Mercy Killing of Children

Well, I am going to present this article. I'm not for sure whether its the right decision or not, but, it is something that should probably be discussed.

Personally, I agree with the Parents of children who are watching their child suffer for them to have the choice to do this. I'm sure there's also plenty of cases where it was accidental, but still...Here's your story.

Snippet from source:

Doctors hastened dying kids’ death, say parents
Small study suggests some may be giving fatal morphine doses

CHICAGO - It's a situation too agonizing to contemplate — a child dying and in pain. Now a small but provocative study suggests that doctors may be giving fatal morphine doses to a few children dying of cancer, to end their suffering at their parents' request.

A handful of parents told researchers that they had asked doctors to hasten their children's deaths — and that doctors complied, using high doses of the powerful painkiller.

The lead author of the study and several other physicians said they doubt doctors are engaged in active mercy killing. Instead, they speculate the parents interviewed for the study mistakenly believed that doctors had followed their wishes.

source:
www.msnbc.msn.com...

[edit on 1-3-2010 by EvolvedMinistry]

I've heard the 'Mercy Kill' as a reason for abortion, as metioned on this thread: Is abortion a matter of race? . I think killing without a life being severly ill doesn't qualify for consideration. Your thoughts?

Otherwise I refer to these sections of the Hippocratic Oath:

"I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help." - www.pbs.org...



[edit on 2-3-2010 by saint4God]

We put suffering, dying animals to sleep. Why don't we do the same for people?

Originally posted by smyleegrl
We put suffering, dying animals to sleep. Why don't we do the same for people?

We eat animals, why don't we do the same for people?

reply to post by smyleegrl


because we expect more from humans than animals, to overcome our suffering and live.

About 25 years ago, I worked for a man called Mr. MacDonald. Whilst on Safari in Africa, he caught a very rare, but deadly disease for which there was no known cure,. He was informed that, at best, he had 2 years to live. Some members of his family even suggested that he should consider suicide as a painless way out.

Instead he did everything he could to stay alive although slow deterioration set in.

18 months later, he was still alive when a biochemist found a cure for it.

He is still alive today.

reply to post by saint4God




My question is valid, and wasn't meant to be sarcastic.

I've had pet animals put to sleep who were dying and suffering terribly.

If I were dying, I would want the same down for me.

If my son was dying, ditto.

I get the arguments about abusing euthanasia, fears of genocide, etc. But I think this should be a personal decision, albeit a hard one.

Best wishes for anyone in this situation.

to overcome our suffering and live.

reply to post by namehere


That's true to an extent, but what about someone who is without a doubt going to die?

I think that person should be allowed the option.

If, as the other poster said, that person decides to fight it and hold out for a cure, kudos to them! But that's a personal choice.

I would like the right to die to end my suffering. Just my opinion, of course.

Originally posted by smyleegrl
We put suffering, dying animals to sleep. Why don't we do the same for people?

THE LOGIC BEHIND EUTHANASIA TAKEN TO ITS CONCLUSIONS ENDED AT AUSCHWITZ.

During the First World War, the British sea blockade caused severe shortages in medicines at the front ni France for Germany. Soldiers who were going to die anyway were regularly declared a hero if they topped themselves rather than take treatment.

At the time that Hitler comae to power in 1933, most of Germany was on the brink of starvation. He received a letter (it is still on file) from a father who had a terminally ill, mentally retarded. The father begged for permission to end his child's life as it was leaving the rest of his family to starve due to the cost of the medicines, and he did not want to see his kid suffer before death anyway. Hitler was so moved that he agreed.

From this letter, the Nazis then developed the policy of having terminally ill mental retards being allowed to die. Which then developed into outright killing them. They then considered the cost on the health sservices in a country so broke that kids were dying untreated from simple common diseases like measles. So then they started killing off normal mental retards. The church then stepped in and stopped this policy.

WW2 then starts and the Nazi's then think, due to the new British blockage, why not kill off the sane terminally ill anyway? They are going to die anyhow and we need the medicine, so they began clearing the hospitals of terminally ill, marking people with a red tick for kill and a blue cross for save.

