Thank you deadscot for clearing that up.  Now I understand what you were saying.

Ok now for the sake of making sure things are crystal clear…

Looking at the hypothetical situation lets suppose there is no such thing as God and the same thing happens anyways(the patients wake up from their coma just in time).  This happens due to an unsupernatural ‘miracle’ or in other words luck or chance.  Would this change your opinion of what the doctors should have done or no? 

(I am sure your sick of the tangent as well, but maybe now we aren’t far from ending it.)

(theocrat) I came up with (what I thought was) a clearly defined hypothetical situation that everyone had a clear understanding of that included possibility of a miracle or very unlikely ending because in reality few events seem truly impossible.

As I said before, if you admit the possibility of a miracle, then you can simply postpone any decisions until the problem becomes moot or the miracle happens. Problem solved, blame or praise go to the deity.

Would this change your opinion of what the doctors should have done or no?

No. If the patients wake up in time, they will wake up in time regardless of when the plug gets pulled and by whom.

Originally posted by elwedriddsche:
If the patients wake up in time, they will wake up in time regardless of when the plug gets pulled and by whom.

Not necessarily.  They will wake up at an exact time unknown to everyone if they are to wake up at all.  The power company is going to give the doctors a deadline to shut down any instrument that is drawing too much power before they shut it down themselves.  The doctors must choose to shut down the life saving equipment before the deadline or allow the deadline to come.

It is the time difference between the two that allows for such small chances to occur.  To allow the deadline to come means there is no hope and it is up to chance.  To pull the plug before the deadline gives even less possibility of chance than before.  The greater the time allowed the larger the possibility of ‘miracle’.

It is my opinion that if the doctors are going to do everything they can to help the patient as they should they must give every chance possible for anything to happen.  It would be morally wrong for them in this circumstance to not allow all possibilities to be exhausted.  Now if there is still disagreement then this tangent has certainly dead ended.

No. If the patients wake up in time, they will wake up in time regardless of when the plug gets pulled and by whom.

Make that a double.

It is the time difference between the two that allows for such small chances to occur.  To allow the deadline to come means there is no hope and it is up to chance.  To pull the plug before the deadline gives even less possibility of chance than before.  The greater the time allowed the larger the possibility of ‘miracle’.

WTF?!?  We can’t see into the future so we have to make the best possible decision we can in that moment.  Agreed?

So for the sake of argument, the power company is going to cut the power at 12:00.  Without the doctors having any insight to the future they must make the best possible decision.  You suggest they push back the deadline and lose power going forward to assist other patients.  My argument for that is for what purpose?  They have no knowledge of what is going to happen in the future but they do know what is happening in the present.

Hypothetically there are four people in a coma and four people needing emergency medical care or they will die.  In your scenario you ignore the power company and lose power completely.  Four people die.  Now, could one of the people in the coma wake up?  Let’s say yes.  You have just sacrificed for lives for one.  That goes against everything any doctor has ever been taught.

Even in your best case scenario, you end up with four people coming out of comas and four people dying.  In my best scenario I have for people in a coma dying and four living people.

That’s a pretty big role of the dice on your part.  Please tell me you don’t work in any sort of medical field.

what are you talking about?  There are only four people total(well actually I never gave a number).  These four people are in comas and hooked up to some sort of life saving device like an iron lung.  Either they all die because none of them wake up before the power gets shut off or by chance they wake up.  The longer the patients are kept alive the more time there is for luck to stop by.

So let them die when the power goes out. (Although I’d rather have the doctors shut it down.)  Just as Elwed pointed out earlier.  It doesn’t matter if the doctors do it our the power company does it, the power is still going to be cut off.

I guess the real question is whether to let the doctors euthanize the patients or the power company.

So our difference lies in who should be allowed to kill them.  I believe it is wrong for the doctors to kill them because it would violate their oath.  The power company doing it takes the death off the doctors hands.  The families also can’t sue the doctors that way and would have to take it up with the power company.

