December 27, 2007
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Javona Peters Part 2
If you were “blind, deaf and unable to move, think or eat” on your own for 10 weeks, would you want your family to remove your life support?
If you were “blind, deaf and unable to move, think or eat” on your own for 10 weeks, would you want your family to remove your life support?
Comments (88)
Probably.
Actually, yes, I would.
No . . .
Yes. Use my organs for someone who needs them.
yes undoubtedly
Yes. I have a will that states that.
Yup.
Yes.
And thanks for the comment. It is quite interesting.
I consort with an aspiring neonatologist regularly. If you don’t know what that is, allow me to reveal his caliber as a person first.
He was born with a birth defect that was near terminal and was basically forced to live some of his formative months in an Iron Lung. The complications from this condition may stay with him forever. Even now, he coughs with what could basically be construed as a “death rattle.”
However, he has persevered despite the obvious amount of pain he endures. In fact, he goes hiking in the mountains for several hours at a time – and feels invigorated after every ordeal. He wants to become a doctor of non-invasive therapy – as in no surgery required whatsoever.
Everyone who fears suffering or loss of physical sensitivity ultimately fears that they will live a kind of life that is something decidedly less than human.
Neither or I nor my neonatologist friend believes that a set monetary value should be affixed to life. Anyone who does inadvertently puts a price on their own heads.
(As for the question, life support only gives sustainability. I would want treatment as immediately as possible; there is no such thing as “no choice” in medicine. There is such a thing as “taboo” – heart surgery was “taboo” until the 20th century.)
I dont know
thats like what they talk about in metallica’s one…
Yep, I’ve told everyone I know. That, and that after I’m gone I would like all my organs harvested for a good scientific cause, failing that, just as an organ donation.
-David
I don’t know..that depends on if there was a chance that I could pull through that kind of ordeal. But if there was no way of me recovering from that then yes, definitely.
hell yes. just because she is alive, think about it: can’t see, hear, move, think, or eat. what kind of a life is that?
add an irreversible coma on top of that and just kill me
I’d want them to be conflicted and argue a lot.
probably.
Yes, if it is my time to go, let me go.
Yes. Please.
What if you wanted to die? I’m going to parade around London nude with 20 pound notes taped to my body screaming “KILL ME” and no one will.
This girl is lucky.
if there was a good chance that i would fully recover…then no. if not, then yes, i’d want them to pull the plug.
No. 10 weeks is not that long for that decision to be determined yet. There might is still be hope.
Yes!
I wouldn’t want to be on life support ever. As far as I am concerned if it requires a machine to do some vital function then you are already dead and people are just wasting money and time which there is no reason to do.
oops….*there might be hope!
Hell, if you can’t think on your own then you are brain dead in my opinion.
I lose my ability to think, then perhaps it wouldn’t make a difference if I was just taken off. But honestly, I don’t know.
10 weeks is a bit too soon. I’d say 6 months.
yes, no quality of life there and probably non for the future
maybe wait a little longer, but take me off if i’ll never be able to do those things for myself. the last thing i want is for somebody to have to take care of me like that for the rest of my life.
Yes.
RYC: Barnes & Noble is awesome
Yes. I never want to have to depend on someone else. My friends would probably want to kill me anyway. lol. No sense wasting any of our time and a bed that could be used for people who need it.
However 10 weeks is too early for them to determine weather to let her go or not. I’m sure her parents can’t stand seeing her like that. For everyone around her it is probably better to keep her alive and hope she comes out of it. I have a feeling that if I died now it would be strange. The kids would ask who it was in the pictures and everyone would explain how I was gone. strange to think about.
yeah… there is more to living than the mechanical nature of the heart and lungs… this body is going to wear out someday anyhow… real life starts when we re-connect with God through Jesus Christ…
Hell yes
pull the plug
Yes.
No. Not unless all of my children are ready to say goodbye. I live for them, so my fate is in their hands.
Yes.
In fact, I’m going to put that in writing…
And this is exactly why the thought of being put under for a “routine operation” scares me. Fortunately I’ve never needed one, I’m terrified that I won’t wake back up.
I would want my family to pull the plug…because that isn’t living…
Everyone has the ability to think. To “not be able to think” is to not be a human.
I can never say. God forbid i am ever in that position or any of my loved ones. I guess the loved ones will be able to tell when it is time, all money issues aside.
Well, for selfish reasons, I would want to die so I could get out of this skin and have my glorified body, but if there was a chance I could somehow communicate the Gospel and God could still use me, then no, I would want to stay. Hard for someone to make that call not knowing all that though. It’s just an impossible situation for a man to make a decision like that. I just don’t know. I’m thinking out loud here if you can’t tell.
absolutely!
I still struggle with the question of whether or not she can think. How do people know for sure that she cannot think? What if she can hear and think, but cannot communicate in any way nor move her body? Would it not be a horrible thing for her to hear all this going on around her, knowing that the feeding tube is being removed and there is nothing she can do about it? That truly would be inhumane. Too much like playing God.
To answer the question, yes, I would want to be unplugged given all those things being true.
