Living Wills, and in their absence, who gets to decide if you live? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

dimbulb · 10-26-2003, 05:05 PM

Reading this just makes me want to get a living will drawn up immediately. Personally, I do not consider being in a vegetative state "living". If I were ever in a position that I could not make decisions for myself, that I lose conscious thought, I would rather be left to die. Being able to 'recognise' light, is not living to me. Not being able to express my thoughts and my feelings to my loved ones.... thats not living to me.

I'm just glad that me and my SO share the same viewpoint regarding this, and for that matter, my parents share mostly the same viewpoint as well. Not to say that I won't do everything possible to save the lives of a loved one, but after all possible measures (which of course is a debatable issue... ) have been taken, there comes a time when the towel should be thrown in, especially if the brain is irreversibly damaged.

So what are your thoughts on this. What would you do if you were a parent? or a spouse? And what would you want your spouse to do?
what would you want Jeb Bush to do?

A separate point, but this is a good reason to recognise gay unions. The spouse should have the ultimate right to decide, especially in the case of medical emergencies and medical information. Just 'imagine' for a moment that you are in an emergency or a coma. Who would you want to decide your fate. Your parents? or your SO?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/we...ew/26DEWA.html
October 26, 2003
It May Be a Family Matter, but Just Try to Define Family
By SHAILA K. DEWAN

he life of Terri Schiavo, however narrowly it has been lived in the 13 years since a heart attack left her severely brain-damaged at 26, is at its core a story of a family divided. Ms. Schiavo's husband believes she has no hope of recovery and chose to remove the feeding tube that keeps her alive. Her parents disagreed. Last week, the Florida Legislature gave Gov. Jeb Bush the power to intervene; he ordered the tube replaced.

While the courts have been the main battleground, the case is fundamentally one of emotional, rather than legal, combat. It concerns the lengths to which love will go, the families people choose versus those they are born into and the question of who has the more valid claim to someone's destiny. Society's fears and suspicions collect around the stereotypes in play: a disloyal husband, overprotective parents.

"The case has been mischaracterized as the case of a woman who is disabled being starved to death," said Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, a Franciscan friar, medical doctor and the chairman of the ethics committee at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan. "But the real moral issue is these sort of thorny disagreements that occur in the settings of real families."

Dr. Sulmasy, who regularly consults with relatives making life-or-death decisions within complicated family relationships, said it is easy for an ethicist to forget that people drag the flotsam of the past behind them.

"Is what's going on here just a history of suspicion that these in-laws have had against their son-in-law from the beginning?" he asked. "Or did he rescue her from a family that was always smothering and they now feel that they have to continue to care for her the way they always have?"

Overwhelmingly, state laws and courts have granted the spouse the first right to make life-or-death decisions. Next come the children, and then the parents. In a system focused on nuclear families, this reflects the view that spouses are far better equipped to make proxy decisions because they share responsibilities and have known each other intimately in their adult lives, rather than in childhood.

Parents, on the other hand, must contend with generational asymmetry, the idea that caring flows down the family tree more strongly than it climbs up.

While children may nurse a permanent ambivalence toward their parents, said Janna Malamud Smith, a clinical social worker and the author of "A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear," parents want nothing more than to have their children outlive them.

"Whatever your gratitude and deep love for a parent who raised you, you don't have this ongoing mandate for this creature that `no matter what, I will protect you,' " Ms. Smith said.

In any case, the idea that the spouse knows best does not prove to be uniformly true. In a study that Dr. Sulmasy calls "the bioethics version of `The Newlywed Game,' " health care questions were posed to people and their proxies to compare their answers. Faced with situations like whether to turn off a ventilator or withdraw a feeding tube, they did not agree 20 percent of the time.

It did not make a difference whether the proxy was related by blood, Dr. Sulmasy said. The best results came when the person explicitly told the proxy what he or she would want beforehand.

Ms. Schiavo may or may not have done that; her husband, Michael, has said that she had expressed a desire not to be kept on life support.

But even if she had not, the Florida Legislature has stripped Mr. Schiavo of his right to make choices for his wife for the time being. The marital intimacy that is normally inviolable even by parents or children, not to mention politicians or those whose stated aim is to protect family values, has been breached.

"In a sense that movement rests on a sentimental version of family — that whether or not blood is thicker than water, blood is somehow better," Ms. Smith said.

It is difficult for estate lawyers to think of a time when so much effort has been put into overriding a spouse's prerogatives. "Maybe in this post-Laci Peterson world, people are more skeptical of spouses and their motives," said Herbert E. Nass, a probate lawyer and the author of "Wills of the Rich and Famous."

The very idea of pulling the plug conjures up a lurking fear, said Laura Kipnis, the author of "Against Love: A Polemic." "There's a sort of undercurrent of mistrust and suspicion underlying the state of marriage these days," she said, "the idea that a spouse may leave you or try to murder you or having a secret life with someone else."

