by Mary 23 Replies latest jw friends
Fortunatly we have Assisted Suicide Law here in Oregon. I have terminal cancer at this time and I may opt for that avenue. For now I savor each sunrise, each flower, each raindrop and each friend for I know that there is someone, someplace in worse condition than I.
May all of you on this board find peace and healing
TS
{{{{{{{{{Tortured Soul}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} I can't exactly find the right words so all I can do is reply to your post with the hug thing.
I do support "the right to die". If the law recognizes the right of a mother to terminate the life of the unborn child inside her, it is grossly unfair that a competent adult does not have the right to end his or her own life when it becomes unbearable and unliveable due to terminal illness and extreme pain.
My grandmother died under hospice care in our family home. It was the best way for her to go. She was in familiar surroundings with all of us there to be with her. Hospice supplied all the morphine she needed to make her comfortable. Even though she'd had a stroke which took away her ability to speak and even though she was on a constant high dose of morphine, "Ree" was still aware of her family around her and we could tell she was alert enough to understand what we said when we talked to her and try to acknowledge at least by reaching for someone's hand to squeeze and sometimes she'd give a little smile. She died peacefully one day, just went to sleep and never woke up.
Now compare that to dying in a hospital. The hospital isn't going to be as generous with the meds, even with a terminally ill cancer ridden stroke victim like my grandmother was. The person is in unfamiliar surroundings with strangers coming in constantly, nurses and doctors who are just doing a job and yes I know they're not all like this but so many regard a patient like that as just another number on a list. The hospital is going to prolong every last excruciating second of that painful existence even when the prognosis is imminent death, prolong it to more hours or days or weeks of even more unnecessary pain both for the patient and the patient's family and friends.
Personally, I have a DNR. I also have an "arrangement" with a very close trusted friend to back up that DNR and that arrangement extends to circumstances beyond terminal illness.
Mike.
Tortured soul I am so sorry to hear of your condition....
My mom had cancer and passed away under hospice care....I have to admit there was a selfish part of me that wanted to hang onto her no matter what, but I understand the need to die with dignity and I hope when my time comes I am allowed to do so. I also hated seeing her suffer and slowly fade away before my eyes....I don't ever want to put my daughter thru that.
Death or Life...it should be a personal decision.
I feel that euthanasia should be every person's right. And I don't feel that one should have to resort to the violence of shooting one's self in order to accomplish it. I'm way too peace loving and anti violence to actually shoot myself. An overdose is what I would prefer.
How can we have compassion for animals and not for humans? We even shoot horses just because they have broken legs, for chrissake.
The human race still has a long way to go in the development of its ethics and morals when we let people suffer in an agony of pain with cancer and don't help them out. It is just not justifiable in my opinion.
francois
This is a book on "self-deliverance." There is also a "Hemlock Society" that provides info and sometimes assistance (a legal variety) to people. 
(((((((((Tortured Soul)))))))))))
I am so sorry to hear this and I wish you peace.
If someone wants to off themselves, go at it. DON'T involve the medical system though. There are reasons not too. Holland allows Euthanasia, in 1998 over 1000 elderly were killed withou their consent, and it was legal.
If you inolve the medical system insurance companies will start to offer premiums and bennies for those who kill themselves (or are killed) as oppossed to a lenghty recovery/hospital stay/surgery.
TS-----(hugs))) I was so sorry to read about your condition. I hope you will be guided to do exctly as you want- I personally believe There IS something better in the life after..... God Bless you & give you the strength to walk this very difficult walk that your on. My prayers & hopes are with you.....I cry with you too.Grace
I don't really know what I would do if I were so sick that life wasn't worth the effort. I would prefer that I be killed if I were mentally out of it and my kids had to look after me, after all we have only so many years to live anyway and when you get so close to the end and life isn't worth the effort why not end it?
Ken P.
shutterbug;
In other words this is just a ploy to help the mentally ill commit suicide.
Good to see you took time to research the issue properly before giving us the benefit of your opinion.
I'm sorry, it seems you didn't do your homework properly, you are the "zwakste schakel", goodbye...
Yeru;
Holland allows Euthanasia, in 1998 over 1000 elderly were killed withou their consent, and it was legal.
Yeru, could you please cite your sources, and ensure that they detail what they define as "withou their consent" (at all, at the time, what?)? I'm not contesting the figure, I merely want to be able to see how it is arrived at.
In Holland the majority of people are in favour of the legislation. As with anti-euthanasia websites, the majority of oppostion seems to be focused around religious belief more than anything else.
Of course, such people are entitled to their opinion, but I don't see why an opinion something that seems to be so belief related should be enforced on people who don't have those beliefs.
As for the figures;
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/335/22/1699
Results Among the deaths studied, 2.3 percent of those in the interview study and 2.4 percent of those in the death-certificate study were estimated to have resulted from euthanasia, and 0.4 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, resulted from physician-assisted suicide. In 0.7 percent of cases, life was ended without the explicit, concurrent request of the patient.
As far as enforcing opinions, obviously it's far more important to make sure that real world cases of physicians enforcing their opinions regarding patient termination are prevented as much as is possible. That is FAR more important than assiting the imposition of religiously motivated opinion on people that don't hold it.
What the Dutch system does is lost sight of. What it does is nothing new. It is the codification of previous practise to prevent problems; Dutch pragmaticsim at its best.
In other words, "It's happening anyway, let's create a sensible legislative framework". This seems to work;
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/335/22/1699
Euthanasia seems to have increased in incidence since 1990, and the ending of life without the patient's explicit request seems to have decreased slightly.
Now, if you like, you can believe that doctors in the UK and USA say, are fundamentally different, and never assist with a patient's death. You can ignore the fact that such deaths take place (except in cases like Oregon) without ANY check or balance. But even if you want to ignore those facts Yeru, I can't see how you can ignore the ill-thought out nature of this sentence;
If someone wants to off themselves, go at it.
You don't seem to have even thought about people who are so ill they don't have the physical competence to end their lives, even though they may be mentally competent and wish to.
I'd be very interested to hear what you think of euthanasia and assisted suicide from a human-rights point of view (that of the patient). Obviously, any system is open to abuse, but it seems unreasonable to deny someone the right to die, as well as being a bit like King Canute trying to stop the tide... like those old laws that made commiting suicide a criminal offense!!!
If you inolve the medical system insurance companies will start to offer premiums and bennies for those who kill themselves (or are killed) as oppossed to a lenghty recovery/hospital stay/surgery.Well, I do think that bonuses paid to medical personel for such activities should be banned, and circumvention of these rules should result in life terms. But I see nothing unreasonable about someone who has 18 months of pain and expensive care with a certain outcome making a deal with his medical insurance company to have a lump sum for their family or their final few months if they decide to euthanise.
