PART
II. QUALITY-OF-LIFE ISSUES
Question
4: What level of personhood
do
you wish to preserve thru medical care?
When—according
to your own criteria—
would
you become a former person?
The most conservative Answer you could give to
this Question
would
make no
distinctions about quality
of life.
You
might say that everything possible should be done
to
preserve any vestige of life left in your body.
You
might want maximum use of life-support systems
to
replace any functions your body can no longer maintain on its own.
A middle-of-the-road Answer would say
that
you want medical care that has a good probability
of
returning you to living your normal, meaningful life.
And
you should give some idea of what makes your life 'meaningful'.
The most liberal approach to the question of
personhood
is
embodied in another books by the same author:
When
Is A
Person? Pre-Persons & Former Persons.
This
book offers about 200 questions that proxies could ask
in
the process of deciding whether someone are still a full person.
These
questions are reproduced on the next 12 pages of this book.
If
you would like to use all or some of these questions,
add
them to your Advance Directive
and
explain just how these questions and criteria apply to you.
If
you want to explore the concept of personhood more completely,
you
should read When
Is A Person? Pre-Persons & Former Persons.
When you decide how to use these questions
about personhood,
they
become your
set
of criteria
for
deciding when you
have lost enough of the marks of personhood
that
you have become a former person.
And
when your quality of life has declined that much,
your
goals for medical care might change.
The following questions for proxies
might
be used to stimulate meaningful discussion
among
all who are concerned about your level of personhood
if
there is ever any question of your capacity to make medical
decisions.
Simple
yes/no answers will probably be less meaningful and useful.
The
bold
face
questions introduce major sub-divisions.
QUESTION
4:
LEVELS OF
PERSONHOOD
by JAMES
PARK
81
The selection above is the beginning of Question 4 from the book:
Your
Last
Year: Creating Your Own Advance Directive for Medical Care.
If you click
this title, you will see
the complete table of contents.
The table of contents lists several areas of concern
for the definition and testing of personhood.
If you
would like to see one person's Answer to this Question,
go to James
Park's Advance Directive for Medical Care.
Scroll down to Answer 4.
Go to
the beginning of this website
James
Leonard Park—Free
Library