Euthanasia

[rebecca]

There are many limits on your freedom of choice.

What's your point?

Suicide is illegal?

Yes, in the US I believe it still is. However, isn't it your point that it should be?

Here descition affects other people. I'm not the one on the reciving end on a load of emotional blackmale

I'm sorry, I have absolutely no idea what this means. I don't think it's English.

None of these actions are carried out with the intention of ending life.

Exactly. We let people end their own lives indirectly. Why don't we let them make the most important, most personal decision they'll ever make?

This is an argument for better pain management treatment.

No, it's an argument for allowing someone to end their lives with dignity, when they want.

Why do they need help?

What?

But what is enough information to make that descission? Do we need to include a complete set of interesting ian posts for example?

I don't really know how to answer this. Do you, for some reason, believe that posts by a random person on an Internet forum would help you make a decision concerning your health?

 

[geni]

What's your point?

Your argument appeared to be that limiting fredom of choice was a bad thing and shouldn't happen

Yes, in the US I believe it still is. However, isn't it your point that it should be?

I can't see any benifit in keeping it illegal. Sucide is legal in the uk)

I'm sorry, I have absolutely no idea what this means. I don't think it's English.

It wasn't sorry
Translated:
Her choice affects other people. I'm not the one on the receiving end on a load of emotional blackmail

Exactly. We let people end their own lives indirectly. Why don't we let them make the most important, most personal decision they'll ever make?

The people doing these activities are not trying to die.

No, it's an argument for allowing someone to end their lives with dignity, when they want.

Why?

What?

This thread is about assisted suicide. I fail to see the need for any assitance in this case.

I don't really know how to answer this. Do you, for some reason, believe that posts by a random person on an Internet forum would help you make a decision concerning your health?

Me? No. If you think that nobody does you haven't been using the same internet I have

 

[SezMe]

Particularly in terminal cases, pressure by whom?

My uncle had advanced Parkinson's disease and was living in a nursing facility. When he had another health problem that required hospitalization, the emergency room staff, the attending physician, and his own doctor pretty much had an attitude of, "What, you're going to try to keep that old bag of bones alive?" There was a lot of subtle pressure.

It was quite intimidating for the primary care giver, trying to make a decision. The problem was that when he was young, he was quite clear that he did not want to live in his current condition. But as he got older, frailer, and more disconnected from "reality" (yeah, I know, what does that mean?) the more he want to live. So who to honor? The young man who was clear headed and did not want to live as a basket case or the current basket case who did want to live.

Tough choice.

In this particular case, I (I was NOT the primary care giver but helped the person who was) was particularly incensed by one of his fundamentalist nurses who incessantly ragged on him about god (he had been an atheist all his life). We ordered her not to and she ceased doing it overtly. But it was clear that she was still applying the pressure. Finally the poor sot adopted Christ which made the life decisions all that more complicated.

I hated that nurse with a passion. She was, in my mind cruel. I suppose that is why I felt (feel?) so strongly about 1"C heinous behavior with Cats. Pure barbarity.

Whoa, where did all that venom come from. Sorry. End of rant.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

I feel there are so many individual cases that it's hard to set guidelines. Should only those in great pain be allowed to die by their own choice, and only if they have no "quality of life"? I think that is defined somewhere.

Until we personally have experienced these situations it's hard to decide. My uncle survived many years with brain tumours and many surgeries, and was allowed to die in his forties. Operating would have killed him, not operating killed him. It was rather clear cut. At my cousin's wedding he forgot I was his neice and he hit on me. The surgeries caused brain damage. He suffered the consequences mentally and physically. He died about 3 years later. The last time I saw him he looked 90 instead of 40. He could not see, he could hardly move, and it was still a very slow death.

Yet he was not in pain. He lived his last months out in a hospital that took care of dying patients. If he had been in pain on top of everything else, it would have made it a hundred times more horrible. His brain deterioration didn't allow him this torture, thankfully. I still wonder what it was like for him to slowly waste away like that. He wasn't there much mentally, but how much did he feel or know about his condition?

Now my son's dad is deteriorating the same way. Slowly slowly. His family still lets him drink. He can hardly hold a glass. He still manages to get a cigarette to his mouth, shakily. It takes him an hour to button a shirt. But he's not in pain. It's painful to watch though.

What would that be like? Not as bad as being wracked with pain and having to live on painkillers. Mind, the painkillers can zombify you the same way as those whose brains are wasting away.

Yet life is life? What is it to someone who is in pain and dying? Is life still too precious to give up? Why? What is it like to be living like that? How can we judge until we truly know?

That's why I can't really decide. IT may be worse than dying, or it may just be the last few days, months, years of life. Life. Is it worth suffering a pain we personally can't feel until we have to experience it? Then there is a depression factor. In this case it can be a merciful feeling of letting go when living in pain. Or do you have to be depressed to feel suicidal? I often wonder about depression and why we experience it.

