[orwin]

I don't really understand the ramifications. If you have a vegetative child, are you obligated to keep them on life support for the rest of his life?

My grandmother died last month. We chose to keep her under morphine despite the fact that she couldn't take her heart medecine anymore, and to not install another IV (she refused to be taken out of her home and to be sent to a hospital the day prior). Would we have been able to do that?

I know worse! a very young and talented violonist, friend of my parents when i was a kid, suffered a weird disease that would excite her nerves, hurting her even when staying still. The pain was so high her brain was shut down most of the days until she took her own life. If this disease triggers in an infant not able to speak yet (and who won't be able to learn, ever), what happen? I'm pretty sure this is debilitating, so the infant would need life support for at least ten years, and then be unable to learn anything, only suffering or being dosed with morphine. Would letting this infant off life support be prosecuted?

This is really interesting philosophically. I am a negative utilitarist of sort (Karl Popper is the base of half my opinions tbh),so the answer to all the questions are evident. For classical utilitarists or deontologists though, those should be really interesting. Where do you draw the line?