And if a person is really old, what difference is there between a 90 year old and a person wil a terminal disease that will kill them in 10 years? So they began doing away with the really old folk.

Then they thought, well many of these old folk fought for us in WW1 and we're killing them, yet what about people who wanted to do us harm in WW1? What about all the terroists like the bolsheviks and Communists who have pledged to and often in the 1920's actually tried to bring down the German state? So they extended the policy of killing to all those who had avowed to do the German state harm. And if these folk are going, how come we are leaving non-political people trying to do the sate harm around? So the programme's objective suffered further mission creep as all those jailed for life for murder, rape and arson were put down too and the jails emptied. Then they thought who not get rid of repeated petty criminals who can't help it just like pickpockets? So more minor criminals were done away with? And what about people that you know would offend? Statistics and personal prejudice strongly showed to them that gypsies had, for centuries come to town and shown no morality, and had left a trail of thieving behind so the gypsies were put down too.

The Nazis thought, hey, wait a moment... during the years of the depression when we have all bee starving, everyone has had to starve their own families to pay the interest on loans to the only folk left in Germany who have had cash, the moneylenders and the banks, who are, in general , Jews. Their own doctrine concluded that these were no better that repeat offender criminals who had backed the Bolshevik terrorists... so they began killing German Jews.

But Jews and Bolsheviks believe in this sort of brotherhood, iin this form of internationalism, so why stop at German borders? So they began mass killing the Jews in all their conquered territories. Then they thought, why do we have to do all this killing of Jews when the countries that we kill them in willl be better off without them, so the Nazis began organising Ukrainians and Lithuanians etc to do the killing for them.

Then the Nazis thought, well if any Jews survive anywhere, we'll have the risk of revenge attacks by future generations of Jews, they have to be gone everywhere, so they forced Italy and Hungary to hand over their Jews for killing.

So then the Germans went to General Franco, the Spanish Fascist dictator and said hand over your 40,000 Jews. And Franco basically said, "You're not having my 40,000 Jews to kill. Their also Spanish citizens and besides, you're losing the war because you're a nutcase and you're killihng your own people... so you're on your own with that honey" I'm staying neutral. So Spain stayed out the War to everyone's amazement.

And Hitler lost.

And 10,000,000 people died because one father asked for permission to euthanise his terminally ill mentally backward child.

reply to post by aristocrat2


And that is an excellent example of why people should seriously weight up the consequences of suicide or self-assisted suicide or mercy killings. Thankfully, it worked out for your friend.

But along that same line, there's no guarantee a cure for what is currently killing someone will ever happen in their lifetime. I've often thought what would it take to be that strong, mentally. To endure endless pain in the hopes that someday a cure will come along.

This is a question loaded to the gunnels with moral/ethical questions...none of which have a black and white answer...

I don't like the idea personally...never have. Who defines the line where this baby lives, or more importantly, dies? The parents? The doctor? The govt.? A combination of all three? Maladies that 40 years ago doomed a child are now easily, or if not easily, at least treatable with very high degree of success.

Polio being a prime example... Medical science, especially in the area of neonatal, and even pre-neonatal, medicine is so far advanced over what it was even when I was a child as to beggar the imagination.

We all hate to see a child in pain. Or a child who looks to have no hope of a future without it... Indeed, euthenasia would solve that pain, no doubt of that.

However, what treatments lay just around the corner, that can treat whatever condition the child has? Death ends pain, but it also removes hope, and the reason to work to solve the problem. Life retains that hope, and the reasons to solve the problem.

In the end, however, it's a choice that only the parents can make...with advice from whomever they trust most. I know what I'd choose, but that's me.

reply to post by smyleegrl

oh dont get me wrong, i too believe its ones choice to live or die if they choose. but from my experience i know how parents and doctors try to decide for the terminally ill without their consideration, if euthanasia were legal i know i'd be dead by some doctor decision and many others too.

reply to post by namehere


I understand. I guess the problem here is that there's no practical way to allow euthanasia without some form of government control, and that is ultimately open to corruption.

