Bold emphasis is added:
Which spouse gets to make the mortality decisions? If three people are married, one is unconscious in the hospital, and the other two disagree about what medical procedures should be done, what happens?
I am all for having everyone make a living will in which such things are declared so that the person who is presently unconscious really makes the decision in advance, but most people don't have living wills. And also they are usually not detailed enough to cover all possibilities, which makes it helpful if one has a trusted spouse to tell them what you would want. But having two spouses is often, in practice, going to screw that up completely.
(July 8, 2015 at 9:49 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: I'm down with consenting adults doing whatever they want.
It gets a little funky when you get the government involved. Do you put a cap on polyamorous relationships? Can 40 people be married? Does one of their employers have to provide dependent benefits to all of those people on one person's salary?
On the other hand, if for example 4 people are in a relationship and want to commit to lifelong relationships to each other, they should be able to choose that, and be able to have all of the societal benefits that come with it, like hospital visitation, mortality decisions, etc.
Which spouse gets to make the mortality decisions? If three people are married, one is unconscious in the hospital, and the other two disagree about what medical procedures should be done, what happens?
I am all for having everyone make a living will in which such things are declared so that the person who is presently unconscious really makes the decision in advance, but most people don't have living wills. And also they are usually not detailed enough to cover all possibilities, which makes it helpful if one has a trusted spouse to tell them what you would want. But having two spouses is often, in practice, going to screw that up completely.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
