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Mar. 21st, 2004 02:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaPope 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.
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.
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Re: It may be hard to hear this, or even to believe it...
Date: 2004-03-21 01:21 pm (UTC)but there are people who are not lucky to have as much of their brain as i do... and once my amygdala is removed (if/when i get the amygdalo-hippocampectomy), i really don't know what sorts of emotions, functions, that i will be able to access... that is a really terrifying thing to think about...
i come across all this research on rage disorders and impluse control corresponding with damage to the amygdalas(sp)... it makes me evaluate again and again, what is meant by quality of life...
Juju & Co.