Jeff Davis Parish.com
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My Living Will.......Sort of anyway!
Removing food and water to hasten death is a little too pro-active for me. Food and water in my opinion is not artificial support. If I am in that situation after much time of being on support with no chance of recovery then by all means pull the plug. All I ask is that one of my family members or a close friend pull the plug and not some doctor that's going to charge it against my insurance. I don't want a person that I don't even know to do it. If I can breath on my own and I my organs can function on their own then I think I should be fed by any means and given water. Now if I'm a burden to my family either financially or if they just simply get bored with trips to the hospital and they want to get on with their lives then they should consider the option to hasten death.
There are several options on how to achieve that goal. They can cut my throat, smother me with a pillow, you can drive a wooden stake in my heart, put poison in my IV, shoot me in the mouth, club me to death with a baseball bat, set me on fire in my hospital bed or hack me up with a chainsaw. I'm sorry if you think there is a difference in the best way to speed up my death. If you want to make it fast then by all means...let's make it fast. It doesn't really matter which method you choose because it's all pro-active means to hasten death. Perhaps withholding food and water sounds all nice and clean and civilized as long as your not the one being starved. I hate to miss a meal, and I'm sure that will stay with me until the final hour. If there has to be a debate amongst my family as to whether I would want to live or die, then by all means kill the shit out of me. I sure don't want to recover and have to deal with the conversations at Thanksgiving dinner. I sure wouldn't want to put anybody out. But, the people who want to hasten my death must be the ones charged with the task of doing it. The task should not be given to those I don't even know. I have never brought a sick pet to the vet to have them put to sleep. When told there was not hope and the animal needed to be put down, and I agreed,...I did it myself. I would hope that my family would do for me what I would at least do for my dog! Let's not leave that awesome responsibility to a stranger. If you can't pull the trigger yourself, then pull the damn gun out of my mouth,... put the feeding tube back in and shut the hell up! Let this serve as my temporary living will, until I can get a regular one.