Shadow to Light: Maybe she felt it -- One may recall that one of the rationalizations for judicially murdering Terri Schiavo was the assertion that she'd not feel anything while dying a slow death of thirst ... as though pain were the criterion of moral determinations.
Michael Egnor: Man in Persistent Vegetative State answers questions via fMRI -- In the comments section, the God-denialists who infest Egnor's blog play to type.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
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2 comments:
I just don't see how we let people get like this in the first place. I find it hard to believe that people like this would have, or even could have, been kept alive like this prior to the modern era. We didn't always have respirators, feeding tubes, etc. The whole persistent vegetative state idea seems highly unnatural.
Do you also find it hard to believe that people with appendicitis would have, or even could have, been kept alive prior to the modern era?
Since, not all that long ago, appendicitis was fatal, does it follow that people who contract appendicitis should not be kept alive? Does it follow that they should be actively killed?
"The whole persistent vegetative state idea seems highly unnatural."
What it is is false. The idea of the "persistent vegetative state" is the implication or outright claim that "there is no one home".
But the truth is that our lack of knowledge of how to communicate with those persons in this condition does not mean that they do not exist.
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