always God’s will when a person is to die?

Modern medicine can prop you up for YEARS, and then pull your plug, at the whim of some litigator. And you will have no control over it, because your mind will not be working properly after they load you with drugs.

Or you can take that inner decision yourself, it’s time to go, as JPII did.

Sounds familiar - they wanted to give my mom antidepressants - powerful antipsychotics, for God’s sake - as well as at least 6 other meds. She just refused everything, and faded away. This was absolutely her own will. Possibly she could have lasted another year if she did was she was told, then probably died of another stroke, but she wasn’t having any of it.

You are so nice!! Sleep tight.

It was such a ghastly experience that none of us can talk about it yet. As the weeks went by, each day she got smaller, and somehow, sweeter - like a little child. The feeling of helplessness was unbearable. But you’re right, there was something holy in the air. Can you imagine what it was like at JP II’s deathbed?

Hard to believe that everyone has to go through this in life!

Your description - “things worse than death” - actually makes me glad the Pope refused a feeding tube.

Stupid bloody media.

Thank you for sharing your experiences, and for your kind words.

Why should it be such a shocking thing, then, for the Pope to refuse a feeding tube? If he knew he was ready to go?

What’s really the point of the Time article?

I just keep going around and around with this.

We are all on our way to death, every day.

If she were, say, 25, with a terminal illness, would it be permissible to stop eating? Or is there a crossover point in your life, where any years you gain will not be worth the efforts and indignities required? Did the Pope realize this as he approached his end?

Your reply of course is the only one, and I thank you.

She was a lifelong Catholic. So you can see what a troubling issue this is.

Hello. I have just registered on FR after lurking for a long time. The subject of this thread is something that has been troubling me for months now.

Last Christmas, my mother had her third and most serious stroke. She was 85. Her throat muscles were paralyzed as was her left arm, and she was a little hazy in her thinking, but her heart rate and blood pressure were both good.

She stopped eating, and refused a tube, taking only sips of water. She refused all forms of therapy (rehab,etc.) despite the most urgent pleas of her family and health care professionals. She just told us that her whole body was failing, the thought of eating made her sick and it was time to go.

By April, she had died, peacefully and in her own bed. But my brothers and sisters and I are still torn up from the experience. We keep thinking, she could have gone a couple of more years, but that’s pretty selfish, right?

What do you guys think?