LINK
This is updated to clarify stuff I posted that was unclear.
for later reading, But I have these questions:
is brain death real? well, yes. When the brain is actually dead, if you remove the tubes and respirator people die. Not just the 'upper brain" is dead, but the brainstem that controls breathing and the heart is dead.
but then you hear that families are told the person is "brain dead" and they don't die immediately when they take off the machine.
We hear a lot about these stories, and it means the person is not brain dead.
Often drugs, brain swelling, or other physicological problems interfere with the ability to diagnose brain death.
The problem with kids is that children's brains can regenerate.
So declaring them "brain dead" is problematic.
so are some hospitals declaring children brain dead too quickly?
the hospital claims in Jathi's case she met the criteria for brain death, but her continued survival means either her brain regenerated or they were wrong.
And follow the money: is the family greedy, or was the rush to stop life support to lower the malpractice payment in court?
A brain damaged person needs more expensive medical care (and will result in a higher malpractice verdict) than a dead child.
there is a lot of discussion in the fields of medical ethics about "higher brain death", meaning only the cortex is dead. These people can survive for awhile (I believe the average is six months, but I could be wrong.)>
Then there is the discussion about calling "persistant vegetative state" the same as brain dead.
Again, such a person usually dies within six months: Because of aspiration pneumonia because they can't swallow.
Makes one wonder about Terri Schiavo, doesn't it? She lived for ten years.
as for feeding tubes: They are often placed for staff convenience, because it takes too long for nursing homes to feed these people, and again often allow these people to be cared for in their own homes.
This is not the same as someone in a coma tube fed, a person who cannot swallow at all.
the original Brophy case used the criteria of Pius XII (see below) and sucessfully fought in the courts to remove his feeding tube. He had loudly told many people he didn't want to be kept alive with tubes, and his pious Catholic wife fought to have this done.
but what about Terry Schiavo who was able to swallow but had a feeding tube put in for convenience and then remove it to make her die because her husband wants to remarry?
so do we take the machines off of those with severe brain damage?
That is extraordinary treatment. Ethically yes we can but whether we should is another question.
I agree with Pope Pius XII: we don't need to do extraordinary treatment, and can refuse treatment that only prolongs dying, and if a person is in severe pain, we can sedate a person even if this deep sedation might shorten their life: because we are treating the pain.
(and I have had two cases where we got the person pain free and slowly decreased the dosage and they woke up pain free and lived for a few more weeks or months).
But in recent years, this has morphed to starving people and to "terminal sedation" of those who could live, as the back door to euthanasia.
the dirty little secret: There are people out there who see a deluge of people who are elderly or crippled, and it will cost the government money. So euthanasia is now being pushed as "compassionate" in the same way the argument we should be able to abort a raped 13 year old with a deformed baby.... and like the pro abortion crusade, as soon as the law was changed, it became used for more and more people until it now is done because of convenience and birth control.
watch China: I suspect they will be promoting the killing of the unwanted elderly in the near future, and just like their forced abortion and infanticide programs, it will either be ignored by the MSM or spun as something the west needs to copy?
(note: We actually have a few politicians here who have said the Philippines need to copy this forced abortion/two child plan of China... luckily they don't have power, but it is an idea that our elite would promote if they had the ability. And now, we are starting to have more elderly without families, something unknown in the past..)
Remember Obama saying instead of fixing his grandmother's broken hip, since she had cancer, maybe they should have just treated her for pain? that would have been "Terminal sedation"...in other words, he suggested it would have been cheaper to kill the poor lady, but no one in the press picked up on what he was hinting about.
