The right to die

Terri Shiavo is the woman who has been brain dead for 15 years but has been kept alive thanks to a feeding tube. She told her husband that if she was ever in a vegetative state, that she would not want to be kept alive. Her husband has the right to decide whether to let her die or keep her alive. He earned those rights when he married Terri. The husband has passed Terri’s wishes on to the hospital. Terri’s family, as you know, has been fighting otherwise. The courts have finally decided that her feeding tube should be removed.

Now politicians in Congress, mostly for political gain are trying to have the feeding tube reinserted.

I believe that her wishes should be respected. She is brain dead for the love of God. Just because her brain step is making her body act as if there is a thinking brain in there, it does not mean that she is a human being anymore.

I do wish that she would be allowed to die by a simple lethal injection as opposed to being starved to death over the course of days or weeks. But I guess that since she is no longer a thinking, feeling human, it probably does not really matter.

So I will use this space here to say this:
If I’m ever in a situation where I’m brain dead and a machine is being used to keep me alive, pull the plug!

Anyone else?

Posted by david at 11:21 am | Permalink |

Filed under Observations, Personal