YES
If it was permanent, HELL YES. What’s the point of sticking around if you can’t do anything, anyway? Let somebody have my organs, at least that would be useful…
If I was a vegetable, yes. But if my mind still worked, no.
No activity going on in the brain…I wouldn’t know anyway.
If I were considered brain dead….pull the plug!
What would the difference be?
Yes, probably.
I’m pretty sure if I did ever get better I still would probably never get my sight & hearing back unless it was a miracle by God.
I’d make ‘em wait like, a year.
plus, if it’s not my time to go, I can always screw with them as a ghost >:D
I’d rather not be a burden on my family – I’d rather be dead.
If I can’t think then I can’t want so I wouldn’t want one way or the other. If I could think but couldn’t do all of those other things I imagine my mental state would be radically different than it is now. I don’t know how strong the will to survive would be in me in a situation like that and I don’t know how intolerable it would feel to lack all of those capacities. Is it something you could get used to? Or would it just be impossible to cope with to the point that I would yearn for death? Having never experienced it, how can I know?
All I know for certain is that the me that exists right now would never want any future me no matter his state of mind to be kept alive on life support when unable to move, see, hear, or think and with little realistic chance of recovery.Mostly though, that’s just as everyone else has been saying just because I wouldn’t want to be a burden on anyone, least of all my family. If money weren’t an issue though, sure let me stay alive. Why not?
No doubt.
I would probably just want to die.
yes…
If there was a reasonable chance for life, any kind of life, then I would not want the plug pulled. If not, experimental surgery if applicable. Then pull the plug if that doesn’t work, donate my organs (what’s left of them) to people who have a chance at life.
NO one has the RIGHT to take away anyone else’ life!
Who are we to decide!
It is GOD who gave LIFE and it is HIM that want that person to LIVE!
Our job is to keep accompanying that person and to pray for that person.
the mother should be shot to even bring up the fact that the daughter was given a feeding tube without her consent.
YES
Definately!
Yeah I’d not be able to ever afford to go to the hospital in the first place – I’m uninsured. I’d want them to pull my plug immeadiatly so the others in my life will not go broke because of my death. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon though.
Yes I would want to be taken off of life support.
Only if I was sure I could never come back. If there was even the smallest chance I might come out alive, I’d want to stick it out. Life may be bad, but when you’ve come this far, you sort of want to finish the whole thing off. If they were 100% sure that I would never get better, though, I’d want my family to let me die. I think it’s just selfish to hold on at that point; they’re not letting you escape from your pain then, and proceed to whatever happens after death.
Has anyone ever read “Johny Got His Gun”. It’s about WWI. A soldier lost his arms, legs, jaw, eyes – almost everything when a grenade exploded near him. He was a smart, lively, caring young man, but was just trapped in this corpse like torso. Pretty powerful stuff…
Um… irreversible coma, and unable to think.
Why would you ever remain in that condition?
if my family is not very wealthy, i would want them to remove the life support.
waste of money.
but if we were rich, then i wont wanna remove it.
there’s
oops my sentence is not done.
continued:
there’s always hope after the 10weeks
I wouldn’t want to be hooked up to life support if there was no way I could live life in any semblance of normalcy again. I would want to donate my organs and hope somebody lived because I died.
It would depend on what the “life support” consisted of, but I would hope my family would not give up that quickly/easily. If the highest power determines that it is one’s time to die, interventions won’t preserve life.
yes, and probably sooner than later.
that’s a tough one….I think it depends on if there is hope or not. I mean, there’s ALWAYS hope for a miracle. But there also comes a point where God is ready for you to go, and man is just sustaining what God is taking.
So at a certain time, yes, let me go.
No…I believe in miracles.
Yes. There’s no point for anybody to live a life like that… it’s barely even living. What’s the point of laying there all your life and not being able to do anything? I wouldn’t be able to cope with all those disabilities; I’d be suffering my entire life. I would rather “move on” then be in this world and have functions like a rock.
Absolutely.
Yes.
YAY for Ethics questions. If they knew I would not recover yes.
at that point, you arnt alive… you are KEPT alive by tech. i would want the plug pulled.
… its so hard to say that you wouldnt want to live…
Yeah, I would actually. I want to go to Heaven. I don’t want to be trapped for all eternity, especially if I would never recover. That would be horrible if they would keep me on life support for that long. Besides, it would save my family the hardship. They wouldn’t have to pay the bills anymore to keep me alive. Plus, they would know I would be happy with God. It would just be so much more easier on my family.
No. I would want them to give me Ambien. It’s supposed to be waking people up after they have been in a so-called “vegetative state” for years.
If I lose all capacity to be human (as well as potential to do it in the future), there is no need to keep me breathing. I think the issue here is when you cross that line into vegetable. This girl seems to have crossed that line and then some.
Probably. Especially with the “unable to think part.”
Yes. If I wasn’t going to recover, yes!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.BEAUSE IT WOULD BE LIKE IM DEAD ALREADY
Yeah.
take me off of life support. if it’s my time to go, so be it.