Got this from my buddy Mike the other day and I thought I would give my personal thoughts about it. I have also included Mike's thoughts (in case he doesn't remember what he put in the email to me) in blue.
Template for a Living Will I, _________________________ (fill in the blank), being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means. Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of peckerwood politicians who couldn't pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it. If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a cold beer, it should be presumed that I won't ever get better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day. Under no circumstances shall the members of the Legislature enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own damn business, and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren't in a permanent coma. Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case. I don't care how many fundamentalist votes they're trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency in 2008, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else's life and leave me alone to die in peace. I couldn't care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don't know these people, and I certainly haven't authorized them to preach and crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own business, too. If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living hell.
My Living Will I don't wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means either. However, please make sure I'm really brain dead before you kill me. Ok? If I am not on a respirator, but rather, am being fed by IV or feeding tube, then chances are I've still got brain function. Someone please ask my doctor to do a routine CAT scan, rather than just an inconclusive MRI that does not measure brain activity. Ask him to report the results of my CAT scan to the judge overseeing my conservatorship. I don't think that's too much to ask. If I can move my arms and legs a little, then it's a safe bet that I'm not a brain dead vegetable. If I can utter sounds in response to questions, then the lights are probably still on to some degree. If I can recognize visitors, or demonstrate a capacity to respond to stimulus, you might think twice before pulling my feeding tube. If I show some signs of intelligent life, please arrange to get me some physical therapy so that I might have a chance to recover. Please don't let me lay on my death bed for 15 years without at least trying to rehabilitate me. If you cannot find my duly-executed, written authorization to terminate my life, then please assume that I wish to go on living. If I have not expressed my desire to die to at least two people, as required by law in many states, then please refrain from starving me to death. Please don't just brush aside the law in an effort to waste me quickly. If a majority in the United States Congress decides to interrupt their vacations to pass legislation to protect my life, please don't treat them like ogres. If they pass a law designed to give my case federal judicial review--the same review granted ad nauseum to convicted murderers--then you might just want to cut them some slack for standing up to protect me. On the other hand, if a Congressional committee issues me a subpoena, and that subpoena is ignored by a state court judge who then orders my death in defiance of the law, then feel free to bring that judge up for a judicial conduct review. However, if it has been determined that it is my time to die, please kill me humanely. Give me the same shot they use to put dogs and cats to sleep. Or, in the alternative, give me the shot they used to execute death row criminals. For that matter, I'd rather you just put a pillow over my face than to starve and dehydrate me in a lingering death. I'd rather die by lethal injection, which the liberals assure us is a horrible way to die, than to dehydrate until I die, which the liberals assure us is a wonderful, humane, euphoric experience. Lastly, if the media and the left wing a-holes they represent decide to exploit my death as a cheap way to attack those who err on the side of life, then tell them I'm going to come back from the dead and haunt the halls of the ACLU until they start working to protect the rights of ordinary people like me.
My thoughts on this subject are very simple, "If I'm a veg, pull the plug." I don't want to be on a respirator, feeding tube, etc. I realize this all stems from the Terry Shivo case but I have to say that the mainstream media really worked to make the husband out to be an evil guy and the parents to be saints. The fact the parents brought 10 minutes of tape to court that showed Terry "responding" to them has pretty much been proven wrong since it was found that they recorded for several hours to get that 10 minutes. Then there were the people that said "He's just doing it for the money." What freakin money?!? He burned his entire life savings, including what there was from the lawsuit after the layers got their cut, taking care of his wife.
I do have to say that I don't want to go the way she did. Dehydration and starvation is not very pleasant at all. I just want all my buddies to kick the doors to the hospital in, run down the hall, grab my limp butt, take me out to a field, pour a beer in my lap and shoot me in the head. Like I want my wife sitting over my near lifeless body, burning money on me on the very remote chances that God will pop up and say "Jason, you've been a pretty good guy in your life so I'm gonna pull you out of this extremely deep coma and give you a second chance." Guess what, ain't gonna happen. If the doctors run a CAT scan and it looks like the Oklahoma countryside (flat for those of you that have never been to Oklahoma) then lets just call my ticket punched and have a freaking party. `Nuff said.