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Jacob M. Appel Quotes

born 1973 United States

Jacob M. Appel (born February 21, 1973, in New York City) is an American author, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic.

United States
Columnists
Essayists
Historians
Lawyers

Also known as: Jacob Appel

Random Jacob M. Appel quote

26 quotes

Depression and hopelessness are not the only reasons terminally ill patients wish to end their lives. Many individuals see nothing undignified about choosing to end their lives at the time and manner of their choosing — and many view such a choice as the meaningful culmination of a good life.

While the visible victims may draw the headlines and attract indignant protests from so-called "pro-life" organizations, the invisible victims are people like you and me who will suffer from diseases that are never cured because funds are being poured down a healthcare sieve in order to maintain permanently-unconscious bodies on complex and costly forms of life support.

I suspect that the vast majority of people, not knowing in advance whether they will either end up in a permanently vegetative state or be diagnosed with cancer, would prefer that any resources that would be spent on PVS care be reallocated to cancer research--or some similar enterprise that has the potential to help human beings who might actually recover.

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.

"Scouting for the Reaper," Virginia Quarterly Review (Summer 2009)

Much as we do not permit convicted pedophiles to teach kindergarten or convicted hijackers to board airplanes, common sense dictates that individuals who have been imprisoned for plotting violence against abortion clinics should never again be permitted anywhere near such facilities.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Jacob M. Appel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.