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Yes I would, because I know she wishes to at least try. The point is that you can't decide for others - unfortunately the socialized healthcare of today is maki

Yes I would, because I know she wishes to at least try. The point is that you can't decide for others - unfortunately the socialized healthcare of today is making this a public policy question, which is very wrong.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Yeah. My dad would want us to try the ventilator. My mom wouldn't. I'm leaning toward "no ventilator" for myself, if it comes to that.
kerkeslager 7y ago
If your point was that you can't decide for others, then asking what people would decide for others was a pretty unclear way for you to communicate that point. It seems more likely to me that you're backpedaling and can't admit you were wrong. Unfortunately, many people are put in the situation where they do have to decide for others: loved ones who didn't leave living wills. And that decision shouldn't be made on comparing the alternatives, not just assuming we should always try to extend life as fast as possible no matter the suffering. The idea that socialized healthcare is somehow making this a policy question is just shoehorning your political agenda into a discussion where it's irrelevant. First of all, assuming you're in the US, we don't have socialized medicine. And any reasonable implementation of socialized medicine wouldn't make this a public policy question. If anything, the capitalist medical system we actually have is forcing people to make this decision with cost in mind, rather than making the decision purely based on compassion, ethics, and what your grandmother would want. If you think your grandmother would want to be put on a ventilator, fine, but that choice may not be available to you--if there's one ventilator, you can't afford it, and someone else who wants it can afford it, it's the capitalist medical system that refused to build a second ventilator in the first place that will be deciding to give it to the other guy.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  I'm not in the US. But it seems like a public public policy question in the US as well - if any of the reports on the web are accurate, at least. I would like to hear from you how does a unconscious person decide. The family decides for them, no? That's my assumption, so that's why I am talking about people's grandmothers.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > I would like to hear from you how does a unconscious person decide. The family decides for them, no? I'm not sure why you think this is a rebuttal to anything I said--you're the person who said: "The point is that you can't decide for others". Is your grandmother not an other you're deciding for? Ideally, the way an unconscious person decides is by deciding before they're unconscious and writing it down in a living will. Since you've said, "I know she wishes to at least try", ostensibly your grandmother has at least told you her what she wants verbally. But absent that, I don't believe that "you can't decide for others" because de facto many families are put in the position where they do decide for others--their loved ones who didn't leave any indication of what they wanted in these sorts of situations. My objection isn't to you bringing up grandmothers. My objection is to you framing it in a one-sided way, like, "So, if that was your grandmother and you had a choice of giving her a 10% chance, you wouldn't?" That doesn't acknowledge the fact that there are lots of very good reasons why one might consider not giving their grandmother an extra 10% chance of living in a difficult situation.
    - TomMarius 7y ago
      Well what I meant by others was unrelated/unknown people, especially politicians deciding about "numbers". Sorry I worded it wrong, I am used to seeing a family as a singular unit. There definitely are people who do not want to try and my goal is not to force treatment on them, but to not allow others (see above) to prevent them from getting that treatment.
      - kerkeslager 7y ago
        Okay, but as far as I know, nobody wants to prevent people from getting life extension treatment if they want it. So I'm not sure why you felt you had to make that point. And again, you said: > So, if that was your grandmother and you had a choice of giving her a 10% chance, you wouldn't? That's a pretty odd way of "wording it wrong", if what you intended to say was "Families should make the choice, not governments."
        7y ago

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

Yeah. My dad would want us to try the ventilator. My mom wouldn't. I'm leaning toward "no ventilator" for myself, if it comes to that.

kerkeslager 7y ago

If your point was that you can't decide for others, then asking what people would decide for others was a pretty unclear way for you to communicate that point. It seems more likely to me that you're backpedaling and can't admit you were wrong. Unfortunately, many people are put in the situation where they do have to decide for others: loved ones who didn't leave living wills. And that decision shouldn't be made on comparing the alternatives, not just assuming we should always try to extend life as fast as possible no matter the suffering. The idea that socialized healthcare is somehow making this a policy question is just shoehorning your political agenda into a discussion where it's irrelevant. First of all, assuming you're in the US, we don't have socialized medicine. And any reasonable implementation of socialized medicine wouldn't make this a public policy question. If anything, the capitalist medical system we actually have is forcing people to make this decision with cost in mind, rather than making the decision purely based on compassion, ethics, and what your grandmother would want. If you think your grandmother would want to be put on a ventilator, fine, but that choice may not be available to you--if there's one ventilator, you can't afford it, and someone else who wants it can afford it, it's the capitalist medical system that refused to build a second ventilator in the first place that will be deciding to give it to the other guy.

TomMarius 7y ago
I'm not in the US. But it seems like a public public policy question in the US as well - if any of the reports on the web are accurate, at least. I would like to hear from you how does a unconscious person decide. The family decides for them, no? That's my assumption, so that's why I am talking about people's grandmothers.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > I would like to hear from you how does a unconscious person decide. The family decides for them, no? I'm not sure why you think this is a rebuttal to anything I said--you're the person who said: "The point is that you can't decide for others". Is your grandmother not an other you're deciding for? Ideally, the way an unconscious person decides is by deciding before they're unconscious and writing it down in a living will. Since you've said, "I know she wishes to at least try", ostensibly your grandmother has at least told you her what she wants verbally. But absent that, I don't believe that "you can't decide for others" because de facto many families are put in the position where they do decide for others--their loved ones who didn't leave any indication of what they wanted in these sorts of situations. My objection isn't to you bringing up grandmothers. My objection is to you framing it in a one-sided way, like, "So, if that was your grandmother and you had a choice of giving her a 10% chance, you wouldn't?" That doesn't acknowledge the fact that there are lots of very good reasons why one might consider not giving their grandmother an extra 10% chance of living in a difficult situation.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    Well what I meant by others was unrelated/unknown people, especially politicians deciding about "numbers". Sorry I worded it wrong, I am used to seeing a family as a singular unit. There definitely are people who do not want to try and my goal is not to force treatment on them, but to not allow others (see above) to prevent them from getting that treatment.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      Okay, but as far as I know, nobody wants to prevent people from getting life extension treatment if they want it. So I'm not sure why you felt you had to make that point. And again, you said: > So, if that was your grandmother and you had a choice of giving her a 10% chance, you wouldn't? That's a pretty odd way of "wording it wrong", if what you intended to say was "Families should make the choice, not governments."
      - 7y ago