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Old 2008-11-18, 17:36   Link #58
Anh_Minh
I disagree with you all.
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Quote:
Originally Posted by james0246 View Post
I am all for choice (as anyone who has entered the Abortion thread can attest to), but only choice backed by sufficient understanding of the situation. I do believe that her constant pain could have driven Hannah a little crazy, or at least impair her basic decision making abilities, thus making her decision not based on an understanding of the situation, so much as a physical reaction to make the pain disappear (I was accidentally shot in the foot once many years ago, and for a few brief moments I felt such great pain that I wished for Death to come to relieve me of the pain, thankfully it was a momentary reaction ). (This is not to say that I in anyway can understand the pain that young Hannah faces every moment of her life.) If this is true, then she cannot adequately make an informed decision of her current or future prognosis, and consequently cannot go against her parents desires for a heart transplant. If after the transplant she gets worse, then a proper discussion of the uselessness of medicine in her situation can be started and if there is no possible answer for her betterment, then she can be aided in her desire to not be cared for (to let the inevitable come).
What the hell are you talking about? While legally, the decision may indeed lie with her parents, she managed to convince them.

And who are you to judge she's not qualified? Or how much pain she was in when she made her decision?

And I'd like to point out, the decision she made is reversible: she can change her mind and agree to the transplant after all. (There's still the problem of finding a compatible donor, of course. From that point of view, she's wasting time.) But if she has a heart transplant, well, that's irreversible. What she sacrificed won't come back.

And it's not just a matter of "getting worse after the transplant". The problem is that, even if it goes perfectly, well, she'll have to put up with medical procedures and hospital stays she otherwise wouldn't have to endure.

And of course, it can, indeed, go wrong. Who are you to decide it's a gamble she has to take? You're acting like she has nothing to lose. But that's wrong. She still has her life, and is presently spending it out of hospitals. She doesn't want to lose that, and that's what created the polemic in the first place. Not some actual death wish.


Quote:
How do you classify a situation like Terri Schiavo, a comatose patient with severe brain damage that was allowed to die? Such a person cannot make a conscious choice (unless they were smart enough to write a living will), so the choice has to made for them. Are the parents/loved ones/doctors then killers if they let the comatose patient die? Or does a such a patient stop being "human" and consequently loses their rights?

In other words, to conclude both my comment, if a personal decision is the most relevant means of determining an outcome for a situation, then what happens when a personal decision cannot be made or the individual attmepting to make the decision is too impared to properly understand the situation? When does an outsiders choice matter more than an individual choice?
That's another, much hairier question. In Schiavo's case, considering the extent of her brain damage, I'd be all for killing her and being done with it. Other cases are more problematic, though.
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