{"id":204,"date":"2009-11-04T16:12:40","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T15:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=204"},"modified":"2009-11-04T16:12:40","modified_gmt":"2009-11-04T15:12:40","slug":"when-the-witch-asks-a-question-i-cant-resist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/11\/04\/when-the-witch-asks-a-question-i-cant-resist\/","title":{"rendered":"When the Witch Asks a Question, I Can&#8217;t Resist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/10\/02\/can-saving-a-life-be-the-wrong-thing-to-do\/\">replies to this thread<\/a>, The Witch Doctor asks this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A Scenario:<\/p>\n<p>Apparently there are some sites on the web just now claiming that the world is going to end in 2012. Some teenagers are becoming agitated.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t want to be around when the world ends, so I\u2019m going to drink some poison and present to my local A and E department on Halloween 2011. If conscious I will refuse treatment but ask to be kept pain free and as comfortable as possible while I make a \u201cdignified exit\u201d anticipating the end of the world.<\/p>\n<p>I will also carry an AD in case I become unconscious before arriving at A and E.<\/p>\n<p>If conscious, I will be assumed to be competent until proven otherwise. I will pass the competency test. I do not have a mental health problem. I have just been spending too much time surfing the web.<\/p>\n<p>Should the medical staff allow me to die when the time comes and if not, why not?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s a good question &#8211; though I&#8217;d rephrase it slightly to &#8220;if so, why; and if not, why not?&#8221; at the end.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m curious to know what the readership here thinks.\u00a0 Since I&#8217;ve posted my reply in the old thread, I&#8217;ll keep out of it as much as possible.<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the replies to this thread, The Witch Doctor asks this: A Scenario: Apparently there are some sites on the web just now claiming that the world is going to end in 2012. Some teenagers are becoming agitated. I don\u2019t want to be around when the world ends, so I\u2019m going to drink some poison [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/11\/04\/when-the-witch-asks-a-question-i-cant-resist\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1081,479,472],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consultation","category-navel-gazing","category-thinking-aloud"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}