The ultimate responsibility

As I read "Making Life-Ending Decisions" by Sister Irene Krause, I started to think about why more people do not make plans for their inevitable death. After being bombarded with the much publicized case of Terry Schiavo here in Florida, I am certain that most people are aware of the dangers of not accepting the responsibility of planning for their ultimate end-of-life decisions.
I can certainly understand why it is hard to think about your own mortality, especially if you are still relatively young and healthy. I myself did not draft a living will until after I had two of my three children and decided that I did not want them to have to make hard decisions about my health care. The kindest thing I think you can do for your family is to leave information about how you want to be cared for in a terminal situation.
Sister Krause kindly gives us 5 questions from an ethicist, Elena Muller-Garcia, to consider when trying to determine if a possible medical intervention is worth performing to sustain a life. The idea that we would be creating physical and emotional pain, suppressing mental capacity and spending too much money if heroic measures are used is a helpful guideline in making a decision to end life-support.
I can think of no harder decision that deciding to let someone you love pass away. Everyone's ultimate responsibility should be yto make this decision easier for their caregivers.
Lynne
reference cited:
Krause, Sister Irene (2001) Making life-ending decisions.
Managing Ethically. An Executive's Guide. Chicago: Health
Administration Press.