NationStates Jolt Archive

And now onto the point, after that charmingly vague title...now this may have been asked before, so I apologize if I just missed it, but this whole Shiavo thing has me thinking...if you were in a vegetative state...even suppose you were conscious...but were only capable of blinking...and watching the world move around you, would you rather live or die? Personally, that is not the sort of life I would want...if I was in a vegetative state for more than a few years, I'd want to be allowed to pass.

By the way, this isn't a debate on whether she can be rehibilitated...this is specifically for you, knowing there may only be a very slim chance at some distant point in the future that you would be able to interact with the world again.

I believe in a soul that is not wedded to flesh to be conscious. What that means is that I think that you are still you wether you have the brain functions to exress yourself or not. And if you are braindead/vegatative, I believe you are locked in a tormenting prison. Same thing with insanity. That would be no kind of life for me.

Three months in a coma or vegitative state is all I will grant myself to recover. If I can't snap back before then, chances are even if I wake up I won't be the same person, with the same emotions and relaitonships. I would not want to live like that, partially brain damaged but able to function. Morphine drip me or somethng.

don't humiliate me like that.

if i can't live on my own, i don't want to live

In the words of Ozzy Osbourne I would have to say "See you on the other side"

i.e. just pull the plug on me.

My thinking is right along side Dementedus_Yammus and Riptide Monzarc...although I might give myself a year to recover...after that the world around me will be changing a bit more noticably...if I woke up miraculously in twenty years, but lost all that time with family and friends I don't know if I'd want to wake up.

At my age, if there's no hope of recovery within a year or so, there's not much point in hanging on.

There are stories of comatose people lasting several years, and then waking up to be functional. But guess what? They had no overlapping memory of their comas. To them it was as if they had fallen asleep and woken up five, eight, even ten years later. All that time gone, all the world changed. Friends and loved ones moved on, dead, completely different. An alien world that they were scared and alone in.

Who would want that, even if death is the end?

I propose something a bit different. If I was in a coma/vegetative state/braindead, I'd want to donate my still mostly-functional body to science! It'd be like getting all the benefit of all those horrible experiments that (some) physicians used to perform on people, with none of the torture! I mean, it's basically my body, the shell. If everything else still works, why not cut it apart and learn more about how it works so that science can help people better in the future?

I propose something a bit different. If I was in a coma/vegetative state/braindead, I'd want to donate my still mostly-functional body to science! It'd be like getting all the benefit of all those horrible experiments that (some) physicians used to perform on people, with none of the torture! I mean, it's basically my body, the shell. If everything else still works, why not cut it apart and learn more about how it works so that science can help people better in the future?


imagine recovering halfway through one of the experiments and seeing half a hampster being sewn to the side of your arm or something :D

There are stories of comatose people lasting several years, and then waking up to be functional. But guess what? They had no overlapping memory of their comas. To them it was as if they had fallen asleep and woken up five, eight, even ten years later. All that time gone, all the world changed. Friends and loved ones moved on, dead, completely different. An alien world that they were scared and alone in.

Who would want that, even if death is the end?
Actually, at my age that might be pretty kewl. I would get to see what my grandchildren were like after they got older, among other things. :)

I would want to be allowed to die but I'd want whatever salvageable organs to be harvested for transplantation.

And to make sure that it happens, I have told everyone in my like, remind them when the subject comes up and even included it in my will and inaptitude certificate (the last one is a loose translation from French).

Life without living is not life.

I'm a registered organ donor, so that's already taken care of.

ANd it might be cool to leap-frog into the future, but I wouldn't prefer the comatose method. Great Scott! :eek:

let me go - death is not scary to me - I look forward to it, and I don't want any burdens put on families friends or taxpayers

I'm an organ donor too...I doubt I'll be usin em much after death...

and yes, that is my entire justification for being a donor. :D

hmmmm...and I also want my funeral to be a party...is that weird? like, a happy, cheerful celebration of my life, not some dreary mourning deally.

Life without living is not life.
Which makes a good argument for living life while you're still fully alive, right? :D

I'd rather be dead, even if I were healthy. :(

I'd rather be dead, even if I were healthy. :(

*hugs Roach-Busters* Cheer up bud.

I'm an organ donor too...I doubt I'll be usin em much after death...

and yes, that is my entire justification for being a donor. :D

hmmmm...and I also want my funeral to be a party...is that weird? like, a happy, cheerful celebration of my life, not some dreary mourning deally.

I thought I was weird because I wanted a party... I even planned and everything - not that anyone around me is going to listen that nonsense...

*hugs Roach-Busters* Cheer up bud.

Thanks, man. But I'd still rather be dead.

I thought I was weird because I wanted a party... I even planned and everything - not that anyone around me is going to listen that nonsense...

