>Some of us don't see a feeding tube as a machine- undesirable at all
>cost. I've had very close friends who have used respirators and been
>Executive Directors. Harriet Johnson, a disabled lawyer who was
>interviewed by Aaron Brown last night about the Shiavo case is very close
>to not being able to swallow anymore. She is still practicing law and
>writing books, etc. She will still be doing her thing when she needs to
>be fed in ways other than by mouth. Under your terms she should be
>starved to death because she may need a feeding tube? Do I understand you
>correctly?
>
>Marta
>
>--
OK this is pissing me off, I'd suggest you just delete this now because I'm sick of tiptoeing around so as not to hurt your feelings or to avoid being called a Nazi.
Under my terms, she had expressed the desire not to be kept alive by a machine under those particular conditions. She should have thr right to do that, just as blind kids should have a right not to have corrective eye surgery forced on them.
And, btw, I agree with Terry. It's not because of the machine things though, it's because, in general, I don't want to stay around if I don't have certain things. For instance, if I don't have something meaningful to do with my life, I'd be happy to die.
My partner's mom doesn't want to be cared for by us, as she cared for her own mother for 25 years. She wants to be put in a nursing home. I wouldn't comply with her wishes, but I understand them. She wants that because, although she was left a healthy estate by her husband, although she's a Mormon and has a support network to help, and a family to help as well, and a strong identity to self-sacrificing commitment as part of a community of faith in god, it was hard work and sometimes she resented it.
She doesn't want to burden anyone else as her mother burdened her.
So? It's a fact, taking care of someone is a burden. You've raised kids. It isn't always fun. Sometimes you feel like you are nothing but a milk machine and a washing machine.
It's also a fact that taking care of someone can be a great joy.
But don't try to tell people that feeling other wise is some kind of horrible, awful feeling that they shouldn't have. They have it. It's a good thing to acknowledge that the two feelings live side by side.
And most people I know feel smilarly about being kept alive with heroic measures. They do not want to live with a machine, no consciousness. Unlike you, I don't buy it that she's conscious and it doesn't matter anyway. The courts concluded that she didn't want to be kept alive by a machine under those particular circumstances.
It does not follow that, since I disagree with you, I'm an oppressor of the disabled. I disagree with you -- that is all you can call it. To accuse me or anyone else her of being crypto Naxis is logical fallacy -- an ad hominem attack that is out of line. IF you want to argue your case, argue it, don't use such tactics because it makes you look like you have absolutely nothing else to support an argument.
But to get back to my convos with people, their sentiment is not that they don't want to be disabled or that they hate the disabled or antying of the sort -- let alone are they interested in offing them. What they don't want is to have their families have to take care of them or spend loads of money.
Exactly how I feel. And, no I wouldn't want to live with a bunch of strangers paid to take care of me instead, as might happen under socialism. Therefore, I would rather not live because it isn't living to me and its especially not living if I can't think, feel emotions, or anything like that. If I have no chance of recuperating some semblance of consciousness, no i do not want to live. Nor do a lot of other people. It DOES NOT follow that they don't think others should choose a differnet path or even that they think those who do live that way have a life that's not worth living.
It's unfortunate that you choose not to acknowledge any of this and would prefer to suggest that, in my spare time, I like to push over people in wheel chairs. It's unfortuanate that you can't respect my position or anyone else's without calling them Nazis.
That is how I feel about being kept alive in Terry's condition. Shoot me.
kelley