Need help with a class (Euthanasia or right to die)

[Frank the Tank]

Once the person suffering gets to a certain point, its just unimaginable the suffering that takes place. I watched my Aunt die this past November of lung cancer. Right after she was declared terminal, my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. He said to me, "if I get like Aunt Lefty (her nickname), just put the pillow over my face. Don't hesitate, just do it". Then they wheeled him off to surgurey. And this is from a very religious guy. Tough choices, but after that, I am with pro choice.

[PIMking]

Originally Posted by flylock shox

Your thread title makes it seem like you're really struggling in this class.

I voted Yea.

Not struggling, (carrying a 97% right now) I'm just struggling with this question.

[Calgaryborn]

I voted "no". The problem is that these rights once given, will be abused. Family members will put undue pressure on their parents/grandparents. Some Doctors like some abortion doctors will arise and bend the law to make money. Where these rights do exist you will find accounts of abuse.

Today doctors have a ton of options to relieve pain. There is no reason why someone should have to suffer through their last days. Most doctors will be more than liberal with pain relief when it is apparent there will be no recovery. If your doctor won't find another.

[PIMking]

I started thinking even more about it during class, this gets into the abortion and capital punishment.

[PIMking]

Thank you everyone for the help, I really appreciate it and I'm getting some good data. I'm happy that this can stay civil.

[MarchHare]

This was written a year ago but is relevant to this discussion:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...icide-tribunal

My father's own death was more protracted. He had a year's warning. It was pancreatic cancer. Technology kept him alive, at home and in a state of reasonable comfort and cheerfulness, for that year, during which we had those conversations that you have with a dying parent. Perhaps it is when you truly get to know them, when you realise that it is now you marching towards the sound of the guns and you are ready to listen to the advice and reminiscences that life was too crowded for up to that point. He unloaded all the anecdotes that I had heard before, about his time in India during the war, and came up with a few more that I had never heard. Then, at one point, he suddenly looked up and said, "I can feel the sun of India on my face", and his face did light up rather magically, brighter and happier than I had seen it at any time in the previous year, and if there had been any justice or even narrative sensibility in the universe, he would have died there and then, shading his eyes from the sun of Karachi.

He did not.

On the day he was diagnosed my father told me, "If you ever see me in a hospital bed, full of tubes and pipes and no good to anybody, tell them to switch me off." In fact, it took something under a fortnight in the hospice for him to die as a kind of collateral damage in the war between his cancer and the morphine. And in that time he stopped being him and started becoming a corpse, albeit one that moved ever so slightly from time to time.

[evman150]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Anyone who has ever had to put down a beloved family pet does so knowing it's the humane thing to do. Why does the law forbid us from being just as humane to our fellow humans as we are to our cats and dogs?

The problem lies in any legislation being abused and/or being applied too broadly. Any legislation has the potential to turn into eugenics very quickly and very easily.

This is an extremely complex issue which does not easily admit of stock yes/no answers like abortion/capital punishment/etc do. The main reason being that there are far more parameters involved.

If you are looking for people's intuitions on the topic, I think it is far more productive to look at a specific case or cases. Two well known examples are Terri Schiavo - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case and Robert/Tracy Latimer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Latimer

[Dion]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Anyone who has ever had to put down a beloved family pet does so knowing it's the humane thing to do. Why does the law forbid us from being just as humane to our fellow humans as we are to our cats and dogs?

Pets can't talk back and say please don't do it now.

IMO it becomes a slippery slope when you allow fellow humans to do it to one another. A severly disabled child like Robert Latimer had didn't get a say in what he did. I know it's something I could never do and i'm saddened he did what he did.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Delgar

Check out this thread from Reddit which made national headlines today. This guy is going to die tomorrow.

This is a hard read, getting choked up.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Today doctors have a ton of options to relieve pain. There is no reason why someone should have to suffer through their last days. Most doctors will be more than liberal with pain relief when it is apparent there will be no recovery. If your doctor won't find another.

It doesn't always work that way. A close friend of mine had to deal with a Cancer that had spread from her breasts to her spine. She was in a lot of pain from the time she was diagnosed to when she died 7 months later. It was a battle between finding the right dosage as the pain was constantly increasing.

[Stumptown]

I'm thankful to live in the only US state that allows physician-assisted suicide. We voted on it, it passed, there was an appeal, and it survived a second vote. It's been 10 years or so since the law has been on the books and there have been exactly zero controversial cases. It's not used very often, less than 100 times a year, if I remember right. The law is pretty well written, with second opinions, family counseling, etc. Even the hard-core right-to-life faction have given up fighting it because it's been so well accepted and implemented. I hope other places can use Oregon as a model for how to implement death with dignity.

