Renderking Fisk
Practically Family
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Now that she's gone... what does this mean for the future of medicne?
Matt Deckard said:The Pope should have a living will.
android said:Why are they claiming that deprivation of food and water is "different" than removing life support such as oxygen? They are both exactly the same thing: chemicals that the body needs to sustain life. You just need O2 on a much more frequent basis.
jamespowers said:If you don't see a difference between a feeding tube and ventilator then I really cannot help you.
android said:I will explain to you how they are the same.
A ventilator (a machine) provides oxygen (a chemical) to a human that is incapable of breathing on his own.
A feeding tube (a machine) provide nutrients (chemicals ) to a human that is incapable of eating on his own.
You usually die more quickly when deprived of oxygen than when deprived of food, so when you pull the plug on a ventilator, the victim dies quickly and when you pull the plug on a feeding tube, the victim dies slowly.
In my opinion, if you think there is a difference, it means you think it is OK to kill somebody as long as it is "mercifully quick" rather than "agonizingly slow".
Please explain how you think they are different.
jamespowers said:The feeding tube is not a machine either. It is just a tube that a syringe with nutrition can be attached to to inject directly into the stomach.
android said:Yes it is a machine.
Machine: A device with fixed and moving parts that modifies mechanical energy in order to do work.
Fixed part: tube
Moving part: plunger
Work: Moving food from point A to point B.
It is not as complicated as a respirator but is a machine nonetheless.
So your argument comes down to how dilapidated the body is, the complexity of the machine required to sustain the dilapidated body and how often the machine must be used, right?
I don't think you're ready to make a moral agument about removing artificial life support from a brain-dead body when you want to pick and choose based on the complexity of the support devices involved.