So our difference lies in who should be allowed to kill them.

They’re dead.  Our differences don’t necessarily lie in who should be allowed to kill them but more in why.  I really don’t give a shit who cuts the power, from a logistics standpoint it would make more sense for the doctors to do it since they are right there, but if they want the power company to do it, that’s fine with me too.

Nobody should be allowed to kill them.

Having said that, one could construe the doctor’s oath to compel them to kill their patients by their own hand in the most humane way if their demise is inevitable. Technically, they could do that seconds before the power cuts out, thus closing the window for a miracle to occur.

Leave out “under God�, and the kids who want to believe that can believe it.

Nice thought, but that doesn’t fix it.  There are families who object to their kids saying, standing, saluting the pledge - any pledge, whether “under God” or not.  I respect their right to decide their values for their kids.  But I don’t feel compelled to do away with the Pledge of Allegience anywhere in this country just because some object to it. 

I’ve stretched the original point, I know.  But if you think it’s appropriate to teach “one nation indivisible” to school kids (while inappropriate to teach “one nation under God”) how do you answer the parents of this kid who isn’t allowed to say the pledge at all?  Or stand while others say it?

After reading a few of their {CWA’s) web articles, see if you would consider their information to be unbiased and would trust that the article she linked to contains factual points of contention?

Here’s one that I think is silly.  This portion of the quote Brock posted seems to me a stat in favor of gay marriage, not against it:

* A University of California study shows that human papillomavirus (HPV) is epidemic among homosexual men - 93% of HIV-positive men, 61% of non-HIV-positive men.

If I can assume that gay marriage is supposed to be monogamous (the same way heterosexual marriage is supposed to be monogamous) then wouldn’t it make sense to allow marriage?  The hoped for results would take individuals ‘out of circulation’ and reduce the incidence of disease.

Kelly has her values as does CWA. It’s my suspicion though that both hers and theirs are, for the most part, inexactly and unfairly chosen.

I read sites for information, whether they are CWA or SEB.  In fact, that’s how I got here; I was looking for “the rest of the story” after reading a conservative article on a Michael Marcavage arrest.  I found some comments on this site during my search. 

I didn’t soak up my values from reading CWA, any more than I soak up Brock’s values from reading his post.  But Brock, you’ve done me no favors by dismissing CWA with a charge of ‘bias.‘  I don’t dispute CWA bias.  But bias is not proof of inaccuracy. 

Neither am I herein averring the accuracy of the information they publish.  What I seek is information to the contrary.  Educate me.  I probably won’t post to this thread again, although I’ll read what gets updated.  (I’m on dialup. It takes too long to refresh the page.) So you’re welcome to have the last word! 

Kelly said: Leave out “under God�, and the kids who want to believe that can believe it.

Nice thought, but that doesn’t fix it.

I agree.  The best solution would be to throw out the Pledge.  As I’ve said before, in slightly different words, it’s the height of cynicism to force kids to take an oath before they’re old enough to understand it, and any country that is not loved because of the way it is, is not going to be loved the more because of cramming patriotism down the throats of schoolchildren- rather the opposite, as I and probably others here can attest.

I have a children’s book I found in a secondhand store here (in Vienna) from 1940, when Austria was Nazi.  There was a pledge to the Reich in it similar to the Pledge of Allegiance, with the chilling addition at the end of the children claiming they had made it up themselves.  I’m not saying America is comparable to the Third Reich, but that such oaths have no place in a democracy.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again: After growing up in post-war Germany, I cannot image the equivalent of the pledge in a German classroom until such time as the Fourth Reich has come to pass.

A pledge should be a solemn occasion and the person should be fully aware what he or she is pledging to. This is, by the way, why recruits in the German armed forces do not pledge until the end of basic training, after having received a lot of instruction about the deeper meaning of their pledge. Since military service is compelled, a recruit can refuse to pledge. I don’t have personal knowledge of anyone doing it, but I suspect it means cleaning latrines for the rest their “tenure”.

