Euthanasia isn't it time we are given a choice.

This topic has been playing on my mind for many a year and Kangas post got me thinking.

We put dogs down when in pain but we can not do it for others when in so much pain, I used to work in an old folks home and one lady (97) from morning til; night was in severe pain, she was on the max dosage of a morphiate but because she got used to it it did little or no effect.

She used to look up at me and say every day "please just let me die" It broke my heart because deep down I knew that was what she wanted and I was powerless to do anything..even her family agreed.

Now Iam not talking about just putting anyone down Iam talking about giving people the option when they are younger to decide when they want to die...for example If I wrote a living will I would not want to be alive If I had severe dementia.
I wouldn't want to take away funds that can be used better (give it to the younger folk) than looking after me 24/7.
Obviously I don't want others to decide but it should be a personal choice.

So what do you think? and If you disagree why?.

Yes, I wholeheartedly believe that it would be the decent and humane thing, as long as it's regulated and accompanied by psychological evaluation.

I've had many a friend and family member forced to go on to a point that's cruel and horrifying, mostly those who suffered through cancer.

Most people I know disagree with me, but I often think it's selfish and cruel when the family clings to someone who is ill and ready to go, if you love them, you don't want them to suffer.

a reply to: boymonkey74

It's hard to discuss a rational approach when, at that time, emotions and irrational decisions may rule the day.

I see that you are correct.

On the other hand, I would fight (kicking and screaming) if anyone tried to pull the plug on a loved one.

Irrational? Perhaps.

Human? Most definitely.

a reply to: beezzer

I have been there when they pulled the plug on my Brother (he was brain dead after a massive heart attack during his coma) I went mental it happened in France and all the french nurses were trying to calm me while my Mum pulled it....worse day of my life .

But having talked about this subject to my Brother he always said to me "If Iam not myself and I can't return put a pillow over my head".
Now because he drowned and was in the coma If he would have come out of that coma he wouldn't have been the same, they told us If he comes out he would be severely disabled...If that happened I would have respected my bros wishes and jail or not put him to sleep.

If it was allowed I think it would be hard for all around but as long as the person tells everyone his/her wishes before they are ill I think people would except it more.

Plus you could have "going to die " partys...sorry had to inject some humor I am nearly crying .

a reply to: boymonkey74
Yes. A person should be able to make that decision and it be honored with no repercussions from anyone. I have said many times if I become incapacitated or out of my mind to let me die. There is zero reason for a person to suffer or live in such a way they deem as unacceptable.

a reply to: boymonkey74

I think people should have 100% control over their own bodies.

With that said, if someone doesn't want to live anymore it's their choice to end it.

Personally if I ever become severely terminally ill I am going to jump off the Golden Gate bridge in a Wonder Woman costume. I could care less whether euthanasia is legal. There is no way I am going to go through the pain I witnessed when my parents were dying of cancer.

I really want to end it the way I want . Yet I know that my family will want to keep me around as long as possible, but I don't want to get to the point where I'm so out of it on morphine that I don't even recognise the ones I love.
The way a vet puts down a dog seems more humane and caring than being forced to go through the dying pains, humans are made to suffer.

We need a new approach to death.
Alan watts says it best

a reply to: OrphanApology

Thing is sometimes you may not have that choice..If you had a car crash etc you may not have the capability mentally to do yourself in. Same goes with people with dementia. Thats why we should have living wills.

It should be left up to the individual to decide ..
Have a living will no desire to be kept a vegetable on machines .. if my health ever got that bad would take a long walk in the jungle rather than be burden to my kids or worse stuck on a machine .. better to face death head on standing on ones feet..
If anyone ever put me on a machine Id come back as a vengeful ghost and haunt them who says cant have fun when your dead ..

I did a thread on this four years ago. I searched but couldn't find it. If anyone cares to hear my thoughts ... it's on a thread called - "IMHO - Legalize Physician Assisted Suicide" (I think that was the title).

I"m all for it. For any adult, anywhere, for any reason they wish.

ETA ... Found my old thread IMHO Make Assisted Suicide Legal

I think about this topic often.

