Removing treatment by democratic consensus as default (living wills)

[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