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Originally Posted by Rongi
imagine being completely immobile from the neck down, the only thing you can do is think and talk, everything else is done by machines and the only thing you see all day is doctors and crying relatives. is that any way to live?
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I work with people in that situation nearly every day. The rest of the time it's kids with various birth defects of whom you might ask the same question. People generally prefer life in any form, no matter how limited, and will adapt to nearly any situation. It's pretty surprising, inspiring, disturbing and it puts the problems I think I have in perspective.
There are those that wish to end their lives, but I'd be willing to bet suicide rates are higher among those of us that aren't struggling so hard just to live day to day than those that are being challenged by life in such bold ways.
My grandpa recently died in hospice. It was a pretty f-d up situation with a living man at odds with his own living will. No one in my family is Ok yet with the idea of witholding dialysis from him, even though the cure would have probably killed him just as quick as the lack of it.
The emotions you are dealing with are personal to you. I'm not sure that trying to think of the situation in a universal sense is gonna help. Personally, I agree pretty much with non-flippant Seththomas on the issue you raised, but the idea that we should take personal pain and attempt to build universal walls against it for other people... well, that's how you get Republicans...