Living Will

Posted on April 6, 2005 in Morals & Ethics Satire

This will probably be my last remark on the Terri Schiavo case. Actually, it isn’t my last word, but the last word of an unknown scribe who sent this along to Mark Bloom (or maybe Mark wrote it himself?). I think it speaks for me, too:

I, _________________________ (fill in the blank), being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means. Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of pecker-headed politicians who couldn’t pass a ninth-grade biology test if their lives depended on it.

If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a cold beer, it should be presumed that I won’t ever get better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children, and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes, and call it a day.

Under no circumstances shall the members of the Legislature enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own damn business and pay attention instead to the health, education, and welfare of the millions of Americans who aren’t in a permanent coma.

Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case. I don’t care how many fundamentalist votes they’re trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency in 2008, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else’s life and leave me alone to die in peace.

I couldn’t care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don’t know these people, and I certainly haven’t authorized them to preach and crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own business, too.

If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living hell.

_______________________________________
Signature

_______________________________________
Witness

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Don’t know about the beer — I don’t do alcohol — but the rest of it sounds fine to me.