Vegetative Quotes
More Vegetative Quotes
There is a fundamental difference, however, between asking to be permitted to keep a vegetative relative on costly machinery, and asking the taxpayers or society as a whole to pay for such machinery.
jacob m. appel— "Rational Rationing vs. Irrational Rationing", The Huffington Post (2010-06-23)
Plato (427-347 B.C.) in his philosophical writings, stressed the inner psychological reality in contrast to the reality of the external world. He believed that the human soul consists of three parts. 1) The rational soul, which resided in the brain. 2) The anima soul, controlling emotions and passions, was located in the chest. 3) The vegetative soul, controlling physiological needs, was located in the abdomen, When dreams occurred in sleep, the irrational soul reasserted themselves.
— p. 23 (A History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology, (1990))
Money spent on vegetative patients is money not spent on preventive care, such as flu shots and mammograms. Each night in an ICU bed for such patients is a night that another patient with a genuine prognosis for recovery is denied such high-end care. Every dollar exhausted on patients who will never wake up again is a dollar not devoted to finding a cure for cancer.
jacob m. appel— "Rational Rationing vs. Irrational Rationing", The Huffington Post (2010-06-23)
