terrshee's Diaryland Diary

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Back and Work and Thinking About the News

In spite of my best intentions, that whiny note has crept back into my discussions with my boss even though this is only my second day back at work. Have to work on that. It is most unattractive and counterproductive.

I have, however, had a moderately productive return and seem to be accomplishing a bit.

I just wish I felt a little more awake, but a few more days of losing the jet lag will help. The gods be thanked it is Friday tomorrow. I don't think I could have faced a full week right now.

Warning: Political/Social Rant to Follow

I've been meditating on the Supreme Court decision to uphold Oregon's assisted suicide law and the Bush administration's reaction of disappointment of the failure to strike down the law to create what it calls a "culture of life."

Jeez. How is allowing terminal patients to end their own lives when the pain can no longer be effecitvely controlled adverse to a "culture of life?"

The guidelines for the law are so stringent and so clear that it is highly unlikely anyone not sane and in the final stages of his/her life could be given a prescription for a lethal dose of narcotics.

The fears that the poor and ignorant would become victims of uncaring and/or predatory persons are simply completely unfounded based on the records. No one is allowed to off their adled wealthy uncle or burdensome grandmother.

Apparently the people who request (but do not always use) the drugs are overwhelmingly well educated, financially stable and already in hospice care. They are dying, they know it, and they are ready. Is there a better time to die than when you are actually ready?

I think I've written before about us becoming more of a culture of avoidance of death in our attempts to prolong breathing no matter how futile the medical intervention is.

I wonder if Ariel Sharon would really want the medical interventions designed to save his life even though he will probably have a deeply impaired existence if he survives at all?

Why is it noble or moral to keep someone alive for a matter of a few more weeks or months when nothing will be fixed by it? Why is it good to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on keeping an elderly patient's heart going when they have Alzheimers or another degenerative disease? Especially when health care resources could be more effectively used elsewhere?

No human life is intrinsically worth more than another, and it is just as possible for an 80 year old to write a Pulitzer Prize winning novel as someone in their 20's. And I suppose a physician can't or shouldn't be in the position of making those judgments.

But if the gods are calling you to paradise, and your work here is done, why should you have to wait while the doctors try to squeeze one more hour out of you?

10:54 a.m. - 2006-01-19
1 comments

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past tense - always tense - future tense