FYI

>The author, Robert Friedman, is editor of Perspective. He
>can be
> reached at [email protected]
>
>
>Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to
>prepare a
>more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life
>issues.
> Here's what mine says:
>
> * In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state,
>I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means
>to prolong my hellish semiexistence. Fifteen years wouldn't
>be long enough for me.
>
>* I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by
>engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes
>their emotions and their bank accounts.
>
> * I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by
>maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be
>really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start
>dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a
>normal life.
>
>* I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and
>crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning
>to their empty lives by investing the same transient
>emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson,
>Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well.
>
>* I want those crackpots to spread vicious lies about my
>wife.
>
>* I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters can
>gather to bring further grief and disruption to the lives
>of dozens of dying patients and families whose stories are
>sadder than my own.
>
>* I want the people who attach themselves to my case
>because of their deep devotion to the sanctity of life to
>make death threats against any judges, elected officials or
>health care professionals who disagree with them.
>
>* I want the medical geniuses and philosopher kings who
>populate the Florida Legislature to ignore me for more than
>a decade and then turn my case into a forum for weeks of
>politically calculated bloviation.
>
>* I want total strangers - oily politicians, maudlin news
>anchors, ersatz friars and all other hangers-on - to start
>calling me "Bobby," as if they had known me since
>childhood.
>
>* I'm not insisting on this as part of my directive, but it
>would be nice if Congress passed a "Bobby's Law" that
>applied only to me and ignored the medical needs of tens of
>millions of other Americans without adequate health
>coverage.
>
>* Even if the "Bobby's Law" idea doesn't work out, I want
>Congress - especially all those self-described
>conservatives who claim to believe in "less government and
>more freedom" - to trample on the decisions of doctors,
>judges and other experts who actually know something about
>my case. And I want members of Congress to launch into an
>extended debate that gives them another excuse to avoid
>pesky issues such as national security and the economy.
>
>* In particular, I want House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to
>use my case as an opportunity to divert the country's
>attention from the mounting political and legal troubles
>stemming from his slimy misbehavior.
>
> * And I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to make a
>mockery of his Harvard medical degree by misrepresenting
>the details of my case in ways that might give a boost to
>his 2008 presidential campaign.
>
>* I want Frist and the rest of the world to judge my
>medical condition on the basis of a snippet of dated and
>demeaning videotape that should have remained private.
>
>* Because I think I would retain my sense of humor even in
>a persistent vegetative state, I'd want President Bush -
>the same guy who publicly mocked Karla Faye Tucker when
>signing off on her death warrant as governor of Texas - to
>claim he was intervening in my case because it is always
>best "to err on the side of life."
>
>* I want the state Department of Children and Families to
>step in at the last moment to take responsibility for my
>well-being, because nothing bad could ever happen to anyone
>under DCF's care.
>
>* And because Gov. Jeb Bush is the smartest and most
>righteous human being on the face of the Earth, I want any
>and all of the aforementioned directives to be disregarded
>if the governor happens to disagree with them. If he says
>he knows what's best for me, I won't be in any position to
>argue.



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