Father of Potential Euthanasia Victim Lauren Richardson Asks Gov for Help

Life News ^ | 5/7/08 | Steven Ertelt

[mbj]

I'm curious: exactly how much money is your life worth, Mr. Thomas?

I'm not enthusiastic about drug abusers being rewarded, but in my view this is at least partly about her father's choice. I thank my God that none of my children have gone down that path, but should it ever happen does that negate my right to care for them and to make choices about their care?

I support our troops, but in this country we really don't have to make a choice between the two: we can afford both - especially if we were to divert money from state-subsidized abortions and other iniquity.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

I imagine that the permanently disabled are a drain on our economy too. Do you want us to kill them too Herr Hitler

As noted in my comments above, I prefer spending money on (for example) on the conscious disabled to spending it on people in a PVS.

As a society we have finite resources, and demands for medical care that exceeds them. We make choices. As Medical care - especially at the end of life - becomes more and more expensive (Medicare spends more than more than a quarter of its annual budget on care for those in their last year of life, 80% of that on people who are clearly dying)we will have to make harder and harder choices. Defining these as crimes because we cannot do everything is not helpful.

-----and

BTW.... my wife's Jewish, I spent five years doing the day to day scut work of elder-care for my in-laws, and you had best hope you never have the misfortune to call me a Nazi from withing arm's length instead of from the anonymous safety of a PC screen.

[dschapin]

Fair enough. It just really bothers me when people try to measure the value of lives in monetary terms. I probably shouldn’t have called you a NAZI but the ability to coldly measure the value of life in dollars and cents makes me think of NAZI Germany. I really don’t want to see that sort of amoral pragmatic thinking come to the United States.

[Caramelgal]

How many of you would want to remain in such a devestated state? Do you really see it as being better than moving on?

I would also ask how many of you have every had a family member languish in long term care for years in a vegetative state and kept artificially alive against the patient’s and family’s expressed wishes for end of life care and dying by very slow degrees over many years?

Believe me when I say it’s not pretty seeing someone kept alive by a feeding tube.

My mother-in-law was in poor health for many years. She often expressed to me and my husband how much pain she was in and how tired she was and how much she just “wanted to go home” and be with her mother and father and brothers in heaven with God.

She was already in a nursing home after having suffered some small strokes and was too disabled to be cared for at home, when she pretty much refused to eat any more although at the time she was still very lucid, aware of her surroundings and verbally communicative. The nursing home doctor said we should put her on a feeding tube and she and we disagreed. We tried to convince her to eat but it was a battle. But she was a very strong willed woman and knew that her time on this Earth was coming near its end. But when she suffered a massive stroke and was no longer able to communicate or feed herself; at first we were presented with the option of whether or not to put her on a feeding tube and we said no. But the doctors then recanted that it was our or her choice citing that it would be cruel and unethical not to do so and cited their legal and ethical responsibly. (She did not have Advanced Directives and we only had a limited power of attorney and only over financial matters).

So they put her on a feeding tube anyway without consulting her family.

And she stayed in a vegetative state for the next four years without any hope for recovering higher brain function or awareness; at first not getting any better but then not getting any worse. But as weeks and months went by, and her and our finances where exhausted, she went on Medicaid. That meant we, her family, had no choice what nursing home she was placed in – i.e. if she had to be transferred from the nursing home to a hospital because of infections from the feeding tube or bed sores or pneumonia (which happened many times) and was in the hospital for more than three days, she would loose her bed at the nursing facility she had come from and was placed in the first facility that had the first available bed. We, her family had no say where she was placed unless we could pony up the full cost of advanced nursing care at a facility of our choosing. We often paid out of pocket, the cost of the nursing home care that she was not using because she was in a hospital just to keep the bed available in a nursing home we approved of. But we could only do so much and it pretty much bankrupted us.

Some of the “facilities” she was placed in over the four years she was in a vegetative state were better than others – some were adequate and some where “Hell Holes”.

Although she was totally unresponsive, I still visited with her several times a week, often doing her soiled laundry myself because the nursing home was not doing a very good job. I would visit at random times on random days and I’m sure I was a real thorn in the side of the administration of several nursing homes as I was a tireless advocate for her care. Although she was still technically “alive” in that her brain still functioned on a basic rudimentary level as to keep her respiration and heartbeat and basic organ functions still going, we saw no spark of life left in her and the only thing keeping her body alive was the feeding tube, a catheter and some very basic care like keeping her clean and turning her as to prevent bed sores.

One day we got a phone call from the last nursing facility that her heart had stopped and since we did manage to get a DNR order in place, she was not resuscitated and died. We were sad at her passing but relived as we believed that the person we knew and loved had left this mortal plane many years earlier.

As she spent the last few years of her so called “life” drawn up in a ridged fetal position, when her body was transferred to a funeral home for burial, the mortician told us there was no way to lay her out in a coffin with out literally breaking her bones and joints in order to do so.

And thankfully this was the very last indignity she ever had to suffer.

I am defiantly pro-life and erring on the side of life, but just because recent advances in medical science can keep a body alive, I believe that it isn’t always the ethical, moral and responsible thing to do so.

[Gabz]

DelMarVa PING

Pyro7480 says: I doubt Ruth Ann is going to do jack about this.

Alas, I sadly agree. I do not know what happened, but the Ruth Ann Minner of today is not the same woman I first met 25 years ago when she was a State Senator from Milford. There once was a time I considered her a friend.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

I'm curious: exactly how much money is your life worth, Mr. Thomas?

IMO, a lifetime cap of around 250K for public provision of non-palliative medical care would be reasonable, with only palliative care provided when life expectancy was less than 12 months.

I support our troops, but in this country we really don't have to make a choice between the two: we can afford both...

I take it you don't spend much time in VA hospitals.