I remember a debate I had years ago with a colleague - at that time (mid 90s), I thought that people have a right to die.
A kid in the school had tried to suicide....
the debate started when I said something to the effect of, "Then why prevent him?" This kid had raped his own sister, and was severely emotionally "crazy" -
I mentioned that if he had been allowed to off himself, other girls (even my own!) might be prevented from enduring his abuse.
The colleague also had told me about his mother contracting cancer and refusing treatment, (which I think I would do as well) - and also that his son had died in a motorcycle accident at age 27 - so he (my colleague) had trauma stuff....

at that point, I had not lost anyone except a few friends who had killed themselves - and I understood why, in every case. One was a woman whose daughter had died on the eve of her 5th birthday in a tragic auto malfunction (a truck crushed her against a wall outside her dad's mechanic's garage). The woman later had another child - a son, who KNEW he was the 'replacement' for his deceased sister......when the boy was 11, his mother finally suicided. I helped him and his dad through the aftermath - but I understood why she had gone, to be with her daughter....

I also had a brother-in-law who'd contracted hepatitis as a kid, right after his older sister died of a brain tumor (at age 6) in a hospital bed in the family home - and my husband had been for all practical purposes abandoned by his mother and left to the care of his grandparents (her parents). She (the mother) went crazy - became a funeral addict after her daughter died. Her son then got Hepatitis, and had a then-experimental liver transplant which his body fought for another 30 years - I prepared his last home-made meal when he and his wife were headed to the Mayo clinic to "wait" for yet another transplant. The entire family (except for me) denied he was terminal. I knew he was. When he died, his parents SUED his widow!!
It was a disaster - the entire family was a mess.


My opinion is that yes, people should be able to decide for themselves. If life is that awful, or if I'm incapacitated, I do NOT want to be hooked to machines. I don't even really care about if in the future they would find ways to cure what ailed me.

As for if one of my kids die, yes, I will go insane. I doubt I'd have the will to live any longer. I don't know - but I understand why some people choose to exit....I don't think it's a sin; and I certainly don't see spending hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds to keep a non-functioning body alive.

If you want to talk about 'deformed fetuses' - severely handicapped babies - well, they used to leave them under a tree. That makes more sense to me - but since my kids were both healthy and well, I didn't have to make that decision. If I KNEW FOR SURE the child would be severely disabled or disfigured, I would abort.

a reply to: boymonkey74

I don't want anyone to suffer...however I just don't know for sure (spiritually) what is right in a situation like this. If I had a definite answer that I was sure of (spiritually) then I could better say yeah or nay on this subject.

I am thinking about what happens to someones (soul and spirit) eternally...those that want Euthanasia...and those that give it.

Is Euthanasia (right or wrong)...I just don't know.

Your argument sounds reasonable. In some places, e.g. Oregon. it's the law. There are some built in restrictions to make certain this is what the patient really wants, etc.

But here's the problem:

First you make it possible to die,
then you make it easy to die,
then you make death a social obligation.

It's a slippery slope. When does the RIGHT to die become the OBLIGATION to die? You don't have to say it in words or in the law. It's enough to make it implicit. The Veteran's Administration (not that they aren't in enough trouble already) got in hot water a few years ago for publishing a pamphlet asking Vets their attitudes toward death and whether they really wanted to live under certain circumstances. Why was it controversial? Because the pamphlet was putting the idea of self-induced euthanasia before the Vets. It said, in effect, "You DO know this is an option, don't you?" Just in case a Vet hadn't thought of it, the VA decided they should become aware that it was possible (hint, hint), just get the idea into their minds so that if the time came, they'd have "full knowledge" of their "choices."

Sarah Palin was mercilessly mocked because she suggested Obamacare would have "Death Panels," but was she wrong? We already have them. Every time we deny or postpone giving a 90 year old a hip replacement because, you know, she'll be dead soon and it is a waste of resources that could be used on a younger, healthier patient, we've essentially created one. I have heard stories about the British system of allocating health care resources, but maybe someone from the UK could address what is happening there.

In our court system the idea is already there. If you examine the sentences handed down to DUI drivers who have killed someone, you can draw a graph that shows how much time they got in prison, from probation to jail for manslaughter. And the graph has a statistical correlation with the age of the victim. Kill someone who is 80 and you get probation. Kill someone who is ten and you get the book thrown at you. That's a "death panel" in action right there.

The statistics in the Oregon "Death with Dignity Law" are troubling.

