Download LIFE SUPPORT To Pull or Not to Pull, The Plug is the Question The

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To Pull or Not to Pull, The Plug is the Question
The reality of death is something we all have to face eventually, but in today’s current
age and technology we are able to medically prolong life by using methods of life support.
People can be seemingly dead but can live or improve their health by use of some of these
techniques until they can survive on their own, free of assistance. However, the “cost of living”,
quality of life, and the morality of preserving life can be contradictory.
With developing technology, there are a plethora of artificial life support techniques.
Some that may be legally refused by competent patients in some states include the following:
 Electrical or mechanical heart resuscitation
 Mechanical respiration by machine
 Nasogastric tube feeding
 Intravenous nutrition
 Gastronomy
 Medications to treat life threatening infections (Donatelle, 2009, p. 269).
Many cases of individuals have been affected by the legal matters of life support. The
history of the controversial topic can basically be summarized with the three prominent cases.
One of the first cases to bring life support into the question was the case of Karen Ann Quinlan.
Quinlan passed out into a coma after a long night of drinking paired with Valium and an empty
stomach in 1975. Her parents wanted to remove her from life support and were eventually
allowed to. Quinlan remained living free of oxygen tubes for a decade before passing away
(Time, 2013).
There are a variety of pros and cons to maintaining a person of life support. On the prochoice side, supporters believe that people have the “right to die”, meaning that a competent
patient can chose whether to accept their “natural death” by having a Do Not Resuscitate Order.
Supporters also argue that being removed from life support is simply prolonging the inevitabledeath. The cons of DNRs and artificial life support methods also have valid arguments. People
–especially those with religious backgrounds- value the sanctity of life and that if measures can
be taken to preserve it, that they should be used. Those against it also believe that it grays the
line of what exactly is “taking a life” and blurs the lines of what is considered homicide and what
is not (ProCon, 2012).
In 1988, police officer Gary Dockery of Tennessee was shot in the head by a drunken
man while responding to a call and remained in a coma-like state. However, in 1996 after a lung
surgery, Dockery suddenly awoke from his coma and began talking nonstop for approximately
18 hours. He was able to name names of close friends and family (including middle names),
names of his horses, and even the color of his car. Doctors suggest that while he was in a
vegetative state it was less like a coma and more of a “locked in state” where his mind continued
to think and was stuck in the time period occurring just before he was shot. Dockery went back
into the state of unresponsiveness and died the following April (Time, 2013).
One of the most recent and prominent cases involved Terri Schiavo. Schiavo went into a
coma after having a heart attack at age 26 and suffered irreversible brain damage. She was
unable to survive without any life support and did not have any living will. Her parents wanted
to keep her on life support, believing that removal would be “murder”. Schiavo’s husband felt
she should be allowed to die and that she would not want to continue on living that way. After
15 years of battling between the parents and husband, the court sided with the husband and she
was removed from life support (Donatelle, 2009, p. 270).
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In the United States, there is no definite statistic as to how many patients are annually
removed from life support primarily because of privacy concerns. However, the National
Center for Health statistics reported that 146,000 procedures were performed to insert permanent
feeding tubes into patients. The Brain Injury Association reported that there are between 35,00040,000 people diagnosed with being in persistent vegetative state (Fox News, 2005). In 1994,
the New England Journal of medicine estimated that somewhere between $1 billion and $7
billion is annually spent on the caring for people who are permanently unconscious (Stryker,
1996). Individuals who are impacted by the debate over life support are primarily the elderly,
whose bodies are more worn out and have a tougher time from recovering from accidents, heart
attacks, strokes, etc. However, as was shown in the Schiavo case, virtually anyone could find
themselves dependent on life support with irreversible brain damage. Not only are the lives of
the people in comas impacted, but the families are as well who are left as living spokespeople for
the patient.
If the “pro” side got their way to the radical extreme, removal of life support methods
would be universally acceptable. A competent patient could choose whether or not certain
measures could be taken in sustaining their life in extenuating circumstances as well as during
surgical procedures. Patients could chose to die when they “naturally should” as they would
have if it they were living in an age 100 years prior. They could avoid unnecessary pain,
suffering, and medical costs. However, if a patient were to be in a coma, family members could
choose to “pull the plug” whenever they felt necessary, even if there was substantial hope of the
comatose patient if they had hope of waking up from the coma. This thinking could also
potentially lead to euthanasia and physician assisted suicide being acceptable and legal as well.
The problem with that is that it could pose problems because:
Assisted suicide is a half-way house, a stop on the way to other forms of direct
euthanasia, for example, for incompetent patients by advance directive or suicide in the
elderly. So, too, is voluntary euthanasia a half-way house to involuntary and nonvoluntary euthanasia. If terminating life is a benefit, the reasoning goes, why should
euthanasia be limited only to those who can give consent? Why need we ask for consent?
(ProCon, 2012).
Radically siding with the “pros” of DNRs and removal of life support has good intentions, but
could pose possible controversy.
If the “con” side got their way to the reactionary extreme, any personal preference on
one’s life measures would be removed completely from the matter and hospitals would have to
deal completely within their legal obligations. Remaining on life support would be required,
extending one’s life to every possible measure, whether the patient wants to or not. Hospitals
and EMTs would have to take any and every measure to try and save a person’s life, even if that
meant the person would have to continue living with a poor quality of life. The money spent on
keeping patients alive at any cost would also increase a lot as well.
I think this issue is an 8 on a scale of 1-10 in importance. Death is natural and imminent
for every living person and is something that all of us will have to deal with eventually, whether
it be our own lives or a friend’s or a loved ones. People may think it is of much importance and
isn’t a “life or death” decision like some of the social issues we are currently faced with, but
ironically, it is exactly that. The value of life should not be taken lightly, and I think that if a
compromise and solution was made that there would be great improvement in how some of the
cases are handled and the morality of choosing to use or deny life support methods.
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References
Donatelle, R. (2009). Health: the basics (8th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pearson Education Inc.
Pp. 269-270
Fox News. (2005, April 4). Unknown number face life support decision. Retrieved January 23,
2013 from the FoxNews.com Website:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151862,00.html
Lynne, D. (2005, March 24). The whole Terri Schiavo story. Retrieved January 23, 2013 from
the WND Website: http://www.wnd.com/2005/03/29516/
ProCon (2012, May 18). Euthanasia. Retrieved January 23, 2013 from the ProCon Website:
http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000126
Stryker, J. (1996, March 31). Life after Quinlan. Retrieved January 23, 2013 from The New
York Times Website:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/31/weekinreview/right-to-die-life-after-quinlan.html?src=pm
Time. (2013). The big sleep: top 10 comas. Retrieved January 23, 2013 from the Time Website:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1864940_1864939_186490
0,00.html