Afterall, a dying person in tough times would be taking up resources that healthy people need in order to survive. Depression would allow them to let go easier, to accept they are dying. Thus assisted suicide is more merciful than starvation or getting caught by a predator. Well, I would rather a peaceful death over a suffering one like THAT.

So I look to others who have had experience with these kinds of things. I just think we have to look at all the variables of each case individually when making such a decision. That really tough to do too though.

 

[shecky]

But this isn't current seen as reasonable by the legal system (no I don't know any opion polls on this offhand)

For the most part, yes. And so what? The legal system advocates many things that it probably should not.

Well, assisted suicide should probably not be on the table for, say, ingrown toenail.

Why not?

For the same reason that amputation should probably not be on the table as treatment for ingrown toenail.

You're being a bit silly here.

So we need to improve pain management treatment.

Possibly. Hospice programs are already quite good at these things. I suspect assisted suicide may be surprisingly common under such programs. Sometimes as a direct result of improved pain management.

 

[geni]

For the most part, yes. And so what? The legal system advocates many things that it probably should not.

It's not a significant part of my arugment
it is just that socirety does seem to view sucide as a good option.

For the same reason that amputation should probably not be on the table as treatment for ingrown toenail.

You're being a bit silly here.

Nope just applying Reductio ad absurdum. You seem to think that having more options is always a good thing. Amputation being on offer for an ingrown toenail is just the logical conclusion of this position

Possibly. Hospice programs are already quite good at these things. I suspect assisted suicide may be surprisingly common under such programs. Sometimes as a direct result of improved pain management.

So if we take away the pain people will still want to die? This would normaly be regarded as symptom of clinical depression amounst other things.

 

[Benguin]

I can't see how one can generalise and say "No" or "Yes" in this scenario. Pretty much as Eos outlined. There are way too many factors.

I agree that suicide is something we should try and talk people out of, but if they want it, it is their decision to take and not ours. If someone cannot act on that decision through physical or mental incapacity that's a real conundrum. If they can't actually make the decision it is either more or less of a conundrum, depending on whether they ever expressed views on the topic.

A blanket 'No' is inhumane. I would not want my suffering prolonged. The argument that it might be abused is, frankly, fallacious. So might the capacity to administer lethal drugs, as with Shipman, or the permission to use firearms.

 

[Ladyhawk]

My answers to your questions:

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes

Withholding medical treatment is pretty much the same thing as euthanasia in my book. When a patient signs a DNR agreement (do not resuscitate), they are in effect saying that no one should take any measure to save their life. They are condoning that the medical community back off (withhold treatment) and let them die. Turn off the life sustaining equipment and the patient eventually dies...same end result as euthanasia.

But, keep in mind that I use euthanasia and mercy killing in the same context; as a method that advocates ending a person's suffering in a humane manner. Some see euthanasia as murder, and I'm sure there are situations where it could be. Therein lies the problem.

I'd like to believe that if someone were able to come up with a full proof checklist that would ensure that the decision to administer euthanasia was for the most noble of reasons and in compliance with the patient's wishes, most folks wouldn't have such objections to it.

It irritates me when some people can show more compassion to a suffering animal than they can toward their own family member.

 

[Camillus]

Withholding medical treatment is pretty much the same thing as euthanasia in my book. When a patient signs a DNR agreement (do not resuscitate), they are in effect saying that no one should take any measure to save their life. They are condoning that the medical community back off (withhold treatment) and let them die. Turn off the life sustaining equipment and the patient eventually dies...same end result as euthanasia.

You are confusing withholding with withdrawing.

Withholding a treatment (for instance CPR) is a decision that acknowledges that either the treatment won't work, that it won't convey any benefit or that the patient doesn't want it. That doesn't really equate to euthanasia unless you hold the view that all illnesses should be be treated with every possible option, just in case, against all the odds, one works, until either you run out of treatments or the patient dies.

Withdrawing treatment is a different case since you are making the decision that an established treatment no longer confers any benefit. Generally speaking withdrawal of treatment leads shortly afterward to death but there is no guarantee that that will happen, even in the sickest of patients. There are certainly those that would argue that that is euthanasia, I'm not one of them.

 

[Ladyhawk]

You are confusing withholding with withdrawing.

Withdrawing treatment is a different case since you are making the decision that an established treatment no longer confers any benefit. Generally speaking withdrawal of treatment leads shortly afterward to death but there is no guarantee that that will happen, even in the sickest of patients. There are certainly those that would argue that that is euthanasia, I'm not one of them.

Very well. Given a difference between "withholding" and "withdrawing" I would have to say that I believe withholding treatment is NOT the same as euthanasia, pariticularly when there is no valid reason to believe the treatment would make any difference.