Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent
events to prepare a more
detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life
issues. Here's what mine says:
* In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative
state, I want medical
authorities to resort to extraordinary means
to prolong my hellish
semiexistence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long
enough for me.
* I want my wife and my parents to compound their
misery by engaging in a
bitter and protracted feud that depletes their
emotions and their bank accounts.
* I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life
by maintaining an interminable
vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if
she waited less than a decade
to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding
a semblance of a normal life.
* I want my case to be turned into a circus by
losers and crackpots from
around the country who hope to bring meaning
to their empty lives by investing
the same transient emotion in me that they once
reserved for Laci Peterson,
Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck
in a well.
* I want those crackpots to spread vicious lies about my wife.
* I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters
can gather to bring
further grief and disruption to the lives of
dozens of dying patients and
families whose stories are sadder than my own.
* I want the people who attach themselves to my
case because of their deep
devotion to the sanctity of life to make death
threats against any judges,
elected officials or health care professionals
who disagree with them.
* I want the medical geniuses and philosopher
kings who populate the Florida
Legislature to ignore me for more than a decade
and then turn my case into a
forum for weeks of politically calculated bloviation.
* I want total strangers -- oily politicians,
maudlin news anchors, ersatz
friars and all other hangers-on -- to start calling
me "Bobby," as if they had
known me since childhood.
* I'm not insisting on this as part of my directive,
but it would be nice if Congress
passed a "Bobby's Law" that applied only to me
and ignored the medical needs of
tens of millions of other Americans without adequate
health coverage.
* Even if the "Bobby's Law" idea doesn't work
out, I want Congress --
especially all those self-described conservatives
who claim to believe in "less
government and more freedom" -- to trample on
the decisions of doctors, judges
and other experts who actually know something
about my case. And I want
members of Congress to launch into an extended
debate that gives them another
excuse to avoid pesky issues such as national
security and the economy.
* In particular, I want House Majority Leader
Tom DeLay to use my case as an
opportunity to divert the country's attention
from the mounting political
and legal troubles stemming from his slimy misbehavior.
* And I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
to make a mockery of his
Harvard medical degree by misrepresenting the
details of my case in ways that
might give a boost to his 2008 presidential campaign.
* I want Frist and the rest of the world to judge
my medical condition on the basis
of a snippet of dated and demeaning videotape
that should have remained private.
* Because I think I would retain my sense of humor
even in a persistent vegetative
state, I'd want President Bush -- the same guy
who publicly mocked Karla Faye Tucker
when signing off on her death warrant as governor
of Texas -- to claim he was
intervening in my case because it is always best
"to err on the side of life."
* I want the state Department of Children and
Families to step in at the last moment
to take responsibility for my well-being, because
nothing bad could ever happen to
anyone under DCF's care.
* And because Gov. Jeb Bush is the smartest and
most righteous human being
on the face of the Earth, I want any and all
of the aforementioned directives
to be disregarded if the governor happens to
disagree with them. If he says
he knows what's best for me, I won't be in any
position to argue.
Robert Friedman is editor of Perspective. He can
be reached at
_friedman@sptimes.com_ (mailto:friedman@sptimes.com)