Richard Thaler Quotes

Shortly after her feeding tube is removed, Terri Schiavo receives the Catholic ceremony of last rites. Michael Schiavo stays in a room down the hall. He remains at his wife's side throughout the day, except when her immediate family comes to see Terri.

The tragic case of Terri Schiavo in Florida highlights the importance of making our health-care wishes known.

Organ donation is very personal to me. My mother, before her death, was on kidney dialysis for several years.

The situation around Terri Schiavo was a deeply held conflict over what to do if someone isn't going to return to consciousness or competence. Who will decide? Even there, where we had settled legal rules, we still had disagreement. We're torn about these things.

Yes, we need euthanasia, for certain cases where people are in comas or too immobile to even press a button.

The patient is not likely to recover who makes the doctor his heir.

Write a living will. And become an organ donor!

You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family.

In this life and death case, I felt Mrs. Schiavo should receive the fullest due process from our legal system.

A lot of money is spent trying to keep people alive who don't necessarily want to be alive.

The Karen Ann Quinlan case is where the right to life and the right to die got bound together, and I don't think they've ever gotten untangled.

Five to six thousand people die every year waiting for organs, but nobody cares.

I encourage everyone I know to sign an organ donor card, but if someone doesn't want to sign, that's his or her choice. If someone isn't willing to give an organ, however, why should that person be allowed to receive an organ?

A lot of people are surprised economists are assisting with kidney exchanges. Exchanges are what economists are good at.

Present law has a process to ascertain whether or not a patient is in a persistent vegetative state, and it should not matter what politicians think.

We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma.

I have a living will and I have friends, and I have money and I have hope.

Deceive not thy physician, confessor, nor lawyer.

Every state in America has an end of life directive or durable power of attorney provision. For the peace of mind of your children and your spouse as well as the comfort of knowing the government won't make these decisions, it's a very popular thing. Just not everybody's aware of it.

Most of the debate over the cultures of death and life is about process. The debate focuses on the technology available to determine how we prolong life and how and when we end it.

I think you should automatically donate your organs because that would turn the balance of organ donation in a huge way. I would donate whatever anybody would take, and I'd probably do the cremation bit.

Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.

The only thing I consider appalling would be to suddenly become a vegetable and a burden on other people. A soul slowly dying out, trapped in a body in which the insides gradually sabotage me - that, I think, would be terrifying.

Have a living will if you don't want long-term life support. It makes the decision easier for the family.

Five hundred thousand Americans die from tobacco poisoning every year, and it's legal. I don't know, it just that's the - you can't stop giving people organs because of bad behavior. If you keep on having bad behavior, then of course they'll deny you a liver, or whatever you need.