As I understand it, the facts are these:

* The child's heart is beating
* But he's not able to breathe
* Which is why there's a machine forcing air into his lungs.

So according to their religious definition, the child is *already* dead, because the child cannot breathe. Therefore, the question should be, why are they using a machine to grotesquely prolong the appearance of life in a dead body?

Indeed. It reminds me of those people who use fertility treatments that lead to the woman carrying octuplets, then refusing embryo reduction because it was "God's will" that she carry all these children. Of course, "God's will" was that this couple be sterile... and of the octuplets, after heroic medical efforts, one or two babies at best will survive, often with severe handicaps.

Agreed. It's called "life support" for a reason. The article made it sound like the heart was only beating because of some kind of medication he was being given, but even if that weren't the case he only seems to be "breathing" because a machine is breathing for him. If the machine weren't doing the work he wouldn't be able to breathe, and his heart would stop no matter what kind of medication the doctors gave him.

It really is crazy. If you stop breathing on your own, as we all will some day, that's viewed as death. But if a machine, which is keeping you breathing, is disconnected, that's viewed as murder?

I agree if the brain can not function then how possilbly would you want to torture any human

being into a slow death? I have made research about Islamic ways of death you can remove the person on the machine from living . In the muslim way of life it is a form of torture.

Unless that person is in a coma where the doctor's see brain activity is the only reason a person should be hooked on a machine to help him or her breath,

Of course this is my opinion. May God help all in need of hope.

Being a catholic, I understand this is a very difficult situation for people to understand. Just going through it with my mother 2 weeks ago, the decision to take someone off life support is very difficult. My mother's brain was severly damaged and she was being kept alive by life support. However after speaking with her doctor's and knowing how her body would eventually break down, we knew as a family that the only respectable thing to do for her was to take her off life support and end her life with dignity. You cannot really understand how someone believes until you are in the situation yourself.

I agree, I watched my mother die in April of this year.

The death process is incredibly painful to those watching. You want to prolong the life of the one you love, this is natural.

However, the human body shuts itself down. Breathing becomes very shallow, blood pressure drops to low numbers, and then a type of coma appears.

You watch for every breath, and wonder in agony if this one will be the last one...and then it is.

I would not have prolonged this agony for either of us, under any circumstance.

It is selfishness to use a machine, how do we know that person's soul is not inside screaming to be released from the corpse that is holding it. If the human body can't breath and function naturally, I feel it should be released...

and I cry because I miss my mother, but I am not selfish.

I wholeheartedly agree. Shelfish behavior will be rewarded with disasterous results. While medical advances can help us, we often get logic and "religous" values twisted into an ideological mess.

Im a nurse. You would be very suprised on familys doing anything to keep there loved ones around. I had a patient once and he was brain dead. Plus he was basically on a rotary bed! The bed would turn from side to side every ten mins. Arms and legs streched open so he couldnt go into fetal postion. What was sadder was the parents, who were in their late sixtys, believed that he would responed back to them. Every once in a while he would have a muscle spasm and, they would say "See, he does understand!" So sad to see them waste their only sons life, but theirs as well. Although you never know what you would do in that kind of situation. For that small glimmer of hope.

Once....that was beautifully put. So succinct. Sometimes our strengths, (respect for life) taken too far, becomes our weaknesses. It is an understandable flaw in reasoning.....who of us wants to accept the death of a loved one.....especially one who has had so little time to live. Still, a dying (or in this case, deceased) loved one, deserves to be treated with a measure of dignity.

"why are they using a machine to grotesquely prolong the appearance of life in a dead body?"

Something is unusual about this statement. Has anyone ever dug up a 'really dead' body and tried to pump air into it? Will it 'breath' and get all pink and have blood running through it again?

To my humble understanding, if someone has the 'appearance of life'.....ie: breathing, blood flowing; etc., in all logical argumentation..it is still alive. If it was truly dead, then it wouldn't matter if you blew a tornado through it's nostril's. It would still be dead.

Now, that doesn't mean that without artificial life support, the being wouldn't die. It just means that as long as 'life support' is being administered....then the being is alive. It's like a flower arrangement. The cut flowers still live even though everything tells you that without life support it will eventually die. You can prolong it's life with preservatives, but it will eventually die without life support. As long as they have this 'appearance' of being alive, they are still very beautiful.

I imagine that a parent looking at a child being supported by artificial means looks at that child with more love and admiration than anyone could love and admire a flower arrangement. That's their little flower being kept alive. I'm all for that. A sleeping beauty is better than a dead corpse.

Our definitions of death or life largely depend on what we know about the processes of life. Time and time again we are proven wrong by a contrary experience, and I say it is only reasonable to adjust our definitions to conform to new knowledge. However, when we ourselves are not sure, we must ask ourselves the purpose of defining life and death and the consequences of these consensus-driven definitions.

i think that each individual situation is unique and you cannot have a black or white answer. in 2000 my sister at age 49 had a brain aneurysm, fortunately she was already in Houston, tx with other sick family members. she was put on life support and the doctors told us she had a 5% chance to survive the night..well, she did! so they decided to do what was a very new procedure on her which was thread a stainless steel spring through an artery in her groin into her brain to stop the bleeding and it was a success. from time to time in the following weeks, she had to be placed back on life support as her brain healed. but she is alive and well today because we did not give up on her the first night...she has lived to see her one and only grandson born and my one and only granddaughter born...but it was touch and go at the time. i have told my sons, and i know some of you may think this unfair to them...pull the plug when you are ready..sometimes family members are allowed time to grieve and accept the loss in the time period when their loved one is unresponsive. so whatever decision they come up with, is fine for me, i wont know and they know i don't care, but if they need the time to come to terms with my approaching death, then they can have it..it is hard to let go of someone you love and have loved your whole life..im glad we did not give up on my sister....

txgirl: I'm sure we're all glad your sister has made a full recovery, but this isn't really about the same thing. She had a treatment that promised to help, it did help, despite some setbacks along the way. But she was never brain dead, and I doubt the doctors ever suggested that you take her off life support.

And the decision to "pull the plug" does, frankly, have to be made in the context of family choice, as you said, but also economics: medical resources are scarce, and I would rather not have money wasted on keeping me breathing when there's nothing left inside.