[PLUG-TALK] Re: PLUG-talk Digest, Vol 6, Issue 20

[plug_0 at robinson-west.com]

> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:24:06 -0800
> From: Paul Johnson <baloo at ursine.ca>
> Subject: Re: [PLUG-TALK] Shiavo case...
> To: Random clatter and time wasting chat
> 	<plug-talk at lists.pdxlinux.org>
> Message-ID: <200503282024.06411.baloo at ursine.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> On Monday 28 March 2005 07:35 pm, plug_0 at robinson-west.com wrote:
> > Florida should enact a law that requires
> > food and water to be provided in cases
> > where there are no written instructions.
> > It's barbaric the way Terry's husband is
> > trying to come out and say, "she's not
> > in pain."  Just because she's in a coma,
> > that doesn't mean she isn't feeling pain.
> 
> 1) Even the family has said, "There's nothing more we can do, thanks 
> for your support, go home and leave us alone."
(
   Really?  Last night on the news I think the daughter said, 
   "Terry wants to live."
)
 
> 2) We're talking about a routine procedure typically done not long 
> after things look hopeless for the patient, not 15 years later.  I'm 
> no doctor, but I *did* know a lot about what was going on in the 
> hospital I worked in, particularly deaths during my shift.  Hospitals 
> avoid letting people linger half-dead if they can't do anything more, 
> there's no compelling medical or ethical reason to do so.
(
   I'd never deny food and water if I were a doctor.
   I see nothing ordinary with starving or dehydrating
   a patient.  If this was going on at the hospital 
   you worked at and you said nothing, you are as
   responsible for those deaths as the doctors there
   that witheld ordinary care.
)
 
> 3) It's barbaric to argue someone who has been half-dead on life 
> support for nearly half their life should continue to do so.
(
   By half dead you mean alive.  Food and water are forms of life
   support that every healthy human being requires almost every 
   day. 
)
 
> > For those who say, write a will.  What
> > gurantee is there that any will is going
> > to be followed?
 
> Umm, laws already on the books in most states, as if human decency 
> wasn't enough.
(
   As if starving and dehydrating someone till they die is decent.
   Your assuming that the will will be seen by those who are supposed
   to follow it.  Am I to believe that there's no potential for 
   medical mistakes?  Should doctors be forced to do something they
   are morally opposed to because it's in a will?
)
  
> > I for one hope there's a moral backlash
> > against these court decisions.
> 
> Let's hope not!  People have a right to die when it's their time.  
> It's not cheating death when you're being fed through an 
> uncomfortable tube through the side of your abdomen.  Granted, it's a 
> hard choice to make when it's time to remove a feeding tube, and I 
> don't envy those who have to make that decision.  But ultimately, the 
> decision needs to be made in the patient's best interest.
(
   Food and water isn't medicine, it's food and water. 
   Many smokers have a breathing hole cut into their neck.
   Should they be denied air until they suffocate to death
   because they aren't getting the air they need through
   their mouth?

   If the feeding tube is uncomfortable, Terry can feel pain.  
   But isn't she supposedly comfortable and unable to feel 
   anything because of the coma.
)
 
> If nothing else could be done but let you wither away to nothing for 
> the rest of your life, wouldn't you rather just cut to the chase?  
> Wouldn't you rather spend your last days in relative comfort instead 
> of being force fed through a tube?  And if that doesn't work, how 
> about an argument that appeals to good old fashioned conservative 
> moral relativism, since that seemst to be where you're coming from:  
> What good is someone who is guaranteed to never be a productive 
> member of society again?
(
   Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say, "the right to live depends
   on how productive a person is?"

   Myself, I'd pray.  I'd ask God to take my suffering and use it to foster 
   more respect for human life.

   I prefer that God be glorified by giving me any suffering someone
   else can't handle so that both I and this other person will be 
   able to redeem ourselves through Christ's death and resurrection. 
)   
 

> Are there no other outlets for your opinions on things like this?
(  
   There are other outlets, but I like this one ;-) 
)
 
> And, I certainly don't mind seeing posts like this on plug-talk.
> They go right into an mbox file managed quite nicely by procmail
> and wait for me to find reasons to avoid work.
 
