A controversial new “right to die” card is being offered to the public that allows anyone to refuse treatment in a medical emergency. Who carries it, and why?
It’s a morbid question, but one that many of us have pondered at least once.
If I hadn’t just escaped that dreadful accident, where would I be now? Would I rather be dead than depend on others to keep me alive?
A new card seeks to address that very question. Available in pubs, banks, libraries, GP surgeries, even some churches, the Advanced Decision to Refuse Treatment (ADRT) card sits snugly in a wallet or purse and instructs a doctor to withhold treatment should the carrier lose the capacity to make decisions, because of an accident or illness.
My wife and I have spoken of these issues a great deal recently. We have discussed our rights, issues of quality of life, what we believe the Lord would want us to do. Here are two sides of our conversations.
I think that carrying card such as this would weigh down my wallet. It is a terribly difficult decision that should involve one’s family and especially one’s spouse. I would vastly prefer any such decision to be made by my family, rather than some unknown doctor. My wife’s cousins were faced with this decision about their mother, following a massive and irreversible stroke. Knowing their mother’s wishes, and realizing the inevitability of their mother’s future, they decided to remove all of the life support systems.
Last week we buried one of our best friends who died after a year long struggle with a highly malignant brain tumour. His last weeks were agonizing to watch as he became progressively unable to perform even the most basic functions of independence. He was in great discomfort and pain to the point that, during the last week of his life, his wife prayed for the Lord to take him home.
I visited him many times, especially during his last weeks. By this time, he could only speak in a very low whisper and yet our conversations always centered on how my family was doing, my own illness and how I was coping. We spoke of the sailing and fishing trips that we had taken together, people in his life, and his love of Jesus. He wanted his illness and death to be a witness to God’s faithful and complete mercy and love for him and his family. At his funeraL service, he was still very much alive to everyone present. We had lost, but not lost, a wonderful friend, for Gary had just gone through a door to sit with a crown of victory on his head at the glorious feet of His Master.
That’s interesting that this is framed in terms of “right to die.” I hear “right to die” and think of the Kevorkian assisted suicide debate. To me, “right to die” is an active not passive connotation. What used to be called “extraordinary means” is now apparently the normative means that one has to specifically carry a “right to die” card to refuse.
#2:
Well Duh. If you come to an ER, the presumption is that you would wish to survive. Please note that the above “right to die” card is for any medical emergency.
You are in a car accident and have a ruptured spleen. The paramedics find your “right to die” card and so you are shunted off to your friendly neighborhood hospice, where they will make sure that your morphine dose is sufficiently high that you will not notice bleeding to death.
Yes, 50 years ago, a splenectomy was considered “extraordinary means”. Now it is pretty ordinary means.
Maybe folks with cancer would prefer to die if they fall down the stairs and break their hips, (a death sentence before WWII) but most folks I know would rather get their hips fixed, and get on with their lives.
Far better than this stupid card would be to have a durable power of attorney vested in somebody you trust.