Their Choice, Our Responsibility

PREFACE

Do you consider yourself a person of character, integrity and principle? Do you believe we are born, created or endowed with the inalienable rights of life and liberty? Do you believe we have the right to make our own decision about our life and when to end it? I am not talking about suicide, or even assisted suicide. I am talking about that moment, that instant when the decision is to live, or to let go.

This is not a discussion about right to life, or the dollars and sense of medical intervention. This is about a choice, a decision that sometimes must be made at the time when thoughtful consideration is a luxury you don't have.

THEN

You are sitting in a waiting room outside of an operating room and the love of your life is inside having surgery. After an interminable wait the doctor comes out and tells you everything went great and your love will be out in a few minutes and you can see her then. And he turns and walks back into the operating room and you let out a sigh of relief and a deep breath you didn't realize you were holding. And three minutes later he comes racing out and says, "You have to let us intubate her right now or she will die!" You have until you turn this page to give him an answer...