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Got it.  I agree with this definition, but there's just some haziness around some of the edge cases.  For instance, would a nursing mother's breasts be considered life support for an infant, or would the entire mother count as life support due to her role in cleaning and clothing the baby?  Regardless, this definition lends new clarify to a lot of things.  When the Spartans left an infant to die on a hillside, they weren't committing infanticide--they were just taking it off life support!

I actually understand the distinction you're trying to make, but if the only way to apply a term is by defining it in a way that makes it useless, then the term isn't applicable.

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Ten years ago my mother, age 76 at the time, had a heart attack and stroke and was, as per the doctors, brain dead.  She lingered on with wires
and tubes keeping her alive.  No brain activity.

<snip>

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, I jumped 3' off the floor.  It was an ICU nurse.  "You mother came to last night and we moved her to a regular
room."  Yes, my mother woke up, had brain activity, and after removing the tube was breathing on her own, and could speak a little, though her throat
was sore.  Less than a week later she was home and soon was driving herself to physical therapy.

We've had her with us now for 10 years.  She's nearly 87 now, and has seen her grandkids graduate from school, seen some married, has held and
fawned over great-grandchildren, and every day has been a blessing for the family.

When the Terry Shiavo thing was going on I thought I knew what was what.  Let her husband go on and unplug her, poor thing.  She's already gone.  
But I now know that it is not my decision.  Faced with the same situation again I don't think I'd be able to unplug the person and let them go.  Not my
decision.  I can't do it.

And every time I think of how close I was to doing this a shiver runs down my spine.

Quoted:


I signed and have a DNR statement on file with my dr.  



I figure, when it's time it's time....

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Told my fiancé pull that f-ing plug or when I die I will haunt her ass.

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Ten years ago my mother, age 76 at the time, had a heart attack and stroke and was, as per the doctors, brain dead.  She lingered on with wires
and tubes keeping her alive.  No brain activity.

After three weeks of no sign of change, on Friday night we had a meeting at the hospital with her three doctors, the head ICU nurse, another
nurse that attended her, a "patient advocate" from the hospital.  My father, my three siblings and I, and our spouses also attended.  I had kept
the originals of Mom and Dad's Living Wills in my safe at home, and the hospital already had a copy on file.  I made copies for everyone, passed
them around, and they all read along as I read the original so that we all knew we had accurate copies.  It was plainly stated that she did not
want to be kept alive on machines, and that if she ever got to that condition, to unplug her and let her go.  My parents were both medical
professionals and fully understood all that entailed.

It was decided, and all agreed, that we would unplug her the following Monday morning.  Dad came to me after saying he just couldn't do it, and
asked that I be there to do it.  I am the one in the family that was always assigned the dirty work, take out the trash, pick up the roadkill skunk in
front of the house, the stuff nobody else would do, so once again a dirty deed fell to me to take care of.

I walked into her room in ICU at the designated time, 08:00 Monday morning, and the room was empty.  Bed stripped, room cleaned up, floor looked
to be freshly waxed.  I stood there and thanked God for taking my mother during the night so I didn't have to carry the burden of killing my mother, or
rather, give the order to do so.  And nobody bothered to call me saying she was gone.  I had driven in from out of town.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, I jumped 3' off the floor.  It was an ICU nurse.  "You mother came to last night and we moved her to a regular
room."  Yes, my mother woke up, had brain activity, and after removing the tube was breathing on her own, and could speak a little, though her throat
was sore.  Less than a week later she was home and soon was driving herself to physical therapy.

We've had her with us now for 10 years.  She's nearly 87 now, and has seen her grandkids graduate from school, seen some married, has held and
fawned over great-grandchildren, and every day has been a blessing for the family.

When the Terry Shiavo thing was going on I thought I knew what was what.  Let her husband go on and unplug her, poor thing.  She's already gone.  
But I now know that it is not my decision.  Faced with the same situation again I don't think I'd be able to unplug the person and let them go.  Not my
decision.  I can't do it.

And every time I think of how close I was to doing this a shiver runs down my spine.

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Pull the damn plug.  She was brain dead with no hope of recovery.  There was quite literally nobody home inside that head of hers.  I don't even understand the religious objection in such cases.  You're literally keeping an empty shell alive.  Her soul/spirit/energy/etc had clearly already moved on.

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President Bush really pissed me off when he got involved in that.

And schiavo's parents were totally out-to-lunch on her condition and prognosis.  I challenge anybody with any medical training to find (and read) the Guardian Ad Litem report on that case.  Look at the literature her parents cited as proof that she wasn't in a permanent vegetative state.  It cited all sorts of voodoo bullsh*t like "vasodilation therapy" as a basis to claim she could get better.  It was totally ludicrous.

She should have been allowed to die without all that media circus.

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The parents had no standing.  It should have been a non-issue.

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President Bush really pissed me off when he got involved in that.



And schiavo's parents were totally out-to-lunch on her condition and prognosis.  I challenge anybody with any medical training to find (and read) the Guardian Ad Litem report on that case.  Look at the literature her parents cited as proof that she wasn't in a permanent vegetative state.  It cited all sorts of voodoo bullsh*t like "vasodilation therapy" as a basis to claim she could get better.  It was totally ludicrous.



She should have been allowed to die without all that media circus.

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No brain activity and the machine was keeping her alive for years, he made the right call.

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Her husband was an abusive scumbag out for money

This. Also he already was shacked up with someone else and wanted her dead. There is more to the story

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At the time I thought her parents were right.

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The parents had no standing.  It should have been a non-issue.

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If I recall her parents got between the rights of the husband to make medical decisions for her.

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Whats all this about the husband abusing her or causing it?  From what I'vw read there was no injuries to her when she was admitted after the cardiac arrest.

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Whats all this about the husband abusing her or causing it?  From what I'vw read there was no injuries to her when she was admitted after the cardiac arrest.

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i have dnr tattooed on my ass and face.,

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Schaivo is a bad case for your question.  I'm convinced her husband tried to kill her initially and she survived.  He was then able to get a judge to finish the deed.

Schaivo was not on "life support"  she was on a feeding tube.


She was murdered, essentially died of thirst.

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She wasn't on life support.  They didn't pull the plug and let her body die; they removed a feeding tube and starved her to death.