- especially if we were to divert money from state-subsidized abortions and other iniquity.

The state and federal governments spent $89 million to fund 177,000 abortion procedures for low-income women in FY 2006... a drop in the bucket in terms of US health care spending. Abortions provided to low-income women saved many times their cost in reduced future health care spending. Moral arguments aside, eliminating abortion would have little effect on the availability of health care.

----- Perhaps you think me a cold hearted bastard.

Well, I'm equally frustrated by people who argue for unlimited public spending for people in a PVS - most of whom will be dead in five years - when we don't provide universal pre-natal nutrition and care for people who will likely be alive and conscious for the next 75 years. Or that 85 year old men should receive $75,000 cardiac surgery at the same time we underfund care for 22 year olds returning from Iraq - where an understrength military is sending troops already subjected to concussive brain damage back out into the field despite the fact that we *know* that repeat concussions are much more dangerous than the first injury alone.

These strike me as deeply stupid choices, and the situation is made worse when people refuse to admit that we are even making choices.

[BykrBayb]

Quit defending the Nazis. They engaged in the barbaric practice of exterminating disabled people. I hate Holocaust deniers. Here, read something, and try to learn a little bit along the way. Dr Robert Jay Lifton ~ THE NAZI DOCTORS: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide ©

[BykrBayb]

I'm sure you'd like to believe you're having an original thought, but it's been expressed before.

"This person suffering from hereditary
defects costs the people 60,000
Reichmarks during his lifetime. People,
that is your money. Read 'New People'."

[linn37]

This is why you need to make your wishes known to your family members. What if she would not want to live like that? Would you still fight to keep her alive?

[8mmMauser]

Pinged from Terri Dailies

8mm

[wagglebee]

You seem to have missed the point. A person with a feeding tube DOES NOT need to be in a nursing home. Lauren is able to sit up, she IS NOT bedridden.

Additonally, the $149K for the “first three months” has ALREADY been spent.

However, the FACT remains that YOU are attempting to create an issue that DOES NOT EXIST. There has been no indication from either of Lauren’s parents that finances are a concern. There is no indication that she has received a penny of taxpayer money. So, why do you continue this line of reasoning. It seems, and I hope I’m wrong, that your attitude is that the moment ANY person reaches a point in life where the cost to keep them alive exceeds some arbitrary threshold they should be killed. This policy has been tried before, and the outcome horrified the entire civilized world.

[wagglebee]

As a society we have finite resources, and demands for medical care that exceeds them. We make choices.

Do we? Every few years or so there is a mining disaster in this country. The MOMENT that happens, EVERY necessary resource is made available by federal, state and local governments to save the trapped miners. Millions of dollars are spent to save a handful of people. Sometimes it is successful, but some generally die. Should we, as a society, decide to stop doing this? If the mine owner doesn't have the resources or money should we just say, "too bad"?

This is the United States of America, if ANY nation in the history of the world has anything approaching infinite resourses, we do. This is not some third-world, despot-ridden hellhole, why should we act as if it is? Demand for medical care DOES NOT exceed supply, nor has it ever.

But again, the point is that YOU are making this into a public policy debate when there has been no evidence that any public funds ever have or ever will be necessary.

[wagglebee]

I would also ask how many of you have every had a family member languish in long term care for years in a vegetative state and kept artificially alive against the patient’s and family’s expressed wishes for end of life care and dying by very slow degrees over many years?

What are you talking about? Since when is food and water "artificial life support"? There is NO EVIDENCE that Lauren has ever expressed a desire to be killed and your contention that she is dying in "slow degrees" is FALSE.

[8mmMauser]

>>I am defiantly pro-life and erring on the side of life, but...

Couldn't help but notice your post. You should learn more about the plight of Lauren Richardson before such comments.

First, yes, we have been in that predicament, for twenty six years with a child many would say was PVS, and yet he lead a happy loving life, severely retarded and no way would we give him up. We are pro-life with no buts.

Second, Lauren is not that bad off. Check my Terri Dailies link above and watch the video. She has a loving father, and a team who want to kill her.

I understand what you went through, as we have too, and we never wanted our doctors to keep our son alive through bizarre new technology just to keep some cells alive. We would never allow doctors to snuff our son either. Lauren is alive and has potential! Let Lauren Live!

8mm

[wagglebee]

Maybe be it’s me; however, usually somebody says, “I’m pro-life, but,” it turns out that they are pretty much okay with killing any person for any reason. It’s the same as saying abortions should be “safe and legal and rare.”

[Abby4116]

IF a feeding tube had never been inserted, and if hydration HAD not been in place, then it would be a natural death. To remove the feeding tube and hydration makes it murder by state, plain and simple. The mother is asking the court to allow the murder of her daughter, just as Michael Schiavo did to Terri.

Anyone ever wonder why Judge Greer felt it necessary to order that no one try to feed Terri by mouth, not to give her water?

[Dante3]

Good point.

[wagglebee]

Anyone ever wonder why Judge Greer felt it necessary to order that no one try to feed Terri by mouth, not to give her water?

The same reason he refused to allow a swallow test. His mind was made up, Terri was going to die regardless of her condition.

[floriduh voter]

LAUREN RICHARDSON is on youtube and she's not languishing (definition please). She's alert and aware and wake up, creeper freepers, you are projecting your fears on someone you don't even know.

This is essentially a committee of strangers getting to decide who lives and who dies.

Let Lauren Live! Who are you freeper creepers to judge her but if you can't help yourself,visit youtube and see Lauren's a living, breathing person!

[Dustbunny]

What a terribly sad situation. Mother wants her dead and the father wants her alive is what it all amounts to.

What of the baby? Did she survive? Who is raising her? Does she have any disabilities because of her mother's overdose?