The next class meeting will be next Sunday, May 3, on Zoom.
Last time, we began by analyzing a collection of news articles relating to terminal illness, end of life predictions, and euthanasia / PAS. These included documentation of real-life examples of victims of legalized euthanasia / assisted suicide. Plus, doctors aren't even always correct in their predictions about how long a terminally ill person will live. And untreated pain or depression is often behind requests for euthanasia. Please see the Resources section for links to several of these articles.
I also shared some amazing research from Dr. Adrian Owen with patients who were thought to be in a "persistent vegetative state" (I hate that term! People are never equivalent to vegetables!), and from Dr. Stephen Laureys with "locked-in" patients. Owen and his team have found that some 20% of PVS patients are actually very much aware although entirely unable to communicate. One in five! That's a huge number! Perhaps the most shocking case he reports was of a young man named Juan who failed to show any sign of awareness even with Owen's advanced scanning methods -- and yet was later able to remember every detail of the experience. In light of this inexplicable fact, it is likely that the number could go up with better detection methods.
Kate, his first patient, later said that, "It really scares me to think what might have happened to me if I had not had the scans. They show people it was worth carrying on even though my body was unresponsive." Juan, whose case I described in class, later said he wished he could have told people when he was unresponsive in hopital: "Don’t count me out of the fight just because I’m in bed."
Locked-in patients are fully aware but unable to move or communicate except by blinking or moving their eyes. Laureys's team found that contrary to expectations, the vast majority of such patients in his study actually report that they are happy: 72%, compared with 78% of GenXers. Even more surprisingly, a longer time in the locked-in state correlated with a higher likelihood of reporting happiness!
Scroll down for my mini-review of Owen's book, Into the Gray Zone, which includes a couple of astonishing quotes. If you have a chance, I highly recommend reading the book.
If you missed the class and want to catch up
- The (unlisted) recording is up at YouTube. Please check your email for the link.
- See the Articles list below for the list of articles we discussed. Choose 1 or 2 to read and consider.
Homework
Watch one of the following videos from the "Into the Gray Zone" website or read one of the following articles. Bear in mind that these are from secular sources, yet offer clear support for the pro-life point of view:
- "First Contact" (under 3 minutes) - about Kate, the first "vegetative" patient whose awareness was "discovered" by Owen
- "Back from the Dead" (almost 11 minutes) - about Juan, whom I mentioned in class
- "Are you in pain?" (8.5 minutes) - about Scott. The last few minutes, which feature both Dr. Owen and his doctor who had previously diagnosed him repeatedly as vegetative for 12 years and then realized he had been wrong, are powerful.
- The story behind a vegetative patient’s shocking recovery
- Silent Minds - an older article that discusses some of Owen's early research and several other patients, including Terry Wallis