Who has the power to decide whether someone’s life support should be turned off, medical professionals or family members?
Disclaimer
If you feel uncomfortable with the subject of life support i’m giving you an invitation to leave, or if any part of the speech becomes too much you may leave quietly.
In 2018 over 300 new zealanders were in the crucial state of life support, life support is where you have a machine artificially controlling a physical function – such as breathing, oxygen and blood flow. The need of life support can be triggered by drug overdose, drowning, a severe lung disease, muscle and nerve diseases, cardiac arrest, heart attack, blood clot, brain aneurysm, a stroke and in cases other things.
My speech will touch base on the controversial topic on whether the decision of turning off life support, should be made by a medical professional or a family member. This usually happens when your organs have failed to function on their own or your brain connections have been lost.
This topic links to the story of Frankestien through the topic of life or death, although the creature wasn’t on any form of life support he was in the position where someone could decide if he died or not. Frankenstein believed that because he created the life of the creature he had the power to make the decision of him leaving this world, Frankenstein was angry because of the actions of the creature therefore wanted him out of this world.
Medical professionals often have no connection to the patient, this means they can form a decision based entirely of the condition the patient is in. Often we see family members holding attachments to the patient, when they are past a viable condition allowing them to pass is a hard decision, in my experience I find that making a decision as a family will show your true emotions and often this contradicts what’s actually best for the patient, this is why medical professionals are more qualified to make this decision as they are in a stable mind space to make the correct decision for the family.
Family members