There is a video on the net that you can watch. It was taken in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004. It shows a trooper being hit by enemy fire and falling in the middle of the street. The video, in its entirety, shows how three other troopers leave cover to go to the fallen trooper and each of them in turn, are wounded, barely making it back to cover. Eventually, the fourth trooper retrieves the fallen soldier who turns out to be deceased. Americans, thank the dear Lord, are like that. We don't leave you behind. I don't give a damn if things look hopeless or not, we don't leave you behind.
In 1984 my wife gave birth to my first son. He had a prolapsed cord and was, for all intensive purposes, born brain dead. For 41 days we did everything that we could do and thought that maybe, he might live. He'd be on a respirator, he couldn't hear, or see or anything else. But we thought he might live and we were resigned to that fact. And then, the daily tests showed that his brain was shrinking. Eventually, I took him off of the ventilator. He died eight hours later in my arms. Next to him was a two year old boy who had been trapped by a garage door that was not equipped with an obstruction sensor. He also was, for all intensive purposes, brain dead. His parents kept him alive for several months until he succumbed to infection.
In 1939, the Nazi's rounded up all those that they felt were not 'productive.'' They sent them to Dachau, Treblinka and other camps where they were "euthinized" for the greater good of German society. In 2009, conservatives screamed at the possibility that a faceless, nameless board would decide whether someone should receive treatment based upon the "return on investment." Our concerns then as now, lie in the fact that each human life is precious. There is no return on investment when dealing with lives.
If a person has terminal cancer and that patient or the family want extraordinatry measures to be taken to possibly prolong or save that life, even if it is hopeless, then they have that right. If a family has a child that is so severely handicapped that they will need constant care, then it is within their rights to ask and receive that care. It is what we do. It is because we are Americans that we will leave that position of safety and do whatever it takes to take care of them. We don't leave them behind... EVER!
To suggest otherwise is one of the most offensive and ignorant things I have ever heard. The problem with the Nazi's was that good people KNEW what they were doing and did nothing. I do not believe that it would be the case now. I KNOW it wouldn't for me...