Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!wtm
From: era@ncar.ucar.edu (Ed Arnold)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: euthanasia
Message-ID: <10710@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 90 03:35:38 GMT
References: <10683@bunker.UUCP>
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Reply-To: era@ncar.ucar.edu (Ed Arnold)
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Organization: Scientific Computing Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
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Index Number: 7212

In article <10683@bunker.UUCP> Ann.Stalnaker@f14.n385.z1.fidonet.org writes:
|Index Number: 7185
|
|If I'm ever in a 
|position where I can't function without life support systems, I do 
|NOT want to be kept alive.  In other words, I mean if my brain is dead.
|I cannot see spending thousands and thousands of dollars in hospital 
|costs/nursing home fees in a coma and knowing I would never come out 
|of that coma.  I would want the plug to be pulled.

Ditto.  But I don't think the real issue is one's own preferences or
action taken in advance of the event.  The issue that seems to upset
some people the most, is when persons other than the affected person
make that decision for them, without the person's preference having been
made known (via living will, or whatever) before a disabling event.
Even when it's the parents; e.g. the Cruzan case.

|I know the facts of having a living will.  In fact, you'd be surprised 
|at the number of people who do have one.

One minor point which should be made about living wills: a number of
medical/legal advocates are now saying that a legal instrument known as
"durable power of attorney" is superior to the living will.  I last saw
this mentioned in the Feb. 1990 issue of The Peoples' Medical Society
Newsletter.  If you're interested in what the author had to say, let me
know in a followup posting.
--
Ed Arnold * NCAR * POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000 * 303-497-1253(w)
era@ncar.ucar.edu [128.117.64.4] * era@ncario.bitnet * era@ncar.uucp
"See, the human mind is kind of like ... a pinata.  When it breaks open,
there's a lot of surprises inside."	--Jane Wagner/Lily Tomlin