[ExI] Vegetative patient free of pain

[Stefano Vaj]

On 17 November 2012 01:05, Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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.
>

Actually, one wonders what degree of certainty we should require, given
that currently choice is made by people other than patients in vegetative
(and, supposedly, entirely unconscious) state. So, let us say that the
technology could be used to argue that a given patient does NOT want to
die, even though we are not 100% sure of the message.

Having said that, I expect that the technology will become an argument for
pro-life partisans to the effect that people responding in any way should
not be allowed to die in any case ("hey, if they want to die they are
conscious, so this is euthanasia, bla-bla).

Strangely enough, while I have always thought transhumanism being about
self-determination, I realised from posts on the Longevity Party FB group
that some of us actually considers life-extension not in the light of
lifespan-extension, but in the light of life allegedly being something good
per se, to the point of having to be promoted, if not actively forced, on
those who might prefer otherwise.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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