Mr. Schiavo is now living with another woman; they have a child and are expecting another. Ms. Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, point out that Mr. Schiavo won a million-dollar malpractice judgment to pay for his wife's care, which he would inherit if she died. Mr. Schiavo's lawyer argues that it has been 10 years since that settlement. And with a wife in a "vegetative state" for 13 years, doesn't a husband — or anyone, for that matter — have the right to walk away?

The Schindlers accuse Mr. Schiavo of having abused their daughter, and even of possibly causing her injury; doctors say she suffered a heart attack caused by a potassium deficiency. The Schindlers say that their daughter had told them she wanted a divorce and that Mr. Schiavo has denied her medical treatment that might help her. And, they claim, their daughter smiles and responds to their presence.

In the end, what is missing is not so much consensus as any sense of trust that both parties — the chosen companion and the birth family — want what is best for Ms. Schiavo.

"The people who oughtn't to be involved are the barbers and bankers and real estate agents that make up the Legislature, and the governor of Florida," said Thomas Lynch, a funeral director and author of two books of essays on themes of life and death. "It should have been an intimate conversation, not a big conversation. It should have been an intimate decision, not a public decision."

The struggle over the feeding tube is so compelling because it is so easy to agonize with both the parents and the husband. And, for that matter, with Ms. Schiavo herself, at the mercy of people for whom there is no obvious right choice.

Reflecting on the case, Cathleen Schine, a novelist whose most recent book, "She Is Me," presents three generations of women from one family, offered her best answer: get a living will.

"Because otherwise," she said, "everybody's got their own version of you and what you would want."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Anomaly_ · 10-26-2003, 06:53 PM

If nothing is stipulated in a living will it indeed becomes a huge mess like in this case. Personally, I would want to receive a lethal injection if I were ever significantly brain damaged. After all, your brain is you! Defing significant is still a problem though, and it would have to be layed out in great detail. Dr. Kevorkian may be nutty but I don't think assisted suicide is. It can be a very legititmate option and not just an unnecessarily taboo subject.

Dilbert1234567 · 10-31-2003, 03:19 PM

most hospitals let you draft a living will befor surgery and some even let you draft one any time.

but your spouse has control but not ypur partner, (ie you have to be married. sorry gays and lesbians its unfair) but befor that i think it is blood relitives but i may be wrong, i am sure that a spouse does hve crontrol if you are incapable of making a desision, unless your living will grants it elsewere.

