h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm confused about something. This will come as no surprise to most of you since I spend a lot of time in that state.

Question.....why is it considered "playing God" to remove someone from life support or to discontinue life prolonging medications for someone who doesn't really want to live any longer? Shouldn't it be just the opposite?

I have heard that phrase used so many times to criticize people who favor letting nature take it's course. If a person would die without a treatment, then isn't the treatment the unnatural option?

Why is permitting someone to die considered cruel? It seems to me that forcing them to live with pain, disability and indignity is much more cruel. Why is life in any state considered the better option? What happened to quality of life issues? What happened to the right to a dignified death?

I'm not talking about people who if successfully treated can go on to live a productive, happy life. I'm talking about people who are kept alive far longer than their capacity to enjoy life and maintain their dignity. About people who are forced into totally dependent states, forced to relinquish control of their lives and their persons. How did we get to this point? I really don't see the morality in it.

That's why there are DNRs and living wills. I don't see the point in keeping the shell alive when the person is so obviously gone. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with end of life choices and seem to think it's preferable to keep living regardless of quality of life. I also find it ironic that the people most likely to espouse these ideas believe in an afterlife. Wouldn't it be better to let the person go and experience the joys of heaven instead of keeping them bound to a useless frame?

Lord C and I both have living wills. We did this several years ago. Our Aunt M. made the decision to disconnect her husband of many years and I have always felt she did the right thing. She said it was the hardest thing she ever did, but it was necessary.

I don't look at it as "playing God". I think keeping someone alive by artificial means when they are no longer there is cruel. Everyone should make their wishes known in this matter by leaving some written word with instructions. The doctors I've dealt with will honor it.

It isn't always just turning off life support. How about keeping people on prescription meds that cause side effects or forcing them to eat healthy foods they don't like and not giving them their favorite foods? Things like that.

Sometimes it's dramatic like removing feeding tubes or oxygen. But sometimes it's a question of just leaving people alone.

Mr. Emee and I have both discussed and made our wishes known to both our families. DNRs, living wills and organ donor cards can be challenged by family. I knew someone whose husband had terminal cancer and a DNR on file with the hospital. Taking the burden of that decision from her was the best thing he ever did for her. (He was a mean ol' coot.)

Evening all!

I have talked with the missus about this, and we have both agreed to have the switch, very firmly in the off position when the question arises


RJR

We must remember that the notion of god is a human invention. An invention that works quite well to add credibility and authority to any opinion we happen to have. I know, god told me and he doesn't like it when you question him.

Humbly yours,
gods messenger

I know, when GOD was at our place (spent two weeks in our back room, Holidays)

The basis of all morality, ethics and philosophy human judgements about what is "good" and what is "bad"...If you lean back in your rocker and crush the tail of one of your cats, the cat will have a clear opinion...If you are responsible for the medical care of a loved one who is severely incapacitated, your decisions should be guided by the wishes and judgements of that person and what he or she might have entrusted you to do in the end...hopefully these matters will have been worked out and discussed in advance...if not, an authenic person would reason out an appropriate response based on what he or she would wish for himself or herself...Oh foo!...that all sounds so incredibly pompous and self-evident..but you're on the right track, Hypatia...Mrs. Phred and I are signing new papers in March...

and anyway, what's God got to do with it?

To thwart the natural death process without good cause is 'playing god'.

But the term itself is just a buzz-phrase that the brainwashed religionist kneejerks have been taught.

How long has your mother been staying with you?

Seriously, I agree with you wholeheartedly, Hyp.

That obvious, broe?

Actually, she is better. I wasn't exactly talking about my mother.

I was thinking along the same lines as broelan, I just didn't dare type if first.

"What happened to the right to a dignified death?"

Was there ever one? Where is it written down? Define 'dignified'.

Like 'God', I think this idea of 'a dignified death' is a human invention, but unlike 'God', it comes from the latter part of the 20th century. We used to accept our fate a lot more readily than we do these days, without intervention that would terminate or elongate our existence. I don't consider it my place to choose my own time of dying merely because living has become unpleasant as a result of debilitating or agonising illness. I say that without having experienced the pain of terminal cancer or any other such ailment.

I do agree that keeping someone in a vegetative state alive is the unnatural option, but I'm very glad I haven't had to make that decision - either as a doctor or a relative - and I hope I never do. It's one of those things that's out of the box and there's no way to put it back in - the possibility of keeping someone alive by machine exists and people are going to use it. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to keep me alive for years on end in those circumstances.

My personal experience of this persuades me that we've screwed up big time in the way that society gives people 'choices' nowadays.

Our son suffered a massive cerebral ischaemea while in hospital. Anywhere else, and he would have died. As it was, they caught him, and he spent a week in intensive care. They did the tests, established that the brain damage was irrevocable and that he would die within hours at most if they took away the life support.

The 'choices', then, were to keep him on the machine indefinitely, or to take it away and let him go. The doctors unequivocally favoured the latter course, because the alternative was pointless. But they had to give us the 'choice'. The inevitable could only happen once we were ready.

I didn't want any such choice, and I'm pretty sure my wife didn't either. The fact that I'm not even sure of her opinion just goes to show how painful and inappropriate giving us the decision was. We couldn't think straight. It would have been a simple mercy if we'd been spared an obvious decision, but for some reason we had to face it and take it. The confusion and guilt didn't help us to grieve and to reconcile our loss at all.

I don't understand why society does this to people. I guess it has something to do with liability law. We have two lovely kids, and I must admit to relief that neither of them show the slightest interest in either medicine or the legal profession.

I disagree, Gosho. I do think I have the right to choose the time and manner of my own death in that sort of circumstance.

I meant dignified in the sense of dying in my own bed with a degree of privacy than in a damn hospital hooked up to a lot of machines, catheters, etc.

Pin, the decision must be much more difficult with a child. I can't imagine having to make it.

OMG, Pinneped. How awful for you. My heart breaks.

When we show mercy to another human being, we're not playing God. We're playing human.

You bring up a good point about favorite foods... I'm not sure when it's moral to start dictating to your loved ones what they should and shouldn't eat. If your loved one is suffering from Alzheimer's and is diabetic, of course you can't let them have sweets - even if they want some, and they can't understand why you won't let them have any. But if your overweight husband is chowing down on tortilla chips, is it okay to say "Hey, you've had enough?"

It's a dilemna. Me, I figure if the individual is sane, they have the right to do to their own bodies whatever they'd like.

Right after the Terri Schiavo debacle, lots of people went and got a living will. Which shows you where a lot of people stand on this issue! Nobody wants to be stuck in a flesh box...

I think, Hyp, that if medical science has a possibility of saving me but their intervention fails, I've no objection to dying in an IC bed. If I was terminally ill I would opt for some kind of palliative care rather than an all-out try-every-possibility go-to-the-ends-of-the-earth regime in order to prolong life as much as possible. And I wouldn't go for the opposite - euthenasia - either. I consider accepting your fate as life presents it to you (within reason), 'dignified'. I put that caveat in because I don't mean that you should simply accept whatever happens, regardless. If there are genuine choices or possibilities, explore them.