First of all, my condolences to Doug and his family.

I would urge everyone, this being a forum about Survival, to be very very careful how you use terms like "Quality of Life" Honestly, the last thing I'm worried about is being given life prolonging treatment that I don't want. I'm much more concerned about being denied even the most basic care that I do want. They don't call it the "culture of death" for nothing.

From http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/AdvancedDirectives/ReportRevised2007.pdf
Quote:
However, the laws of all but eleven states may allow doctors and hospitals to disregard advance directives when they call for treatment, food, or fluids. Increasingly, health care providers who consider a patient’s “quality of life” too low are denying lifepreserving measures against the will of patients and families – and the laws of most states provide no effective protection against this involuntary denial

From a survival perspective, think about how many people in survival situations had an absolute zero quality of life and a zero hope for rescue. Yet they kept on going. How many of us would have judged their lives unworthy of living at the time?
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- Tom S.

"Never trust and engineer who doesn't carry a pocketknife."