10-26-2003, 05:05 PM	#1 (permalink)
dimbulb Riiiiight........	Living Wills, and in their absence, who gets to decide if you live? Reading this just makes me want to get a living will drawn up immediately. Personally, I do not consider being in a vegetative state "living". If I were ever in a position that I could not make decisions for myself, that I lose conscious thought, I would rather be left to die. Being able to 'recognise' light, is not living to me. Not being able to express my thoughts and my feelings to my loved ones.... thats not living to me. I'm just glad that me and my SO share the same viewpoint regarding this, and for that matter, my parents share mostly the same viewpoint as well. Not to say that I won't do everything possible to save the lives of a loved one, but after all possible measures (which of course is a debatable issue... ) have been taken, there comes a time when the towel should be thrown in, especially if the brain is irreversibly damaged. So what are your thoughts on this. What would you do if you were a parent? or a spouse? And what would you want your spouse to do? what would you want Jeb Bush to do? A separate point, but this is a good reason to recognise gay unions. The spouse should have the ultimate right to decide, especially in the case of medical emergencies and medical information. Just 'imagine' for a moment that you are in an emergency or a coma. Who would you want to decide your fate. Your parents? or your SO? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/we...ew/26DEWA.html October 26, 2003 It May Be a Family Matter, but Just Try to Define Family By SHAILA K. DEWAN he life of Terri Schiavo, however narrowly it has been lived in the 13 years since a heart attack left her severely brain-damaged at 26, is at its core a story of a family divided. Ms. Schiavo's husband believes she has no hope of recovery and chose to remove the feeding tube that keeps her alive. Her parents disagreed. Last week, the Florida Legislature gave Gov. Jeb Bush the power to intervene; he ordered the tube replaced. While the courts have been the main battleground, the case is fundamentally one of emotional, rather than legal, combat. It concerns the lengths to which love will go, the families people choose versus those they are born into and the question of who has the more valid claim to someone's destiny. Society's fears and suspicions collect around the stereotypes in play: a disloyal husband, overprotective parents. "The case has been mischaracterized as the case of a woman who is disabled being starved to death," said Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, a Franciscan friar, medical doctor and the chairman of the ethics committee at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan. "But the real moral issue is these sort of thorny disagreements that occur in the settings of real families." Dr. Sulmasy, who regularly consults with relatives making life-or-death decisions within complicated family relationships, said it is easy for an ethicist to forget that people drag the flotsam of the past behind them. "Is what's going on here just a history of suspicion that these in-laws have had against their son-in-law from the beginning?" he asked. "Or did he rescue her from a family that was always smothering and they now feel that they have to continue to care for her the way they always have?" Overwhelmingly, state laws and courts have granted the spouse the first right to make life-or-death decisions. Next come the children, and then the parents. In a system focused on nuclear families, this reflects the view that spouses are far better equipped to make proxy decisions because they share responsibilities and have known each other intimately in their adult lives, rather than in childhood. Parents, on the other hand, must contend with generational asymmetry, the idea that caring flows down the family tree more strongly than it climbs up. While children may nurse a permanent ambivalence toward their parents, said Janna Malamud Smith, a clinical social worker and the author of "A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear," parents want nothing more than to have their children outlive them. "Whatever your gratitude and deep love for a parent who raised you, you don't have this ongoing mandate for this creature that `no matter what, I will protect you,' " Ms. Smith said. In any case, the idea that the spouse knows best does not prove to be uniformly true. In a study that Dr. Sulmasy calls "the bioethics version of `The Newlywed Game,' " health care questions were posed to people and their proxies to compare their answers. Faced with situations like whether to turn off a ventilator or withdraw a feeding tube, they did not agree 20 percent of the time. It did not make a difference whether the proxy was related by blood, Dr. Sulmasy said. The best results came when the person explicitly told the proxy what he or she would want beforehand. Ms. Schiavo may or may not have done that; her husband, Michael, has said that she had expressed a desire not to be kept on life support. But even if she had not, the Florida Legislature has stripped Mr. Schiavo of his right to make choices for his wife for the time being. The marital intimacy that is normally inviolable even by parents or children, not to mention politicians or those whose stated aim is to protect family values, has been breached. "In a sense that movement rests on a sentimental version of family — that whether or not blood is thicker than water, blood is somehow better," Ms. Smith said. It is difficult for estate lawyers to think of a time when so much effort has been put into overriding a spouse's prerogatives. "Maybe in this post-Laci Peterson world, people are more skeptical of spouses and their motives," said Herbert E. Nass, a probate lawyer and the author of "Wills of the Rich and Famous." The very idea of pulling the plug conjures up a lurking fear, said Laura Kipnis, the author of "Against Love: A Polemic." "There's a sort of undercurrent of mistrust and suspicion underlying the state of marriage these days," she said, "the idea that a spouse may leave you or try to murder you or having a secret life with someone else." Mr. Schiavo is now living with another woman; they have a child and are expecting another. Ms. Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, point out that Mr. Schiavo won a million-dollar malpractice judgment to pay for his wife's care, which he would inherit if she died. Mr. Schiavo's lawyer argues that it has been 10 years since that settlement. And with a wife in a "vegetative state" for 13 years, doesn't a husband — or anyone, for that matter — have the right to walk away? The Schindlers accuse Mr. Schiavo of having abused their daughter, and even of possibly causing her injury; doctors say she suffered a heart attack caused by a potassium deficiency. The Schindlers say that their daughter had told them she wanted a divorce and that Mr. Schiavo has denied her medical treatment that might help her. And, they claim, their daughter smiles and responds to their presence. In the end, what is missing is not so much consensus as any sense of trust that both parties — the chosen companion and the birth family — want what is best for Ms. Schiavo. "The people who oughtn't to be involved are the barbers and bankers and real estate agents that make up the Legislature, and the governor of Florida," said Thomas Lynch, a funeral director and author of two books of essays on themes of life and death. "It should have been an intimate conversation, not a big conversation. It should have been an intimate decision, not a public decision." The struggle over the feeding tube is so compelling because it is so easy to agonize with both the parents and the husband. And, for that matter, with Ms. Schiavo herself, at the mercy of people for whom there is no obvious right choice. Reflecting on the case, Cathleen Schine, a novelist whose most recent book, "She Is Me," presents three generations of women from one family, offered her best answer: get a living will. "Because otherwise," she said, "everybody's got their own version of you and what you would want." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

10-31-2003, 03:19 PM	#3 (permalink)
Dilbert1234567 Devils Cabana Boy Location: Central Coast CA	most hospitals let you draft a living will befor surgery and some even let you draft one any time. but your spouse has control but not ypur partner, (ie you have to be married. sorry gays and lesbians its unfair) but befor that i think it is blood relitives but i may be wrong, i am sure that a spouse does hve crontrol if you are incapable of making a desision, unless your living will grants it elsewere. __________________ Donate Blood! "Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

10-26-2003, 06:53 PM	#2 (permalink)
Anomaly_ Insane	If nothing is stipulated in a living will it indeed becomes a huge mess like in this case. Personally, I would want to receive a lethal injection if I were ever significantly brain damaged. After all, your brain is you! Defing significant is still a problem though, and it would have to be layed out in great detail. Dr. Kevorkian may be nutty but I don't think assisted suicide is. It can be a very legititmate option and not just an unnecessarily taboo subject.