I don’t know what is is about this particular topic that has inspired me to de-lurk after months of enjoying this site, particularly since the thread activity appears to have tapered off, but what the hey, right? In regards to the debate about the hospital life-support scenario, it seems to me that the terms of the hypothetical have changed. I understood the set-up to be that the comatose patients were not the only ones in the hospital, or at least not the only ones who might require aid from the hospital during the periods before and after the power was to be shut off.

As Theo put it:

Let’s say a hospital in a third world country is having a hard time paying some of its bills.  The hospital has a few patients in comas connected to artificial lung machines that are quite out dated and a good portion of the reason their electrical bill is so huge.  Now according to the laws of this country to unplug the machines without the consent of the families would be a crime, but if they don’t the bill collectors will have the power cut off and those patients will die anyways and the hospital won’t be able to help anyone.

The final sentence seems to imply that there are in fact other patients to consider than only the comatose ones. So the options of the hospital administrators are:
A) keep the comatose patients on life support until the power is shut off, thus dooming them as well as any other patients who might need electricity for life-saving procedures (barring a miracle).
or
B) keep the comatose patients on life support until the last possible moment they can still save their power, then turn them off, dooming those patients (barring a miracle), but potentially saving the lives of however many patients the hospital has or will get that it would not be able to treat without power.

When the scenario is defined as such, choice B is IMHO clearly the better option, since it is the most likely to save the most people. Following choice A would be to sacrifice the health of all of the patients, current and potential, for a subset of patients who are doomed either way. And as for Theocrat’s distinction that

If the hospital was forced to close the repercussions of its closing would not be on the doctors who had already swore to the Hippocratic Oath.

well, this seems like splitting hairs to me. Just because I cannot control all of the variables of a given situation does not absolve me of responsibility for whatever choices I might make in that situation. In essence, the doctors are given the option of dooming ALL of their patients who need electricity or saving SOME of their patients who need electricity. Washing their hands of any action at all would be the same as killing all of the patients themselves (Pontius Pilate much?).
  Now, as this debate has gone on, it’s initial terms seem to have changed. Theocrat now seems to be suggesting that the ONLY patients in the hospital are those on life-support, which of course renders the whole discussion moot. If this had been the scenario from the start, as Theo apparently believes it was, then I’d suspect most of the people who said the doctors should pull the plug would now say the doctors should hold out until the last possible minute before doing anything, so as not to preclude the possibility of, say, a “miraculous” cure to the patients’ condition being discovered.
  Here’s my suspicion: Theocrat was trying to present an argument about euthanasia: “Should doctors kill their patients just because everything seems hopeless?“ But because of the way his hypothetical scenario was structured, most people read it as “Should doctors perform triage? That is- make life and death decisions based of the maximum possible good?“ Perhaps this is why the two sides cannot come to an agreement; they are arguing about different things. Now, that being said, and assuming I am right that this hypothetical question was meant to address euthanasia, I would like to pose an amendment to it: Suppose that the patients on life support were not comatose, but were in fact in mortal agony and begged to die daily. Everything else about the situation remains the same. What is the moral thing for the doctors to do? And, uh, to what extent should we use the apparent religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers to decide such conundrums as presented within a school curriculum?

Sorry, what I meant was, given the new terms of the hypothetical, wherein the only patients in the hospital are those on life support (and assuming that these are the only patients the hospital can reasonably expect to be serving in the near future), I suspect most people would say the doctors should do nothing at all and lets the power be turned off.

“those patients” were meant to define the comatose and only the comatose patients.  No other are in immediate danger of dying if the power is shut off.  I guess I need to work on splitting hairs in my english.

