I Want to Burden My Loved Ones: To Live or to die? when the Time Comes, Gilbert Meilaender Wants His Fate in His Family's Hands, Not His Own (October 1991‪)‬

Recently I was a speaker and panel member at a small educational workshop on advance directives sponsored by the ethics committee of our local hospital. The workshop was an opportunity to provide information about, and discuss the relative merits of, living wills and durable powers of attorney as different ways of trying to deal in advance with medical decisions that might have to be made for us after we have become incompetent. This is not the first such workshop for me, and I suppose it may not be the last. And I was struck, as I have been before, with the recurrence of a certain theme. Many people come to such a workshop already quite knowledgeable about the topic to be discussed. They come less for information than for the opportunity to talk. Some earnestly desire the chance to converse about a troubling issue; a few just want to express themselves. In either case, however, it is remarkable how often they may say something like the following: "I'm afraid that if my children have to make decisions about my care, they won't be able to handle the pressure. They'll just argue with each other, and they'll feel guilty, wondering whether they're really doing what I would want. I don't want to be a burden to them, and I will do whatever I can in advance to see that I'm not." And after someone has spoken words to this effect, there will be a chorus of assent from the people who, evidently, share the speaker's view.