*claps*I'm not alone, yay! Well I figure on having dancers...not like "dancers" but maybe more of an arabian thingy...belly dancers maybe? I dunno...something for entertainment...erm...I want some cheerful pagan music (gotta stay true to my roots;))...and I definitly don't want a bunch of people crying.

imagine recovering halfway through one of the experiments and seeing half a hampster being sewn to the side of your arm or something :D
LOL! :D

kill me.
that being established, isn't it odd that someone hasnt been really outspoken on the whole "euthanasia is evil" thing yet?

kill me.
that being established, isn't it odd that someone hasnt been really outspoken on the whole "euthanasia is evil" thing yet?
Its harder to be self righteous when the consequences might affect you.

Its harder to be self righteous when the consequences might affect you.
very true, but come on lets get a discussion going on.
fine ill start it
it is wrong to kill someone who is still alive

very true, but come on lets get a discussion going on.
fine ill start it
it is wrong to kill someone who is still alive
Not always. Besides its easier than killing someone who is already dead.

Its harder to be self righteous when the consequences might affect you.

On a side note, it's also hard to be self-righteous when your being suspended upside down in a vat of anti-freeze as twenty men named Doug take turns tickling your exposed feet. A proven fact.

On a second side note, I just finished two major physics papers and I'm a bit loopy.

Yeah, that whole "Euthenasia is EVIL! But pull th plug on me!!!" thing.

Oh yeah, and you would think that people who believe they are going to be in Paradise after htey die wouldn't be so afraid to meet their Maker....

On a side note, it's also hard to be self-righteous when your being suspended upside down in a vat of anti-freeze as twenty men named Doug take turns tickling your exposed feet. A proven fact.

On a second side note, I just finished two major physics papers and I'm a bit loopy.
My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

The anti-freeze?

Yeah, that whole "Euthenasia is EVIL! But pull th plug on me!!!" thing.

Oh yeah, and you would think that people who believe they are going to be in Paradise after htey die wouldn't be so afraid to meet their Maker....
i think they be scared of hell, but i dont think that euthanasia is the worst of their problems

Ah well, I'm off for the night...Gonna go see what a gallon of anti-freeze does to the brain...I'll check the thread in the morning...have fun boys and girls.

The anti-freeze?
No! Well not at first, only when you run out of alcohol and gasoline.

If I could be rehabilitated, than so be it. But if I'm in a state like her, then just kill me.

I propose something a bit different. If I was in a coma/vegetative state/braindead, I'd want to donate my still mostly-functional body to science! It'd be like getting all the benefit of all those horrible experiments that (some) physicians used to perform on people, with none of the torture! I mean, it's basically my body, the shell. If everything else still works, why not cut it apart and learn more about how it works so that science can help people better in the future?

Good thinking. I agree. Give me a year or two, if there is no hope of recovery - do whatever you want to my flesh. All the me that matters is gone.

People that sick should be the ones to choose what they want however immoral it may seem to others, if they can't say what they want it should be the parents or other loved ones to make the call.
I would not want to live like that.

Which makes a good argument for living life while you're still fully alive, right? :D

Which is why I've adopted the motto of "everything in moderation... including moderation." :D

Because, sometimes, you just have to ride the loop coaster 11 times in an hour.

Ah well, I'm off for the night...Gonna go see what a gallon of anti-freeze does to the brain...I'll check the thread in the morning...have fun boys and girls.

Dude! Thunderbird! $2.17 a bottle out the door.

and get this! It comes WITH the paper bag!!

Kill me.

Just pull the bloody plug. Who the hell wants to live like that? I mean, either you're a drooling vegetable and you don't care in the first place, or your brain is fine and you can't do anything to communicate. Now that would fucking suck. I sure as hell wouldn't want that. :terror:

Let this be my record to all: If I go brain dead or otherwise become a vegetable, I don't want to stew in a hospital bed hooked up to machines; pull the damned plug.

I don't know. I don't think I'm really in any position to make that descision. It'd be easy to say "yeah, pull the plug", but why give up on life so easily? I mean, isn't life something that is worth fighting and taking a chance for?

I guess the question really falls to whether or not you're satisfied with what you've accomplished so far in life. If you've had a long, happy life, then yeah, pulling the plug might be ok. But me, I'm only eighteen. I haven't really done that much yet. There are still many, many things I want to do and see. So maybe I'd take that chance that maybe I'd recover some day.

This question kinda reminds me of a part in the movie Se7en. One of Kevin Spacey's victims was a once pretty young women. He badly mutilated her, then tied her to a bed. In one hand, he super glued a phone. In the other hand, he glued a thing full of sleeping pills. So she had a choice: Life and be forever ugly and scarred, or die.

I would rather live... yeah i know go ahead and give me all the reasons why i shouldn't say that but i do not think that any person should have control over whether or not they or any other person dies. Unless it is in doing something that saves other peoples lives and in the process they die...

Imagine you are fully conscious, but unable to communicate.

