I just finished reading the pamphlet. For Christ's sake! There is not one thing that encourages anyone to refuse life saving treatment or addresses being a burden on someone's family. It is all about giving people the tools to ensure they live or die on their terms while maintaining their belief in what constitutes personal dignity while, hopefully, they are in the best position to make those decisions. Most people don't give a thought about this until they are elderly even though accidents can happen at any time; which is when it may very well be too late. This is what any responsible adult should do. It allows one to maintain control over one's life/death even in the event of not being able to communicate and relieves a person's family of the responsibility/grief/feelings of guilt associated with trying to guess what someone else wants and forcing them to possibly make the most agonizing decision of their lives w/o your input when they need it the most.
Actually, the pamphlet is short and doesn't go into as much detail as other forms. It does ask hard questions. They should be hard - it is a life and death matter. It starts off slowly (wheelchair question) to get going instead of getting right to more serious situations like being in a vegetative state. This makes perfect sense. It asks about a person's current state of health as there is no way for the authors to know at what point in a person's life they were exposed to these questions. - it might be that someone is currently in such bad shape they are only temporarily lucid. In that case, those periods of lucidity should be taken advantage of to make sure a person's wishes are respected. - or it might be the person is in perfect health. These choices are as private as they can get and are better made in solitude with no interruptions and no inputs (intentional or unintentional) from anyone else - family or professional - unless specifically asked for and with no time restrictions (like in a doctor's office).
I know someone who just went through this. His mother had a stroke previously, was 86 yrs old, and just had another stroke. She was left paralyzed on one side of her body. She had led an active life and was satisfied with the life she lived. I don't know all the details, but basically she had an opportunity to have surgery to regain some control over her body. As with any surgery, especially at her age and in her condition, there was a chance of death. She decided she wanted the surgery to improve her quality of life. She (supposedly) had a DNR order, but I'm not sure if it was in her file or not. She never woke up after surgery. Some of her children, except for the guy I know, decided to keep her on life support b/c one family member wasn't able to arrive in town for a couple of days to say his final good-byes (she was in a coma - how selfish is that on the siblings' part). The guy I know was furious and lit into his siblings for not obeying their mother's wishes. When he arrived at the funeral everyone did their best to avoid him and a very potential fight. Their mother (apparently) didn't have her affairs in order to make sure her wishes were followed, the siblings ignored wishes she made public, but not legal, the siblings were (in their minds) left to make very hard/disturbing decisions, a family was torn apart at a time when everyone needed all the support possible.
If you truly are opposed to this, you are just showing an ultimate level of immaturity, denial, selfishness, ignorance, and inconsideration for your loved ones.
