Persistant Vegetative Backhand

[Jeff]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14712897/

Scan detects brain activity in vegetative patient: Car-crash victim startles doctors by mentally imagining tennis strokes

[chris]

I knew Pete Sampras wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but to call him vegetative...

[jtmx1]

Nice writeup in the Washington Post:

'Vegetative' Woman's Brain Shows Surprising Activity: Tests Indicate Awareness, Imagination

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090700978.html

[Thanin]

Huh, so killing them while they're like that is even more of a merciful act. Coolio

[jtmx1]

I've thought about your comment for a few days, David, and I think you are basically correct. If I were trapped in such a state I'd want to be terminated. I would want someone to tell me in my ear that they were going to do it, give me about an hour to think my final thoughts, then administer some sort of lethal injection.

HOWEVER, I can imagine another person wishing to live on in that state. And perhaps it's my own pessimism, fear, and lack of faith that pushes me to want to end what might not be as much of a nightmare as I now think.

So, I think what this means is that everyone just needs to tell the people closest to them what their wishes are. And we, as a society, need to afford each one of us the respect to make such a decision for ourselves.

Selatan published a blustery piece about this today. He sounds silly and shrill to me: www.slate.com/id/2149182/

[Tyler]

I'd, instead, want you to have the best brainsurgeon in the world do the most experimental surgury imagineable to try to hook my brain up to a computer.

[chris]

Silly and shrill is right. By Saletan's analysis, we should all be paranoid we're going to wind up like "Johnny Got His Gun" or something.

K-I-L-L-M-E-K-I-L-L-M-E-K-I-L-L-M-E-K-I-L-L-M-E

Whatever.