Emilio's mother, Catarina Gonzales, on the other hand, is fighting to keep her son on the ventilator, allowing him to die "naturally, the way God intended."
Ignorant people piss me off. And I hate the fact that America (my country of origin) is so completely full of them.
This type of ignorance is nearly the worst and most annoying kind as well, with Jack Thompson’s kind being first.
All I know is, I don't want to be responsible for the death of this baby.
Not to sound too harsh, but this is a pile of bullshit.
#1: You can’t be responsible for its death. The disease already holds that responsibility. You could only be responsible for prolonging its life, not creating its death. So spouting out bullshit about pulling life support = being responsible for the death of the kid is, well, bullshit.
#2: Even if there was a God, and he had “His will†or whatever, logic (though this is not a clear concept on anyone who believes in God) would denote that he gave the kid the disease in the first place and obviously “intended†it to die. It would be pretty hard to imagine a God who just wanted to use this human life as a toy test to see how far other humans are willing to go to prolong a torturous life. “Sorry kid, I need your life to test the will of others. Too bad for you eh?â€. If this is your God, I feel sorry for you.
Who are you to judge whether or not a person should live?
I think we’re supposed to be putting ourselves in the shoes of the parents.
So if your question is, “Assuming you are the parent, who are you to judge whether a person should live?â€, my reply would be, “This question has nothing to do with anything.â€
The child will die, period. And soon, too, no matter how much life-support is given.
The kid lost its chance to live, and no one is to blame for that, under any circumstances. No human gave that disease to the kid. So standing by to watch an incurable disease runs its course leaves no one to blame, period.
If you want to be uptight about it, why not blame God? No one could be more responsible for this child’s situation than He, of course.
If we can keep him alive, why shouldn't we?
Is money worth more than human life, even if he does have a rare illness?
What if we found out how to make roads come alive, but they couldn’t move or make noises, and we still drove over them?
Of course, being unable to see, move, hear, or taste, kind of removes all the great aspects of “life†in the first place, plus I have no doubts that blistering cold winters, steaming hot summers, and the constant weight of cars, would generally make the life of the road simple and utter hell.
Please, tell me, what aspect of life is this kid enjoying? Does it awaken fresh in the morning every day? Does it enjoy the taste of a sweet apple in the morning? Does it stare at the sunset at night? Does it listen to the latest hit album by They Might Be Giants?
People who go on about giving/keeping life at every possible chance, no matter how destructive that life actually is, remind me of people who claim C is faster than C++.
It’s something they heard from their friends, so they believe it and repeat it, even fight for it, without putting any actual thought into it at all to find a logical basis for the claim.
They just blindly go around claiming life is ever so important without even once considering it on a case-by-case basis.
The reason I put it in quotes is because miracles are not unheard of. Nothing is incurable.
Actually, yes, things are incurable.
But for the sake of argument let’s assume there was a glimmer of hope. The years that pass by the kid now are the most important, developmentally speaking. As of now, this kid is not learning to use toilets, it is not learning language, or about the world around it.
And if the kid really is in pain all the time, that’s probably a developmental hurdle right there. If kids who are beaten grow up to be killers, imagine what a kid who simply lives to suffer, night and day, sleeping and awake, will be. A doctor? Erm, no, I don’t think so.
By the age of 4, if the kid hasn’t had this miraculous miracle, it would never learn to speak properly, if at all.
By the age of 6, with no miracle, it wouldn’t be able to socialize and would forever be an outcast, unable to even understand the world around it. By this point, it would forever be missing the extra qualities of life that make it worth living, such as love, affection from a special other, etc.
I could go on.
The parents have the final say. You would want the same freedom if you were married. So, the parents made the choice. Why argue?
No, the point of the article is that the parents do not say. Texas law. If the hospital decides the treatment is painful and without medical benefit, they cancel it, regardless of what the parents say.
And frankly, that should be the law in every state. Also annoying are people who whine that parents should have the final say. I am sure this is especially true with crack-driven addicts who accidentally had children, right? I am sure every parent is equally capable of making all the right decisions. Suuuure.
Unfortunately, too many parents these days are still under the influence of religion, making their decision-making processes all-the-less logical and sensible. Very few parents are, in fact, capable of making the correct decisions, it seems.
Not to sound too harsh.
L. Spiro