Patients can steer endings
Thursday, March 30th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
By Chick Jacobs
Staff writer
A year ago this week, Terri Schiavo died.
A court ordered her feeding tube removed, and for 13 days the world watched as the 41-year-old, who had been comatose for 15 years, slipped away.
Is that what she wanted? Her husband, Michael, said that’s what she told him. Her parents said she never made such a statement.
Schiavo’s death sparked a worldwide debate over difficult end-of-life issues. It prompted people to sign living wills or power-of-attorney documents. Some legislative bodies have even considered bills for physician-assisted suicide.
But even after the publicity Schiavo’s case generated, two out of three American adults do not have written medical care instructions in case they can’t make their wishes known, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
That includes fewer than 25 percent of adults younger than 50, according to an AARP survey.
Which means, if something dire happens to their health, they may have no more control over their fate than Schiavo did. (more…)
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