> But, my question to you, Michael, is whether or not you have other
> outlets for your opinions?  If so, don't you get more satisfaction
> posting them there?  
( 
   Are you saying I should leave the Linux tech community alone when 
   it comes to moral issues?  Do ethics and morality go out the window 
   when you work on computers?  I care about the opinions of people I 
   may have to work with some day.  Their opinions are more likely to 
   be relevant when it comes down to who I have to trust in the future.  
   Whether or not this outlet is representative of the local tech 
   community though, I do not know.  Looking at the response so far,
   I sure hope it isn't. 
)
 
Personally, I get a real kick out of posting some rant in places like
plug-talk when they're related to linux in some obtuse way or if I
know there's someone like Jeme out there that needs baiting. [grin]
But, overall, plug-talk is not my main outlet for discussing moral
and ethical issues like the right-to-die. 
( 
   There is a right to live written into the U.S. Constitution.
   Eternal life without God's help has never been achieved by any human
   being.  The family is fighting for Terry to receive food and water 
   so she won't die from dehydration.  We will all die some day, but 
   doctors should assume that a patient wants that day to be selected 
   by God if there are no written instructions otherwise.  Doctors
   must also be permitted to refuse an order to withhold ordinary 
   care from a patient.  If she had been provided with food and water 
   sooner, she may have recovered from the coma by now.  People in 
   comas are not dead or even necessarily near death.  My wishes 
   if I'm ever in a coma are that I be kept hydrated and fed.  
   Notice that I have said absolutely nothing about life support 
   machines.  Terry Shiavo's family is asking that she receive 
   food and water, not artificial life support.  Since when is 
   feeding and hydrating patients in nursing homes anything 
   other than ordinary care?  The assumption that Terry Shiavo
   can't feel pain is an assumption based on what information
   from her?  Even if she isn't feeling pain, it's wrong to
   conclude that she wants to die.  Being disabled doesn't mean
   that you don't value your life enough to want the protections
   written into the U.S. Constitution. 
)

I get much more satisfaction out of discussing these issues with 
people in a forum for that purpose.  
(  
   Why discuss moral opinions with people who agree with you?  
   That's a waste of time lacking the potential to increase 
   the number of people who share your view.  
)
 
> There's some discriminatory power that seems absent.  E.g. one goes to
> political forums to discuss politics, one goes to ethics forums to
> discuss ethics, one goes to physics forums to discuss physics, one
> goes to rock concerts to hear rock music and dance clubs to ... uh,
> to watch women dance, etc.
 
> One is highly likely to be frustrated if one goes to rock concerts
> to hear classical music, goes to physics forums to discuss ethics,
> goes to political forums to discuss physics, etc.
( 
  So what.   
  I don't have to refrain because of your opinion on the subject.
)
 
> Of course, the exception to this rule is "the evangelical".  Someone
> who wants to trojan horse their (not "his", GLL ;-) ethical beliefs
> might be well served by attending alot of rock concerts.  Or if you
> want to propogate your theory of the aether but can't get any
> face-time with mainstream physicists, you might hang out in an ethics
> forum.... 
( 
  Well, you're expressing this view in the wrong forum if your claim 
  that plug-talk isn't for moral and ethical discussions is correct. 
  Just because an opinion is here, that doesn't prove that it's absent
  in other forums.  BTW, you don't have to be an evangelical to have
  a sense of ordinary care.  I guess you don't recognize
  that some non evangelical christians, some Baptists, some Muslims, 
  some etceras have moral views that mirror the ones which GLL and I 
  have been expressing here.  I guess Oregon is so unchurched that
  it shouldn't surprise to run into a lack of tolerance and respect
  for religious ideas and practices.  You don't have to be religious
  to believe in feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty.
  Otherwise, the channel 8 food drive wouldn't be politically correct. 
)

     --  Michael C. Robinson

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