In case you think I’m being overly paranoid about the Ahrimaniacs, here’s an email from one FZ, a doctor who is a director of Obstetric Anesthesiology:
I am sick and tired of all the “pro life” crowd -including you – Demanding we keep all these folks alive on feeding tubes. Are you willing to pay for them? I am not. It costs Medicare and Medicaid $50, 000 +/ year. Put your money where your mouth is.
Dr. Zerzorkian clearly didn’t read my column very carefully today, since I think a case can be made for the family deciding to remove a feeding tube, or to not put one in at the beginning. But there is no case whatsoever for using the police to forcibly deprive family members from trying to give an individual food and water.
I am not saying there is a right to feeding tubes; I am a libertarian after all. The government should not be paying for anyone’s health care in the first place. If the government was not requiring hospitals to hook all of “these folks” to feeding tubes in the first place, this debate and the demand for the government’s ability to end such feeding at will would not exist.