Recently I was asked to comment on health care surrogate forms and power of attorney for health. For these I use the term living wills. They are directives that a person records that are intended to be used in the event that they become unable to communicate their wishes with respect to medical decision making. Sometimes the directives are given for a particular person. Where I live, we use the term Power of Attorney For Person Care (POA). This is a person who has the legal responsibility to make decisions for someone who is not able to give their own directions with respect to care. … Read the rest
All posts by Greg Kenyon
IVF – Birth Control Connections
When some look up ethics and birth control they may hope to find the answer or justification either for or against the use of birth control. At the time of this posting, I am not yet prepared to delve very deeply into that question.
Thoughts for this post developed from a challenge presented to me. My posts on IVF imply that I believe IVF should generally not be recommended. At this point, I have not developed the same general position against birth contol.… Read the rest
Organ Donation – A Dead Man With the Blood Of a Live Man.
The Blood of the Living – The Blood of the Dead.
If we accept that it is wrong to kill a person to harvest organs, then a person must be considered dead for organ harvesting to proceed. But, for organs to be useful blood must be circulating through the organs pretty well right up until organ harvesting begins.
In the Bible there is a distinction between the blood of someone who is alive and the blood of a dead man. Revelation 16:3 reads,
And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man (Revelation 16:3a, NKJV)
In this verse, the Bible compares something to “the blood of a dead man.” … Read the rest
Living Wills – Never put me in a nursing home.
Recently, a reader of this blog ask me some questions about substitute decision making. There are some important things to consider with this aspect of medical care. So I am starting a new thread that I am calling “Living Wills.” The topic of substutute or surrogate decision making is related to living wills. As with most of my blog posts, I will tackle the topic in small chunks.
More than once I have had patients tell me that they never want me to put them in a nursing home. … Read the rest