Ethical Dilemma: How Far To Take a Medical Proxy

A will, a medical proxy, power of attorny -- all are critical documents to have in place. I agree 100%!!

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool ( http://timesfool.blogspot.com )

Thanks for your honesty. This part of why it is so imporant to ask the difficult questions we can anticipate before we need the answers. It is a tough one to be sure. Thx again.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool ( http://timesfool.blogspot.com )

Uh. Hmm.

As someone who will most likely need a kidney in the future, my knee-jerk reaction is donation. I have some ethical hang-ups though with his lack of affirmative response, but I'm not sure that they would negate that initial response.

This one is probably the hardest one for me to have answered. I watched my grandmother make the decision to cremate my grandfather even though she didn't agree with it, because my grandfather had said that was what he wanted. As such, if my very close cousin didn't actually want donation... I don't know. Again, my knee-jerk would probably prevail.

Contributing Editor Jenna Hatfield (@FireMom ( http://twitter.com/FireMom )) blogs at Stop, Drop and Blog ( http://stopdropandblog.com ) and The Chronicles of Munchkin Land ( http://thechroniclesofmunchkinland.com ). She is a freelance writer and newspaper photographer.

I vehemently disagree with her choice, but it's her body so I would not go against it. If I'm in that position, I'm going to be apologizing to the people in the ER as much as I can, but there's nothing I'm willing to do against her wishes since I would not want her to go against my wishes (*for* organ donation) based on her personal feelings.

If I knew my cousin well enough to make an educated guess about what he would have come around to deciding if we had a chance to buckle down and talk it through, I would feel comfortable making a judgment call.

Reading this, I'm SO glad we got our wills and medical powers of attorney finally finished last month! Don't want to leave anyone else in that kind of position who hasn't volunteered and gotten a chance to get all the info.

Skye Kilaen

Flooded Lizard Kingdom ( http://www.lizardkingdom.org ) | Heroine Content ( http://www.heroinecontent.net )

Thanks for your reply. Are you saying you would go against what he wanted even he had clearly sad NO to transplants?

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool ( http://timesfool.blogspot.com )

What if he had said that he didn't want it to be done? Would you still?

mata

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool ( http://timesfool.blogspot.com )

Thanks for your response. It is so important to get these details ironed out early, regardless of someone's age.

Mata

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool ( http://timesfool.blogspot.com )

I'd donate his heart and anything else they could use. Because a) we're operating under the premise that he's a good guy who's maybe just a little ignorant about the process and b) he's gone. In fact, I know this'll be unpopular with some, but even if he'd said he was against organ donation but left the choice in my hands I'd donate his organs.

In the name of transparency, I say this as the spouse of someone with multiple donor organs, but my answer would have been the same before I met my husband.

I absolutely would donate his organs.

His life is already gone, and they're are thousands waiting for vital organs to live another lifetime.
Despite his concerns about it, I think the most ethical decision is to give another human being life, rather than to try to discern what a dead family members wishes were, after he's gone.

Had my cousin not already chosen the "do not resuscitate" option, I don't *think* I would. But I feel from my knowledge of him and our previous discussions that despite his squeamishness, he would have eventually come around to donating his organs.

Or quite possibly, I'm simply justifying my own feelings about donating organs (I'm for it) by projecting my beliefs on my cousin.

I'm also influenced by being very good friends with a woman whose husband benefited from a heart transplant. I've seen this gift of life goes on. I love the idea that, until his death earlier this year (unrelated to his transplant), they celebrated two birthdays -- his natal birthday and a few days later, the date of his heart transplant.