(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

Pope John Paul II said Saturday the removal of feeding tubes from people in vegetative states was immoral, and that no judgment on their quality of life could justify such "euthanasia by omission."

Fantastic. Does that mean the Vatican will be helping families pay the catastrophic medical bills of keeping a person alive, for years or decades, when there is literally no hope of recovery?

The Pope called for more money for a "cure," but there is no "cure" for massive brain damage. Small amounts of damage can repair themselves over time, amazingly enough, but if the prefrontal cortex is destroyed, there's no one home and there never will be.

Why is our culture so afraid of death? Death is part of life. Death is fore-ordained at the moment of birth. To be honest I am not afraid of being dead, I am not afraid of the thought that who I am will one day disappear into oblivion. It's the process of dying itself I'm afraid of. All that pain and panic.

Comments

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll have to take the opposite stance in some sense here - I've always thought suspended-animation time-travel into the future would be an amazing experience. Well, ok, as long as total ecological collapse hadn't happened in the meantime.

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

I agree, it could be fascinating. But I only if I could be held in stasis until everything had changed greatly enough that I would not be walking around living in a perpetual state of deja vu. Say, 150 years minimum.