Legalities aside (I'm sure there are laws on this subject although I can't say I'm familiar with them), who should decide when to pull the plug on someone? Suppose doctors determine that someone will never emerge from a coma, but the family wants to continue to keep the person on life support just in case?
Who decides? A judge? Insurance companies? Some death panel? Should the family always have the choice of keeping them on life support even if the odds are almost nonexistent that they will ever come out of the coma or perhaps come out so badly brain damaged that they can't even function?
Ramsey, it's not rice cakes but I posted that for you, hon.
The next of kin. A spouse, parent, child, guardian, etc. As the next of kin, they would ultimately be responsible (financially and otherwise) for the persons care. It should be up to them to decide whether to prolong the persons life. As for me? If I'm not coming back, pull the plug.
Don't we all ultimately share the costs via insurance rates?
Thanks User.
First and foremost if a person has a living will that should be followed. I can only imagine how hard it will be to make the call to discontinue life support when you don't want to let the person go, but their wish is not to be on life suport if there is no hope. Now who decides there is no hope? That's the hardest part of all. This season on Grey's Anatomy the doctor's were in a plane crash. One of them had these serious internal injuries but managed to get his living will done. It said if he goes into a coma and has to be on life support, pull the plug at 30 days. I guess he felt that if he didn't rally in those 30 days he never would. I would like something like that in my LW. I know I would never want to be on life support for some extended period of time if there was no hope. But that is always the question - how can we be 10000000% sure there is no hope?
How many of you actually have a living will drawn up?
Shame on us but my husband and I don't have wills or anything. Then again, we plan to live forever.
I don't and I know I should. I am a master procrastinator though....so....
Fuck me for posting a depressing topic. It's all Ramsey's fault!!
(11-01-2012, 03:42 PM)username Wrote: [ -> ]How many of you actually have a living will drawn up?
I've been very irresponsible in this matter. My dad has actually approached me a couple of times to get this done. He's actually able to do it free of charge as well. Maybe this will be the impetus to do it.
As for maintaining someone on life support, that's a tricky one. Even if we may all share in the costs associated with keeping people alive, I still feel like we have to defer to the family to make the ultimate call.
I don't have a will nor living will. I have expressed I want a closed casket, I'm skeeved thinking about people looking at me, I've also said I want to be buried here on the farm and he said we'd have to get a special permit. 
Haha! A permit. Nice.
It's kind of cool traveling on the East Coast and seeing gravestones in people's front yards and stuff. I guess they mostly stopped doing that by the time the settlers got to California. You just don't see that here.
Actually, is that common on the entire East Coast? I saw them often on some rural roads in Maine but I'm making an assumption that you might find them in rural communities elsewhere back there too. Maybe not.
I've never seen gravestones in anyone's yard but I have seen cemeteries in odd places. I grew up in the middle of nowhere USA and it wasn't unusual to see markers fenced in the middle of fields, like family plots I guess you'd call them, all very old.
There was a very old cemetery in Maine and a group of headstones well outside the others. Babies that hadn't been baptized I was told.
(11-01-2012, 04:38 PM)username Wrote: [ -> ]There was a very old cemetery in Maine and a group of headstones well outside the others. Babies that hadn't been baptized I was told.
Interesting facts about those buried many, many years ago, and whether or not they could be buried on church grounds. Here's a story you may enjoy reading:
http://www.herald-journal.com/archives/2...ument.html
Wow. So those that committed suicide were excluded as well. I'm surprised they went to all that trouble though for a guy who had been dead a hundred years.
(11-01-2012, 05:13 PM)username Wrote: [ -> ]So those that committed suicide were excluded as well.
You cannot be buried in the Catholic church (meaning with their ceremony) if you commit suicide, it's a huge sin. Also, if a child born to Catholic parents is not baptised the child cannot be buried in the Catholic church. The rules are many in the Catholic church. If one chooses to marry someone who is divorced, forget about getting married in the Catholic church. Back in the day Catholics stuck to their own kind, one didn't marry outside of that faith.
(11-01-2012, 03:42 PM)username Wrote: [ -> ]How many of you actually have a living will drawn up?
Shame on us but my husband and I don't have wills or anything. Then again, we plan to live forever.
I did a living will or one of sorts, i was told it didn't need to be fancy. I gave it to my parents and the hospital that I get my pain management from.
(11-01-2012, 05:25 PM)Duchess Wrote: [ -> ] (11-01-2012, 05:13 PM)username Wrote: [ -> ]So those that committed suicide were excluded as well.
You cannot be buried in the Catholic church (meaning with their ceremony) if you commit suicide, it's a huge sin. Also, if a child born to Catholic parents is not baptised the child cannot be buried in the Catholic church. The rules are many in the Catholic church. If one chooses to marry someone who is divorced, forget about getting married in the Catholic church. Back in the day Catholics stuck to their own kind, one didn't marry outside of that faith.
isn't the rule for divorcing in the catholic church is getting it annulled in the church, I believe it's called annulled but it's not the same basic steps as celebrities try to go through. my parents were married for 12 years and are catholic and they both did this and went through huge loops to get be able to get remarried in the catholic church again later on to other people and have it recognized. they are extremely religious and this was very important to them.
Yes, that's true. Wild isn't it that it's called annulled, especially when there are children from that marriage.
I go with next of kin..and I do believe that if a person is married..gay or straight...the spouse is officially next of kin..before blood. I know there are blood families who will argue and fight if the spouse goes against what they want. I know my husband knows more than my brothers what I would want. I have a living will anyway..and all my docs know.
That done, once I am dead, would live to be placed on a body farm, for forensic study.
my brother has said that he would like to have his body donated to a body farm for scientific studies too. I did the living will because I know if something g happened to me and I couldn't make the decisions for myself, I know my family well enough they wouldn't agree on anything so I needed to do it for them. it brings back memories of my confirmation and they couldn't sit in a room together for more than an hour and get a long. although they did show real progress when I took an ambulance ride and my mom actually called to inform my dad so I should at least be happy to know she's willing to inform him that something happened, lol... I shouldn't laugh but I have to!
what is everyones view on being a donor on the license?