Removing treatment by democratic consensus as default (living wills)

[Duty]

I just sent this email to Dignity In Dying. Is this a runner? What say ye?

Dear fellow Dignity in Dying supporter,

My name is ***** and I'm a care worker living in ********, England. I work with many patients who are unable to communicate and are functionally paralysed. These people are kept alive in perpetuity through being tube fed. Of course, none of them had living wills. 

It seems likely to me that 99% if not 100% of people who are aware and familiar with such patients and are also aware of advance care directives/living wills, would choose to have "treatment" (feeding) withdrawn so that they could die with dignity, rather than exist for decades in a paralysed, uncommunicative, pleasureless and hopeless nightmare.

I want to be involved in a campaign which champions this cause, called perhaps "Withdrawing Treatment Via Democracy" or similar.

Any advice, pointers or feedback will be gladly received.

Kind regards and solidarity,

***** *****

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I don’t think euthanasia is something that should be voted on.

Boru

[Duty]

Call it "Consensus" then With a 99% or even 100% weight of opinion for such patients, who could object (apart from the religious right, of course).

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Call it "Consensus" then With a 99% or even 100% weight of opinion for such patients, who could object (apart from the religious right, of course).

A difference which makes no difference IS no difference. It all boils down to caregivers making the decision to kill people.

Boru

[Duty]

Call it "Consensus" then With a 99% or even 100% weight of opinion for such patients, who could object (apart from the religious right, of course).

A difference which makes no difference IS no difference. It all boils down to caregivers making the decision to kill people.

Boru

Rather the authorities deduce, through asking the general population what their wishes would be if they were paralysed and unable to communicate, that the patient would want to die.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

A difference which makes no difference IS no difference. It all boils down to caregivers making the decision to kill people.

Boru

Rather the authorities deduce, through asking the general population what their wishes would be if they were paralysed and unable to communicate, that the patient would want to die.

How the everlasting fuck does the general population know what a particular patient wants? 

Let’s imagine that a voter referendum splits 70/30 in favour of your plan, so it gets enacted into law. That means 3 out of 10 people who become locked in are going to be killed against their wishes. I’m no lawyer, but I’m fairly certain that killing someone who doesn’t want to be killed is called ‘murder’.

Your estimate that 99 or 100% of the gen pop would agree with your plan is simply wishful thinking.

Boru

[Duty]

Rather the authorities deduce, through asking the general population what their wishes would be if they were paralysed and unable to communicate, that the patient would want to die.

How the everlasting fuck does the general population know what a particular patient wants? 

Let’s imagine that a voter referendum splits 70/30 in favour of your plan, so it gets enacted into law. That means 3 out of 10 people who become locked in are going to be killed against their wishes. I’m no lawyer, but I’m fairly certain that killing someone who doesn’t want to be killed is called ‘murder’.

Your estimate that 99 or 100% of the gen pop would agree with your plan is simply wishful thinking.

Boru

How? Empathy and hypothetical thinking. And yet you are comfortable with deciding that the patient would want to live and so insert a peg and tube feed them in perpetuity without their consent? 

Let me ask you a simple question Boru, I know you're just one person, but I bet you'll give the same answer as does everybody else I've communicated to about this if you answer honestly. Would you want to live if you were rendered permanently utterly paralysed, double-incontinent and unable to eat, drink or communicate in any way?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

How the everlasting fuck does the general population know what a particular patient wants? 

Let’s imagine that a voter referendum splits 70/30 in favour of your plan, so it gets enacted into law. That means 3 out of 10 people who become locked in are going to be killed against their wishes. I’m no lawyer, but I’m fairly certain that killing someone who doesn’t want to be killed is called ‘murder’.

Your estimate that 99 or 100% of the gen pop would agree with your plan is simply wishful thinking.

Boru

How? Empathy and hypothetical thinking. And yet you are comfortable with deciding that the patient would want to live and so insert a peg and tube feed them in perpetuity without their consent? 

Let me ask you a simple question Boru, I know you're just one person, but I bet you'll give the same answer as does everybody else I've communicated to about this if you answer honestly. Would you want to live if you were rendered permanently utterly paralysed, double-incontinent and unable to eat, drink or communicate in any way?

Of course not, but I don’t want other people to make the decision for me. Here’s a simpler and more ethical solution:

REQUIRE every adult to make the decision whether or not to have a living will. You could do it at driving license renewal time or along with tax filings, something of that sort. That way, people who don’t want to be kept alive in that state wouldn’t be (and it would be THEIR decision), while those who do want to be kept alive in the hope of a medical breakthrough would have that option.

Just as no one should be kept alive against their wishes, so no one should be killed based on polling data (which you’re suggesting) against theirs.

Boru

[Duty]

That policy would be great and should be in place, agreed, but it does nothing for the many thousands of people already stuck in physical and communicative paralysis without their consent.

[The Grand Nudger]

How the everlasting fuck does the general population know what a particular patient wants? 

Let’s imagine that a voter referendum splits 70/30 in favour of your plan, so it gets enacted into law. That means 3 out of 10 people who become locked in are going to be killed against their wishes. I’m no lawyer, but I’m fairly certain that killing someone who doesn’t want to be killed is called ‘murder’.

Your estimate that 99 or 100% of the gen pop would agree with your plan is simply wishful thinking.

Boru

How? Empathy and hypothetical thinking.

I wouldn't hinge too many lives on those things..but, end of the day, other people could only be counted on to know what they would want, not what the person in question would want.

And yet you are comfortable with deciding that the patient would want to live and so insert a peg and tube feed them in perpetuity without their consent? 

As far as I'm aware, that isn't so much a decision as the immediate intervention in a health emergency.  People in such a state generally don't have the option to consent to or refuse such treatment in that moment.  

Let me ask you a simple question Boru, I know you're just one person, but I bet you'll give the same answer as does everybody else I've communicated to about this if you answer honestly. Would you want to live if you were rendered permanently utterly paralysed, double-incontinent and unable to eat, drink or communicate in any way?

I'll be leaving that up to my family in that event.  If they have the cash to burn and for whatever reason want to spend it keeping me alive, that's on them (though I hope they know me enough to know I wouldn't blame them or be angry at them for pulling a plug).  I won't be there to chime in either way.  I certainly hope that I would, in a health emergency requiring that immediate intervention, receive that care - even though it could turn out that way and put my family in the position to have to make such a decision.

I don't want any of -you- voting on it, for any reason, ever.  Don't get me wrong, I like you guys just fine, but keep your hands of my corpse.