My Living Will

Boy, if there's anything we should learn from the Terri Schiavo case, it's that we should all make living wills. Believe me, I've learned my lesson, and I decided that the best way to make sure that my living will is honored is to post it on the web. (That way, there won't be any doubt as to its authenticity.) So here goes:

LIVING WILL
I, Patrick M Brennan, being of sound mind and body, do affirm and declare that this is my LIVING WILL, and reflects my decisions regarding my care in the event of a medical condition which renders me incapable of making informed decisions for myself. I make this declaration of my own free will, without any force or coercion whatsoever.

IF, in the judgment of my physician, I am suffering from an irreversible condition so that I cannot care for myself or make decisions for myself and am expected to die without life-sustaining treatment provided in accordance with prevailing standards of care:

(a) I would very much like my breathing yet mindless body, the bag of reflexes which I have become, to be reduced to being a political football, to be kicked around the media by the likes of Tom DeLay and Randall Terry in the pursuit of a cheap political stunt which ensures them a few days' worth of headlines;

(b) I definitely do not want my spouse to be making any decisions for me whatsoever; I think that's best left to my parents. After all, once upon a time, when I was capable of exercising my own free will, I chose of that selfsame free will to spend the rest of my life with my spouse, and I have only spent years sharing my home and my bed with her. Therefore, clearly, not only do I share none of my religious, moral, and ethical values with my spouse, but she also knows nothing about my religious, moral, and ethical values. My parents, on the other hand, who visited our home on holidays and weekends, and with whom we occasionally have spoken on the phone, know all about my values, which is why they wish to impose their values on my decision regarding how I control the end of my life. Therefore, they should have the final say, not my spouse.

(c) Speaking of my spouse, if I were somehow capable of receiving and integrating outside stimuli and understanding what was going on around me, it would please me immensely to watch on live television as my spouse's name is repeatedly dragged through the mud in the House of Representatives by crass and opportunistic politicians, simply for attempting to fulfill what she perceives to be my wishes and my best interest.

(d) I'd also like someone to explain to my spouse exactly what she's doing wrong. Apparently, she didn't realize that when the Republican Party claims to be the party of getting government off the backs of the people, they weren't talking about gravely personal decisions within a family. When it's an industrial plant, owned by Republican donors, belching tons of toxic filth into the air and water, that's a private matter, and the government should get off those donors' backs. When it's my family, struggling to come to terms with my basic wishes regarding the end of my life, that's where government belongs.

(e) And I'd really love it if somebody could make sure that there are boatloads of creepy anti-abortion protesters hanging around outside my hospital room, especially if they could harass my spouse as she is coming to visit me. That's because it's not bad enough that she's dealing with my illness and impending death -- she should be hounded by crazy fundies with their own agenda who claim to be "pro-life" but who literally couldn't care whether I live or die.

(f) I'd be particularly pleased if the astronomical costs of my care placed a horrible burden of debt on my spouse, and if, thanks to the very same Republicans in the Congress, she would be utterly denied the ability to get out from under it. It would make my afterlife a real joy to know that she would lose our house, our savings, and all our property, literally everything we have worked together to build; and she would be reduced to a life of poverty, working only to pay off what she could of her debt burden, and that without our savings, our daughter would be deprived of any chance to ever receive a decent education, and therefore a way back into the middle class, which is where we were before I had my accident.

(g) Speaking of costs, I wouldn't want any of the burden of my illness to fall on the government. That's why I support the Texas law that George W. Bush signed when he was governor, allowing hospitals to overrule even the decisions of the family, and finally remove my feeding tube once there isn't any more money left to pay for my care. You see, once my spouse is finally bled dry by the costs of maintaining my breathing, bedsore-ridden carcass in a state of living death, I know that the Republican-dominated Congress, which just gutted Medicare and Medicaid, has ensured that there will be no money left; and given the choice between honoring their commitment to "life" and their commitment to tax cuts for their corporate friends, well, you know -- the TV cameras won't be running forever. Once they've been turned off, so will my life support. Finally.

(h) And of course, nothing would please me more than to have the whole sad saga of my family's suffering splayed across FOX News and talk radio as some cheap maudlin moralistic circus, as a feeding frenzy for the kind of bottom-feeding media types who need my story to sell advertising, and who will be on to the next soap opera in another couple of weeks.

Signed on the 23rd day of March, 2005, by my hand and seal:

/s/
Patrick M Brennan