[Gozer]

Didn't know about that 'till now:

http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/faqs.shtml

[Montana Moe]

Montana and Washington have joined the ranks as well, Stumptown.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by Dion

It doesn't always work that way. A close friend of mine had to deal with a Cancer that had spread from her breasts to her spine. She was in a lot of pain from the time she was diagnosed to when she died 7 months later. It was a battle between finding the right dosage as the pain was constantly increasing.

Sorry to hear about your friend.

My Aunt worked her whole career with geriatrics. She was/is a psychiatric nurse. Because of this she has contributed to the care of many termnal ill patients. She also was there as her husband and later her mother died of cancer. Her opinion is that if your terminal ill patient suffers from any on going physical pain it is the doctor's fault. There is no reason why they should limit the pain relief given to a terminally ill patient. There is also too many pain relief options out there to not be able to find one that will work.

Pain relief needs to be restricted normally because a patient can become addicted to the drug or lose their ability to tolerate discomfort. Certainly higher doses of any drug raises the risk of overdose as well. These should not be concerns in the treatment of terminally ill. If your Doctor won't provide adequate pain relief find another. It is as simple as that.

Interestingly my Aunt remains on the fence regarding Euthanasia. She seen enough disfunctional families and obviously patients who lacked the ability to use such a law responsibily. She also has seen her share of good and very bad doctors. On the other side of the arguement she has seen a lot of people just waiting to die who have lost any quality to their life.

Instances of Doctors out of compassion uping the dosage of the pain medication to a point where they know it will contribute to the body shutting down earlier is also not uncommon. So to an extent euthanasia is already being practiced in Canada. The problem with any law is that it will open the door for abuse. Bad Doctors and troubled families/patients will misuse it. I believe it is Holland that has allowed euthanasia for years and there has been reported abuses. Perhaps Oregon has a better law that would work. I don't know.

[Hack&Lube]

Might be interesting to contrast a poll with mostly Canadian respondents like this with what your fellow Americans might feel.

[Cheese]

For it.
We do the same for our pets that we love with all of our hearts, why different for us?
If someone has an incurable disease that causes them great pain or discomfort that cannot be treated then it should always be up to the individual, NOT society to determine the right to live or die. If that person makes a choice and the day after he dies a cure is found then that is simply his choice again.
Religious ideals foisted upon humans has made this a situation where one cannot access their specific heaven if one takes their own life before natural<sic> expiration.

[transplant99]

Such a complex and situational question.

Therefore I have to say undecided but both for and against based on each individual case.

[BigBrodieFan]

In actuality, assisted suicide happens every single day. People are given morphine overdoses all the time to ease their pain and suffering. Why is that not questioned when assisted suicide for someone with ALS is?

I guess it comes down to timing.

It is a grey area though. I am undecided as to whether a law should be passed, but I think that if someone wants to die with dignity they should be able to.

[firebug]

An interested blog on this topic is Eric MacDonald's Choice in Dying.

Eric, a Canadian, flew with his wife, suffering from MS, to Switzerland.

They only had a single return ticket.

Fair Warning: Eric is a former Anglican Minister and is highly critical of religions role in this debate.

"People are free to see their suffering in the light of their faith in Christ, if that is what they wish. But this interpretation of suffering is not an obligation. Indeed, it may justly be seen as a piece of prevarication, hiding the reality of suffering, and, if there were a god, that god’s responsibility for it. People who are suffering may see it, with some justice, as something which subtracts from rather than adds to the meaningfulness of life.

For those who do not find suffering spirtually fulfilling, or in any sense an opportunity for human growth, it should be possible to negotiate other ways of leaving life than through the processes of disintegration which take place as we die."

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Anyone who has ever had to put down a beloved family pet does so knowing it's the humane thing to do. Why does the law forbid us from being just as humane to our fellow humans as we are to our cats and dogs?

i never understood the argument against human euthanasia specifically because of this point. there is no debate on putting pets down humanely, yet we can't bring ourselves to do the same to a person when they can actually tell us that they want to die?

the way i look at it, if someone healthy and able wants to die, then they will. there's not a whole lot you can do to prevent someone committing suicide if that's the route they really want to take. now if you take another person who is sick and not able bodied enough to end their own life, yet can plainly express their desire to die, why punish them further because of their sickness by saying no?