And the shit thing is, even after all that progress, they still have to put up with you.

Thanks for posting. Brave thing to do in this sort of toxic environment.

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to you newsletter.

We'll have to disagree on that one. Anybody trying to respond compassionately and effectively to the situation described should be considering the very real possibility that the condition is mostly irreversible. Of course it's going to come up if you choose to discuss it on a public forum, and there is nothing wrong with that. Quite the contrary: the fact that people so commonly respond with venom and denial to discussion of end-of-life planning is a massive problem, and contributes to unimaginable suffering for many, many people.

Last I checked, losing your balls doesn't come with being unable to breathe on your own. You're accusing me of setting up strawmen?

Fuck you and goodbye.

This is a totally fair point. Another totally fair point is that nobody should be diagnosing anybody over the internet. So allow me to clarify: instead of "her position" (nobody here knows exactly what that is), I would substitute "to have irreversible brain stem damage that left me in her position". That makes it rather a lot more hypothetical.

Being in "constant agony" is nowhere specified in the ethical guidelines as a defining criterion for a best-interests analysis. You're simply pulling that out of your ass. And you continue to conflate withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment with euthanasia. They are two completely different things.

The basic standard, clearly articulated, is that the preferences of the patient are paramount. It's the patient who gets to decide what his or her level of suffering is, and whether or not it is reasonable to continue life-sustaining medical intervention. And yes, there is substantial precedent for this.

It continues to amaze me how human beings refuse to view death as part of the natural process of life, much to their own and society's detriment.

Fortunately for a lot of suffering people, you are completely full of shit. From the American Medial Association Code of Medical Ethics:

"The principle of patient autonomy requires that physicians respect the decision to forego life-sustaining treatment of a patient who possesses decision-making capacity. Life-sustaining treatment is any treatment that serves to prolong life without reversing the underlying medical condition [...] Even if the patient is not terminally ill or permanently unconscious, it is not unethical to discontinue all means of life-sustaining medical treatment in accordance with a proper substituted judgment or best interests analysis. "

Italics mine.

I certainly know for sure that if I were in her position, I would want the plug pulled. According to the OP, she is incapable of breathing on her own. There is no medical or ethical obligation to keep her on artificial life support against her wishes, or the wishes of her medical proxy if she is incapable of making a decision on her own. Pulling the plug is not euthanasia, it is simply allowing death to happen in a natural way. Death is as natural and normal as birth.

In this case, it appears that she has rudemintary communication ability. Agree that the sensible thing to do is ask her what she wants.

Nah. They're probably passed out in a closet somewhere.

Or use dnsmasq.

From reading a lot of what gets posted by "patriots" on slashdot, you would think that Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the drool of wingnuts."