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How Much Free Health Care is Too Much?


TheCorinthian

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Hi,

 

"so how can you be for one but not the other? "

 

Actually, that one is that hard to explain. It comes down to when a bunch of cells turns into a 'person'. Some would argue it is a 'life' the second it is conceived, others not until it could survive on it's own outside of the womb.

 

Sanuk!

 

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This is a tough call, one I hope I never have to make.

In the past, I have brushed up against life/death situations/decisions and I opted to tell the doctor(s) for them to do everything they could for the individual, do not pull the plug. As fate would have it, the individual recovered, so I guess I made the right decision.

 

My childhood best friend for over 40 years went into a coma after an operation and he had it stated in his will/directions that if he was on life support for a certain amount of time and the doctors concluded there was no hope of recovery, then pull the plug on all the machines.

The time had elapsed and his older brother was driving to the hospital to pull the plug, when my friend/his brother died.

His older brother was sad of his brother's death but greatly relieved that he did not have to pull the plug!

 

Tough call, for sure.

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But the sticking point in both cases is deliberately ending a life. In the case of the foetus, you remove it from the mother's womb and it dies. So how is that different from removing an adult from the life-support system? If the foetus had not been removed, it would have developed into a living human being in a very short time. Removing it is intentionally ending that process.

 

In capital punishment, something is done to cause the individual to die ... nowadays generally an injection to stop the heart from beating. Is that very different from tearing a foetus from its nice warm womb?

 

If I tie you up and toss you off of Memorial Bridge, am I killing you? I simply removed you from your natural habitat. The drowning part was entirely up to you. :D

 

 

p.s. I don't really give a shit, I'm just arguing for the hell of it.

 

 

 

 

 

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My childhood best friend for over 40 years went into a coma after an operation and he had it stated in his will/directions that if he was on life support for a certain amount of time and the doctors concluded there was no hope of recovery, then pull the plug on all the machines.

The time had elapsed and his older brother was driving to the hospital to pull the plug, when my friend/his brother died.

His older brother was sad of his brother's death but greatly relieved that he did not have to pull the plug!

 

Tough call, for sure.

 

Agree. Tough. Have you ever seen people kept alive on a ventilator and a feeding tube with no cognitive ability and no prognosis for recovery? It's horrible, and it takes a toll on those around them.

 

I don't have a will, but I do have an advanced directive on file, if I'm ever in that state: DNR. Do not resuscitate. Do not place on a ventilator. Do not use a feeding tube.

 

To tell you the truth, the thought of losing my cognitive/thinking ability and being artificially kept alive w/o it scares me more than any physical damage or degenerative condition of the body.

 

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30 years ago, my doc told me that technology could keep cadavers pumping air and blood for an eternity.

 

I have an advance directive also. I modified it somewhat after giving a copy to my primary care doc. He suggested that a DNR be modified somewhat, noting that if I had "the big one" in a medical setting, things could get better quickly (depending) without long term or serious results.

 

HH

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