As Spocko has so conclusively pointed out the Founding Fathers were not as religious as they appeared.  I would not base any moral decision on anything other than my understanding of the Bible.  That said I would never be ok with doctor assisted suicide.  Murder is not ok no matter what form it takes.

Theocrat, there is a big difference between murder and compassion. My father-in-law died a horrible death as an insanely progressive cancer ate his body. He was begging for a lethal dose toward the end, and while my then husband was willing to do it, the rest of the family stopped him because they weren’t comfortable with the idea, and a couple of them were concerned with possible legal ramifications. In the end, no medication eased his pain and he suffered horribly.

I will never understand a society that will allow a horse to be “put out of it’s misery” without second thought, but will force a human to suffer such torture because said society is not comfortable with death - and when you have a situation like that of my father-in-law’s where there was no possible chance of recovery and no possible way to comfort his agony - that is all it is; a society uncomfortable with death, and so enforces such cruelty.

Guess what, Theocrat? You don’t have to be the one to give the dose. I do hope you are never haunted by the kind of screams and animal-like wailing (made all the more pitiful for the man’s notable strength and dignity) my ex-husband hears to this day. There was no good point in it.

An animal when physically disabled is entirely disabled.  Unless of course you believe animals able to reason and think like humans in their own animal ways.  I don’t.  Humans as long as they are alive are able to think.  Brain activity is one of the vital signs looked for.  I believe compassion towards humans never includes murder.  When murder and compassion are blurred together you begin to get atrocities as well.  I think every second one is allowed to think is a gift.  As long as your father-in-law was able to think he had every chance to reflect on his life.  I believe your father-in-law may have had a highly improbably chance to receive comfort, but never impossible.  I am sorry your ex still has trouble with it.  I offer my deepest condolences.

Here’s my problem with your take on the issue Theocrat. You delineated the differences between animals and humans, but didn’t cover one of the big ones- self determination. You may think that “every second one is allowed to think is a gift”, but that doesn’t mean Justice’s father-in-law felt the same way. Wat you’re arguing, however, is that it didn’t matter how he felt about it, he still didn’t have the right to make his own decisions regarding his own life and death. I just can’t cosign on that. I cannot understand why you, or 10 of you, who are not yourselves in constant, blinding, terminal agony, believe that you have to right to make medical decisions for someone who is. I mean, if I found out I had a treatable, but potentially terminal illness, you couldn’t force me to receive treatment, correct? I would have every right to neglect my own health even if it killed me. But if I decided to treat my illness, and I suffered through all of the horrible side effects that the treatment might cause, and I basically fought my damndest to stay alive because life was that friggin precious to me, if, after it became clear that all of that effort and misery was to no avail, and my only options were to suffer prolonged agony before an inevitable death, or to take charge of my own life, to die knowing that I had wrung every last ounce of self-determination out of my life rather than just giving in to the cruel whims of fate, if I chose the latter option, then someone like you, Theocrat, would suddenly step in and say, “Even though I know nothing about your life and how much you loved it, even though I can’t possibly concieve of how desperately you wanted to live, I feel that it is my duty to deprive you of the only consolation available to you, namely, at least being allowed to die with dignity. I do this because I believe every second you are allowed to think is a gift, even if you will spend those slow seconds in contemplation of your own doom, your thoughts punctuated only by soul-crushing pain and the steady recognition that your loved one’s memories of you will forever be tainted with the spectre of this agony. I do this because, even though I am not in your situation, I think I know better than you do how you should deal with it.“
  I am sure this is not how you think of your position on this matter Theo, but this is how it comes across nonetheless. To be fair, I think I can see some of where you’re coming from; for example, I do not think it would be a good thing if doctors learned to say, “Well, you can either endure a debilitating round of chemotherapy, or I could just give you this little pill and you’ll drift off gently into an eternal sleep!“ Moreover, I worry about hospital staff, or even ill patient’s families, conspiring to have people euthanized without the patient’s actual consent. However, these are all foreseeable potential problems, and if euthanasia were legalized, ways could be found to deal with them. For example, perhaps a euthanasia is only legal if a court official and two doctors are present throughout. I certainly think that it should only occur in cases were the patient can clearly be shown to have made the decision under their own cognizance. In any case, these are all issues that can be dealt with in a rational, fair way. Your position (though certainly not you attitude) amounts to “Do nothing; let’em suffer”, and to me that seems neither rational nor fair.
  Maybe this discussion should be continued on a different thread; can anyone suggest one?

