[ExI] Vegetative patient free of pain

[Dan]

On Wednesday, November 14, 2012 1:43 PM Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:

[giant snip]

> If the reports convince the medical community, it will be a triumph of the 
> diagnostic technique over conventional clinical examination. It will also 
> help in the care of such patients, since they could indicate pain levels 
> or even convey what kind of music they wanted to hear.  Lurking in the 
> background is the question that Owen still won't ask, for lack of moral 
> consensus: Do you want to die? But in the meantime, some families, like  
> Routley's, will be happily vindicated in their belief that their loved 
> one is 'still there.'


Good news overall!

While I'm not against individuals having a right to die, there's a couple of problems here. I'd want to make sure the technique was reliable -- that the person really wanted to die as opposed to misreading some scan and then causing an irreversible choice to be made.

Two, I'd want the focus to be, since it seems like the patient is 'still there,' trying to get him or back to a more or less normal life. I also shudder at how many people probably have been there, but just stuck rather than unconscious.

Regards,

Dan