The Florida legislature has passed a bill giving Governor Jeb Bush the power to order feeding tubes inserted in certain cases. This says to me that I need to get off my ass and get our living wills done. Let it be known that if I have a medical mishap in the next few weeks, I don’t want to be kept alive in the state that Terri Schiavo has been living in for the past 13 years. One quote from the article:
“The Constitution is supposed to protect the people of this state,” said Rep. Sandy Murman, a Republican from Tampa. “Who is protecting this girl?”
It is too late for protection in her case. Her body lives, but she is gone and letting her go seems much more merciful to me. If keeping her heart beating one more day is defined as “protection” then these people have the wrong idea of what “life” is. We’ve already had this discussion in our family, and everyone understands that none of us wants our flesh kept alive after the person has left. Even so, we all need the living wills.
I’d like to take a feeding tube and shove it up his ass, he and his brother both…
I agree. This is such a completely inappropriate thing for the legislature to decide, and for the governor to order. I really don’t understand the parents’ feelings here. It’s been 13 years, she isn’t going to just get up and get out of the bed tomorrow. What do they think they are saving her from if she stays alive now? Are they forestalling their own grief, do they think they are buying her time for the rapture, or what?
It makes no sense to me, which is why I need the legal documents to make sure that the decision is not left to others. I don’t want to be kept alive, I don’t want to be buried in a lovely ornate casket, I do want my organs donate. My whole philosophy is that the body is nothing once I’m not in it, whether my heart is beating or not. I don’t want fancy things done to it when I’m dead. Cremate me and spread the ashes on the pretty rose bush you can find. Don’t keep me alive with my eyes open but my soul gone for 13 years. Instead, try to get my corneas and kidneys and heart and liver into the bodies of people who are still with us.
I got so incensed when I read this that I went and completed my living will yesterday and posted it online as well. So NOBODY can makes any mistakes. Go, it really angers me the way that the personal freedoms are going by the wayside in this country since 9/11.
Argh (She said, frothing at the mouth…)