I’ve noticed both medical dramas and police dramas rely heavily on Californian legal practice, because Hollywood. For example, I just watched the episode of Doc (it’s literally just called Doc) where a doctor saved someone on the “DNR list” and almost got suspended, and so here I was thinking “the patient’s perspective would never fly in my environment”. Of course, though, the US (and definitely California) are not the whole world. So I was wondering, what’s an episode of a medical/police drama you could think of where, in your legal environment, the characters would seem crazy for diving into the topic of how they did?
It seems like there’s some disconnect here on what a DNR order is. I’m not an expert but my understanding is it’s a legal statement the patient made prior to becoming a patient defining what lengths should or shouldn’t be taking to keep them alive.
So I don’t see what that has to do with California being progressive.
When you say “omen of a shortage of therapy” it sounds like you’re maybe talking about being an organ donor?
…as opposed to self-harm?
Some people consider not wanting to be alive to be not wanting to be alive. Cut and dry. They lump all the implications together, all the dilemmas and all the complexities that arise with the life issue. This is often associated with the law-based concepts of the Good Samaritan and the “duty to protect”. They, of course, are not mind readers and can’t look into the individual’s psyche and they resort to not taking chances. Was the person of sound mind? Were they under duress? Where do they stand between circumstantial acceptance and circumstantial yearning? Things even such as those they won’t end up guessing. Some are too afraid of what such a power can turn into, via the slippery slope trope.
The more clarification I ask for the less clarity I’m getting which is kinda disappointing because I think the original question was possibly very interesting…
😞
You say that like “some people consider not wanting to be alive to be not wanting to be alive” might not immediately establish “alright, this society quite clearly thinks refusal of life support is a passive form of suicide”. That’s just how it is here, whether I like it or not.