Posted on 06/01/2006 7:20:27 AM PDT by 8mmMauser
I'm not the one who would. I don't lable people futile, and decide that they don't deserve to live. I take it from your response that you've determined my fil is one of the people who deserves to live? If so, how did you come to this conclusion? If you learned that he has Alzheimer's, would you change your mind?
lable = label
Pardon my lysdexia.
It doesn't and I assume she's not. She acting as though she is, however, by insisting on additional care.
If she is not paying, and if the hospital believes further care is medically futile, then I also assume you and I are in agreement that the hospital should not be forced to pay for any further care and should be allowed to either transfer the baby to a facility that will or pull the plug.
Wow, I haven't seen the trolls out in such full force in a long time!!
Ventilators don't cost a million dollars a month. The expenses saved by killing Daniel would be minimal. No one should be required to provide outlandish intervention, but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to kill him either.
This is why most of the moral questions we face in medical ethics today involve cases that never would have presented much of a dilemma in previous eras -- mainly because the technology and medicine were not available to treat the extreme cases that can often be cured today.
Now it's drawn at a level of intelligence, which is subjective.
No, it's not. It's drawn at a level of body function, brain function, and the prognosis of a patient. I would never support the notion that it is acceptable to recommend different courses of treatment for two different patients based on the fact that one of them has an IQ of 130 and the other is mentally retarded.
How high does it have to get before someone you know is included? Does someone you know have to be included before you see anything wrong with it?
I don't worry about these things because I don't see them as difficult moral questions. There's no such thing as a difficult moral question when you examine them from sound principles.
WHAT???? Where did you read that the decision to kill this child is based on his level of intelligence?
Lies, lies, and more lies. Is that the only way you debate?
Stanford go-getter has become go-to guy for those facing quandaries over new medical technologies
8mm
Although Reeve was severely disabled from a physical standpoint he was able to maintain sound mental functions. If he were permanently disabled and had severely impaired brain function, I suspect he would have been in the exact same position as the infant in this story.
I know exactly what palliative care is. You just want to be argumentative.
The hospital isn't looking to "kill" him. They'd love to have the mother find another facility to care for him -- or at least to start paying the cost of the child's care herself.
How is that a lie? He's been labelled futile, not because he isn't expected to live, but because he's expected to live with brain damage. That's the truth that you apparently don't like to acknowledge. Too bad.
So then you are saying he shouldn't get comfort care. That's pretty sick.
I believe the key distinction is that the "brain damage" in question has permanently impaired the patient's ability to breathe on his own.
You said he "carries an oxygen tank with him". From that, I assumed he's ambulatory and otherwise lives a normal life.
"If you learned that he has Alzheimer's, would you change your mind?"
It depends. If he has a Living Will that sets certain conditions under which he no longer wishes to live, I would certainly honor that if I were in that position. But since there are many stages of Alzheimer's, I can't make a blanket statement.
So much for this not being about brain function.
And yet, another patient who can't breathe on his own is entitled to a ventilator. Why is that? Why aren't brain damaged people entitled to the same medical care as anyone else?
Oh, no way Miss Belcher is paying for this.
She's an unmarried drug user who neglects her children and has had at least one removed from her custody.
Odds that she makes enough money to pay for her child's health care are pretty slim.
There's a big difference between "intelligence" and "brain function."
Yes. Pulling either his ventilator tube or his feeding tube would have the same effect and the "cause of death" would be the same, contrary to your assertion. Which was the reason I brought it up. Your assertion was wrong.
"If he were permanently disabled and had severely impaired brain function, I suspect he would have been in the exact same position as the infant in this story."
But of course. I don't argue that at all.
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