RE: The Next "Schiavo-Type" Boondoggle
I'm a pretty heartless guy. If recovery is not likely, by the imperfect judgment of doctors, let the woman die. To me it is a question of where do you want to invest the limited resources. Spend lord knows how much money to keep a brain dead person alive 20-30 years versus spend that money on education for our children or some other public good or kept in the pockets of the tax payer, maybe to help them pay for their children's college education. I would rather it be spent on something that provides a benefit,and I don't view sustaining vegetative existence a benefit.
Personally, I think our medicine has far outpaced our good sense. There are procedures which can be performed which are formidably expensive which we simply cannot afford to mete out to every individual in our society when they "need" it. The quotes around "need" suggest the dubiousness of the need. For example, we need to eat, we don't need video recorders. People seemed to live fruitful and productive lives before we had MRIs and triple bypass operations. They may have died earlier. How much do we want to invest as a society in such heavily expensive procedures to repair sick people -- perhaps, in the case of triple bypass operations, people whose poor life style decisions are the cause of their "need" -- versus investing the money elsewhere? Questions it was not necessary to ask 50 years ago, because the technology was not so advanced to require an answer.
We all die. This is a fact of nature. I have buried two parents and my father-in-law. Medicine cannot make us immortal.
|
