Go Slow With End-of-Life Bills (Lakeland FL)

[struggle4progress]

<snip> The Schiavo case already has disrupted the 2005 regular session of the Florida Legislature, which reaches the halfway point in the middle of next week. Lawmakers -- particularly those in the Senate -- weren't able to accomplish very much prior to Schiavo's death Thursday because of repeated attempts to persuade them to pass some kind of law -- any kind -that might allow her to have a feeding tube reinserted.

The main push in the Legislature is to prohibit the withholding of food and water to any patient who is unable to request such an action. The only exception would be for those who had executed written declarations authorizing such measures to be taken. This would be a drastic step that would cause far more problems than it would solve.

Although the Schiavo case has caused untold numbers of Americans to fill out forms expressing their wishes for whether to be kept alive by artificial means, the fact is that the great majority of people -- for reasons good and bad -- simply won't fill out such forms. For most, it's a matter of procrastination. Others are hesitant to confront the issue of their own mortality. Still others are content to put such decisions in the hands of God or those who provide their medical care.

The only way that most Americans would execute a written declaration would be if it were made mandatory -- and that would raise even more privacy issues. <snip>

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050402/NEWS/504020331/1036