Totally off topic, I'd like to know what type of insect it is that you have pictured there. I was just out on the patio reading a book and one just like that landed on my book mark and I was wondering what it was. It looked just like that except that the tail, (or whatever you call that part), was red, and interestingly enough it was pulsing making it look like it had a heartbeat.
My avatar is a dragonfly called
Tanypteryx hageni. People are reporting a red one called
Sympetrum illotum in BC right now. It is usually the first
Sympetrum to be seen in the PNW in Spring. If you google the name you may be able to confirm that is the species you saw.
The pulsing of the abdomen is breathing. Insects pump air in and out through holes in some segments called spiracles that are hooked to a network of tubes called trachea that facilitate gas exchange with all the cells of the body. So their respiriatory system is separate from their mouths and their circulatory system.
Yes, and most of us do, however, over time things become acceptable in society. As I said, with an aging population it will IMHO, become common for someone who is living in a home to be encouraged by medical people or even family; to encourage people to take that route.
In Oregon, the act specifies that the person must be under a doctor's care and terminal. We have advance directives and hospice care, but this gives a person control of their own body and destiny. The patient has to be able to communicate and make their wishes clear.
We also allow an advance directive to dictate whether a patient can be revived or hooked up to medical equipment to keep them alive.
If coercion is going to happen, it can happen just as easily without the Death with Dignity Act. Terminal patients commit suicide on their own without a doctor's care, so I don't think your reasoning is sound.
This just gives an individual the option to make this decision rather than doctors or you or the government forcing them to hang in there no matter what.
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