Damn, I don’t think I could have said it better myself. Well done.

Not sure about alternate threads. I suppose I could start one or you guys could take it to the forums if you wanted to.

“Unless of course you believe animals able to reason and think like humans in their own animal ways. I don’t. Humans as long as they are alive are able to think.“

Theocrat, that is, according to your position, irrelevant anyway because it doesn’t matter to you that my father-in-law wanted to die - that he thought about it and decided he wanted to end his life. You might think every moment he was able to contemplate his life was a gift, but I assure you, he did not - as was indicated by his request for a lethal injection.

“I believe compassion towards humans never includes murder.“

If my ex-husband had given his father that lethal dose at his father’s request, that would not have been murder.

“I believe your father-in-law may have had a highly improbably chance to receive comfort, but never impossible.“

I would suggest some research because you are very wrong. While it is possible medical science will advance eventually to be able to always ease the pain of a patient, it simply did not happen in my father-in-law’s lifetime. You really don’t seem to understand he was given extremely powerful medication - for pain only because there was no hope in saving him - but it did not work, and to give him a higher dose would have meant an overdose; something that, if resulted in his death, would be - according to you - murder. I don’t mean to insult your intelligence, but your idea that patients like my father-in-law can always be comforted is naive. I realize you said “never impossible,“ but there was nothing more powerful to give him, and he was dead 18 days after his diagnosis. To comfort him was, in fact, impossible.

“I am sorry your ex still has trouble with it. I offer my deepest condolences.“

I appreciate the sentiment. It would have been interesting if you had to offer it to my ex-husband against the backdrop of those sounds, or better yet, to my father-in-law himself.

You and I are on the polar opposites here, because while you see assisted suicide as murder, I see forcing a person to suffer excruciating pain with no hope of relief until death as absolute cruelty mixed with a kind of arrogance that never fails to astound me. Note that I am not name-calling. But the thing is, just because you honestly believe that you could suffer the most horrible agony you never even imagined, and still consider every moment of it a gift because you can still think (and most likely about that horrible agony), does not mean someone else considers it the same. To force them to lie there and suffer because you feel they still have the gift of time and thought is sure enough an arrogant idea.

And by the way, my father-in-law’s case was a bit toward the extreme, but I believe if a person wants to end their life on their own terms, they have that right - not should have that right, but do have that right.

The concerning issues Ulfrekr brings up are ones I have considered myself, but I do agree safeguards can be set up, solutions are possible, and when questions arise regarding an actual request by the patient, then courts are capable of handling it case by case.

This disagreement between theo and justice is typical of the kind of conflict that arises between fundamentalist believers and people who live in the real world.  Fundamentalist religion says that choices and actions are classifiable in terms of right and wrong, and what they classify as “murder”, no matter what the circumstances, is a sin.  Those of us who don’t believe in godgiven law realize that tough decisions are sometimes necessary, and that there are cases, such as this one of Justice’s father-in-law, where taking a life is granting a death with dignity.

So far, I have no problem with theo’s position, as long as he doesn’t try to force it on others.  But that’s the crux of the problem with fundamentalists- I would never dream of telling theo that he’s morally obligated to perform euthanasia, or teach his kids that religions are all myths, or whatever.  But fundamentalists, believing they need to “save” the rest of us, feel it incumbent upon themselves to pass laws to make sure we don’t do anything they wouldn’t do.