Mercy Kill, or Hope
I ask myself, if I were in a “persistent vegetative state” would I want to be mercy killed? The first thing I thought of when trying to answer this question was hope. Has anybody ever recovered from being in a “persistent vegetative state?” The answer is yes. Because of this fact I feel that it is wrong to “mercy ill” someone that is in a “persistent vegetative state”. To be clear, I have not been able to find an instance that someone has had a full recovery, but they have recovered to the point of awareness and have been able to function on their own with some supervision.
Next, I wanted to know if there is anyone that can describe it. In the research that I have done, I have found no person that has been able to. The few people that have had what the medical field describes as recovery, has merely made an improvement to the point of being mentally handicapped. You are not completely unawared, but you’re not completely aware either.
Since opening my eyes to “persistent vegetative state” I feel it is a good idea to know what it really means. Thanks to Wikipedia, “A persistent vegetative state is a condition of patients with sever brain damage who were in a coma, but then progressed to a state of wakefulness without detectable awareness.” There is a medical definition, but it is much less descriptive, vague and doesn’t help.
This subject is very controversial, while there is a lot of information available, the medical world is still in the infant stages of being able to determine without reasonable doubt what exactly it truly means to be in this state. They don’t know if people are aware but lack the function to respond to it, or if truly people aren’t responding because they are unaware.
I have thought long and hard on the subject and I have discussed it with my close family and what I have determined is that nobody wanted to die if there was a chance of recovery, no matter how long it took. I know that it would be hard on my family and friends to see me in a “persistent vegetative state” bedridden, tubes coming and going. I know it would be hard for them to look at me and seem me looking around, but never acknowledging that their there, never making eye contact, speaking or responding to their words, smile or touch. If I could save them the heartache of ever going through that, I would say yes, pull the plug, mercy kill me, do whatever you need to and prevent them from the anguish. But if there was a chance of recovery, no matter how hard the months, or years were, my family could look back and say that the tears and touches and smiles and just their simply being there didn’t go to waste, than hope was all worth it.