Human rights groups only recognize individual lives, not the larger life, which is the future of people currently living in an overcrowded third world that's going through the same development the West once did. Overpopulation is destructive to the environment, creates social health care problems, and leads to excessive urban growth. Is it nasty that we have to set a limit on our reproduction? Maybe, but the social effects of not taking action are even worse. Leaders of the third world, please take notes.

I'm critical to pro-life dogmatics in general, because they seem to be motivated by false intentions. American congressmen and humanists score moral points in the media to appear important. Where pro-life people go down with me is when they blame abortion policies for encouraging promiscuous behavior and irresponsible sex life. They're right, but it doesn't mean abortion as a principle is wrong in all circumstances. When dogma triumphs logic, we're on the wrong path.

I'm pro-life, if society is seen as an organism and doing what's good for the benefit of the social whole is more important than avoiding discrimination of individuals. We'll always discriminate people in large-scale societies. What matters is what's effective in regards to our goals. No one wants to live in overcrowded places where the forests reek of pollution, the hospitals are overcrowded, the taxes are high, and fresh water and food are scarce. Let's move on.

For evolution to work, we must remove unfit specimens from the breeding pool. We must embrace death as a viable method of preening the population.

Originally posted by saint4God
I've heard the 'Mercy Kill' as a reason for abortion, as metioned on this thread: Is abortion a matter of race? . I think killing without a life being severly ill doesn't qualify for consideration. Your thoughts?

Otherwise I refer to these sections of the Hippocratic Oath:

"I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help." - www.pbs.org...



[edit on 2-3-2010 by saint4God]

Speaking of mercy killing and abortion. I think you need to check this out.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by smyleegrl
We put suffering, dying animals to sleep. Why don't we do the same for people?

Exactly. Its unfortunate that we would even have to debate this issue in this country.

reply to post by EvolvedMinistry


My grandmother, 80, died a year ago.

At the time of her death, she weighed less than 80 pounds.

She could barely talk, could not eat or drink, could not care for herself at all.

She was kept alive in a hospital until she died. She had a Do Not Resusitate order, and eventually they just stopped the intra-venous feedings, gave her only pain meds.

It took her four days to starve to death. She was conscious the whole time.

I will never forget the last time I saw her. She told me she wanted to die, she was ready to die, she couldn't wait to die.

She died two weeks later. A lifetime, don't you think?

I don't know how to feel. I've read the articles about eugenics, I understand how euthanazia, if taken to extremes, can be used to cull populations, etc.

But on the other hand, I see my grandmother suffering needlessly.

It's a very touchy subject, and I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.

Best wishes to anyone going through this situation.

reply to post by smyleegrl


My mom went the same way...

There is no right, or wrong answer here... I know what I think, but that's me.

It's a question that each person needs to answer for themselves...

Where children are concerned? They don't have the knowledge, or life experiance, to decide for themselves... That leaves the parents as the only one's who can decide. No one else. Govt. has no place, none, in this. The govt. can, and would, only screw it up.

As someone who witnesses the pain and suffering of human beings on a daily basis in an acute care hospital setting I will say this..............we treat our dogs and pets better than we do human beings in our society. A dog is suffering we put them to sleep. I've seen horrible horrible suffering among my fellow man at the expense of moral, religious, and bureaucratic BS! God have mercy on anyone who has to spend their last days suffering under our healthcare system. Dying in a hospital is no fun at all. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Watching a grown man shat all over himself while he can't remember who his wife is........... Yeah what a way to die with some self respect and dignity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[edit on 2-3-2010 by Zosynspiracy]

reply to post by Zosynspiracy


Nor would I.

I'm a huge fan of hospice/end of life care in the case of fatal illness or inoperable conditions that are invariably fatal.

A year after my mom died, a local doctor started a homecare hospice service. My mom could have at least died with a modicum of dignity...

Too late for my mother, but better late than never.