"The Case for Killing Granny": Newsweek's Latest "News with a View"
"The Case for Killing Granny" is the headline of the most recent edition of "Newsweek," a publication that becomes, each week more about views instead of news. The "case for killing granny" is meant to be a provocative discussion about end-of life treatment. Incidentally, wanting to reduce care for very sick elderly people used to be called euthanasia. The case for killing granny doesn't leave much room for discussion.
Evan Thomas in Newsweek discusses the fact that his heavy-smoking mother was dying at age 79 of emphysema and as such did not want to be reliant on an oxygen machine but the doctors wouldn't let her die. His article is titled, not surprisingly, "The Case for Killing Granny."
My question is "Why, just because Evan Thomas's grandmother wanted to die should my grandmother have fewer options at the end of her life than at any other time should she want them?"
People like Evan Thomas speak with authority about things they know nothing about.
My wife and I are both already treated by government-related medical services. They are dictatorial and can at the drop of a hat make you change medicines to save money.
Further I have already had it said to me about a couple of certain conditions that since I am 60-years-old it really doesn't make sense to "get that treatment" but we would "if you were 20-years-old."
End-of-life treatment is viewed, as Thomas says, as a political anathema.
Thomas doesn't reflect cutting edge thinking. Thomas reflects "tired old thinking."
When you begin to consider rationing healthcare you are looking at life as less than extremely valuable. One thing that becomes valuable is youth and of course, what is most valuable is money.
To people like Evan Thomas life is owned by a person to do with as they wish and that includes apply it or exclude it from getting medical treatment. Where he is wrong is that you have no right to make the decision for others.
Our society gets an "F" in ethics. At least it gets an "F" in ethics that make sense.
Evan Thomas in Newsweek discusses the fact that his heavy-smoking mother was dying at age 79 of emphysema and as such did not want to be reliant on an oxygen machine but the doctors wouldn't let her die. His article is titled, not surprisingly, "The Case for Killing Granny."
My question is "Why, just because Evan Thomas's grandmother wanted to die should my grandmother have fewer options at the end of her life than at any other time should she want them?"
People like Evan Thomas speak with authority about things they know nothing about.
My wife and I are both already treated by government-related medical services. They are dictatorial and can at the drop of a hat make you change medicines to save money.
Further I have already had it said to me about a couple of certain conditions that since I am 60-years-old it really doesn't make sense to "get that treatment" but we would "if you were 20-years-old."
End-of-life treatment is viewed, as Thomas says, as a political anathema.
Thomas doesn't reflect cutting edge thinking. Thomas reflects "tired old thinking."
When you begin to consider rationing healthcare you are looking at life as less than extremely valuable. One thing that becomes valuable is youth and of course, what is most valuable is money.
To people like Evan Thomas life is owned by a person to do with as they wish and that includes apply it or exclude it from getting medical treatment. Where he is wrong is that you have no right to make the decision for others.
Our society gets an "F" in ethics. At least it gets an "F" in ethics that make sense.
- www.newsweek.com/id/215291
- Personal Experience
Comments
Jean in Texas
(Guest)
(Guest)
10/04/2009
I think people should realize that keeping people on a life support system does not resolve any issues or problems.
i believe that the life support system should be used for a temporary period of time. If the person's time is expired, they will travel on. If their time is not expired, they will recover. Machines does not give or preserve life, God does. Keeping a person on machines is a waste of money, time, and energy. People should enjoy their love ones when they are alive, when their time is up, it is too late to make up lost time. Let people die in peace, it is the last act of life.
A granny with logic
Cathy in Kansas
(Guest)
(Guest)
09/21/2009
Mark, I agree with your response to Newsweek's latest article. Both of my parents are now deceased and both had hospice care in their final months of their lives. But both made their decisions themselves. My father had a terminal illness and had exhausted all other appropriate treatment. My mother was "terminally depressed" with other health conditions brought on by her almost non-existent lack of physical activity the last two years of her life. I didn't agree with my mother but it was her decision.
Many years before I had a young adult brother who suffered massive brain damage due to injuries sustained in an auto accident 10 months prior to his death. He was on life support in the initial months following the accident but was later taken off of life support because he could breathe on his own. Although he had massive brain damage and was in a deep coma, there is no way that we his family (his wife died at the scene of the accident) could have sent him into the "great beyond"
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