Now look at the way you are going to die

Staving to death over a period of two weeks? No thanks, keep me alive!

Otherwise I really do not know... No one can really say for sure how they would feel in this situation, so I'm not going to post here.

If I was going to be in a vegetative state I'd want to die.
If I had a degenerative disrder adn was going to lapse into such a state, I'd leave a living will saying that I want to die.

If here's no chance of recovery I don't see a point of continuing, and besides, you're not yourself.

I had a dream that I was a vegetable once... But, after analyzing it, being a carrot isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Now a tomato would be different... But that's a fruit, so screw it.

I thought I was weird because I wanted a party... I even planned and everything - not that anyone around me is going to listen that nonsense...
I plan to trick them into listening. A plain package, with the instructions to be placed on my chest, unopened or examined, before I am cremated. The fire starts, and WHAM! Fireworks going off everywhere :)

I plan to trick them into listening. A plain package, with the instructions to be placed on my chest, unopened or examined, before I am cremated. The fire starts, and WHAM! Fireworks going off everywhere :)

That would be different... I'd pay money to see that.

I would def op for death, Whats the point in living if you have virtually no control over your body, you are attached to dozens of tubes to keep you alive, cansious etc. There is no way I'd want to put my family through something like that, I think this womans parents are cruel, yes it is horrific to see their child in such a condition and especially since she has shown some form of alertness, but the I'd hate to be in the state she's in, its not fair to keep someone alive (unless of course they have asked to be), they need to let go

That would be different... I'd pay money to see that.
That's a good idea - I'll charge admission to my funeral, to help cover the costs! XD

Maybe I'm just too much of a pragmatist... but I come back, over and over, to the idea that I would be utterly unconstructive - and a burden on so many people.

Surely, any hospital bed I was using could be put to a better purpose?

Surely all the machinery... even the electricity POWERING the machinery... could be more efficiently used elsewhere?

I'd like to think that I'd be left laying there for a while... say, 3 months... and if I made NO SIGN of change, I'd want my nearest and dearest to help me out.

I wouldn't want to lay there wasting away.... I wouldn't want years to just drift by me. I wouldn't want the risk that I might wake up 'broken'. I wouldn't want to risk the fact that a coma might be fifteen years of 'sickness' dreams.... you know, those nauseating nightmares you get when you are ill...

So - I would hope that my loved ones would be ALLOWED to help me on my way. But, personally, I would hope they could OD me on Morphine, or something... just in case I was conscious on some deep level... I'd like to go out quietly.

I would hope they'd teach me the morse code... so I could blink it out, the first words I'd say would be "kill me"

It's like in 'One' of Metallica. If one can't move, see, talk, feel, etc... only think... Your imagination is your best friend but it can turn on you.

I think being in such a state would be one of the worst possible tortures for me...at "best" i might be able to watch my children and grandchildren grow up during their visit...i might be able to watch them become people...but only in brief periods of time whenever they could come see me. it would literally drive me insane to see these people i love and never be able to tell them i love them or give them a hug or interact with them. even if i was brought back after ten or twenty years, i think i would have died on the inside...

well, if i could watch what was going on around me, i will request an endless stream of barely dressed, long haired males to constantly entertain me. and i am not joking.

I'd like to be alive. So I can one day wakeup and see everybody old and frail, and laugh at them..

Wait a second.. this isn't cryogenics. Darn. Let me go Country mama.

I'd like to be alive. So I can one day wakeup and see everybody old and frail, and laugh at them..

Wait a second.. this isn't cryogenics. Darn. Let me go Country mama.

Made me think...what a shock it would be to the system if you lapsed into a coma at the age of, say 20ish...and were kept alive...then miraculously awoke at the age of 70...

I have found that the point of conscious existence is to gain experience. To no longer be able to absorb and retain experience to be a waste.

If there is a form of conscious existence beyond the point at which all metabolic processes cease (read Death), and there is no garauntee that there is or that it is available to all who currently possess consciousness, I would tend to believe that it is our experiences that make the journey beyond our physical forms and that it would be useful to whatever awaits us beyond. Otherwise I fail to see the point of life forms gaining mobility or senses or comunication abilities merely for the sake of not having them beyond death.

If a shell is no longer capable of acquiring, retrieving or processing experience, then I believe that that conscious form of life has no further purpose. While, personally I would prefer never to test my theories (EVER), if I were to enter into a state where my sole consciousness were reduced to the point were I could only blink and drool and not ever be able to count or remember what I am blinking at, then there would be no more purpose to my life then than there would be 5.. 10.. 15 years from that point.

If conscious life is meaningless then death can only be as meaningless.

This whole Shaivo thing is crazy... what is the point of her staying alive? All she can do is blink and smile... and requires the constant supervision of others. What kind of life is that? It's not a life. It's waiting for death. The recent events are merely speeding the process.