lurkette

I'm by no means cavalier about human life, but there's a difference between being physically alive and being ALIVE, and I think you have to ask what this woman would have wanted, not what her parents want. If she didn't have a living will, it's basically a matter of what the husband says she would have wanted vs. what the parents want.

My brother was hit by a car in April. He was in a coma for two weeks, and during those two weeks we had to think not just about what would happen if he came around - all the rehabilitation and pain and recuperation - but what Josh would want if he just...lingered. What kind of life would he be able to have? Would it be a life worth having? At the end, as his body systems shut down one by one and he "coded" we had to make the decision to tell them to stop working on him and let him go, or keep him on life support. I love my brother fiercely, and we understood each other on a level that few people do. And I knew that he would rather die than live crippled, let alone brain damaged as he would be after his body crashed, and he would smack me up in the next life if I let him be hooked to machines for the rest of his life. I want my brother back more than anything in the world. If he had lived I would have done anything to take care of him - quit my job, move to LA, push him around the skate park every day in a wheelchair, anything. But that's what I want. Not what he would want. And I have to respect his wishes, no matter how painful it is for me or the rest of my family. I was the one who told them to stop, because my mom just couldn't do it. I was the one who held his hand while he died.

So am I "so cavalier about human life"? I would have to say no. But there are some things that are more important than just keeping someone alive.

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France