Oregon’s assisted suicide law, itself, allows the lethal dose to be administered without oversight. This creates the opportunity for an heir, or someone else who will benefit from the patient’s death, to administer the lethal dose to the patient without the patient’s consent. Even if he struggled, who would know?

The new report provides the following demographics: “Of the 77 DWDA deaths during 2012, most (67.5%) were aged 65 years or older; the median age was 69 years. As in previous years, most were white (97.4%), [and] well-educated (42.9% had at least a baccalaureate degree) . . . .” Most (51.4%) had private health insurance.

Typically persons with these attributes are seniors with money, which would be the middle class and above, a group disproportionately at risk of financial abuse and exploitation.

Oregon’s law is written so as to allow such abuse to occur without anyone knowing. The new report is statistically consistent with elder abuse.

The report indicated that the physician or another healthcare provider was present at the time of death in 11 of the 77 deaths.

Source

Naturally you "can't tell" what happened here. Are the people who availed themselves of this law just better educated than average, or does the fact that they "have money" to be inherited a factor in all this? Why aren't minorities or people on "public health insurance," i.e. on Medicaid with no assets, equally represented? Do they not get sick? And exactly WHO is "pushing the button" here? The physicians aren't anywhere around. "C'mon, Grandma, take the damn pill and it will all be over soon. You won't feel a thing."

So the real question here is how easy are you going to make it? Are you going to just "remind" that old person with Alzheimers that he has a choice, or are you going to say, "Here's a button right here. Push it if you want to die."? THAT'S why this "right" is a little more complex than you might imagine. If you say, "I'd never do that!" that's well and good, but why do the rest of us have to depend upon you to do the right thing?

a reply to: schuyler

No give the person before they are unwell a chance to have a living will stating at what point he she wants to die and what conditions.
An opt in thing.
I used the LCP for a few years until it got phased out and I thought it a wonderful tool for all involved, big mistakes were made and thats why it phased out but they will write a new one I think and introduce that soon here.

originally posted by: boymonkey74
a reply to: schuyler

No give the person before they are unwell a chance to have a living will stating at what point he she wants to die and what conditions. An opt in thing.

We already have that. It's not the same thing. A "Living Will" kicks in when you are unconscious with no hope of recovery, not if you are lucid, which the "death with Dignity" laws specifically require.

This situation happened in my family. My mother was extremely ill, hooked up to all sorts of machines. She couldn't talk. So she took my father's hand in hers and spelled out this message.

"Now is the time for the living will."

But it wasn't, as the doctor explained. She was alive, conscious, and lucid. As it turned out, she jumped the gun with her "wishes." She lived another year or so, in fairly comfortable circumstances and in no pain. Who is to say she "should have" died at the time?

The point is that a "Living Will" doesn't cover the issue at all. If you are brain dead, then fine. It does, but the Death with Dignity laws do not apply under those circumstances. You're talking apples and oranges here.

a reply to: boymonkey74

This surprises me about the 97 year old lady. In the UK it is legal to use 'the principle of double effect'. It is also sanctioned by the RC church from what I remember from my training days.

The principle of double effect is where you do something for a good effect but are aware of the negative effects. The good effect has to outweigh the negative effects. In terminal care narcotics are given to reduce unbearable pain to a level that is comfortable. This is the good effect. The negative effect is that it often causes people to become unconscious and stop breathing.

a reply to: schuyler

Who is to say she "should have" died at the time?

SHE is to say she "should have" died at the time.

How can you disrespect that?

a reply to: earthblaze

We have a duty of care to keep them alive.
I don't get what you are on about....she had the maximum dosage we could give her, but it didn't do much.
Are you saying I could have helped her pass and It would have been legal?.
Nope it would have been jail.

originally posted by: boymonkey74
a reply to: earthblaze

We have a duty of care to keep them alive.
I don't get what you are on about....she had the maximum dosage we could give her, but it didn't do much.
Are you saying I could have helped her pass and It would have been legal?.
Nope it would have been jail.

The doctor and nurse looking after the lady had a duty of care to make her comfortable. They failed in that duty of care and it could be considered to be negligence. There are stronger narcotics then morphine and the doses can be increased. There are also other ways to relieve people's pain and distress. Was she referred to a pain team? Morphine is not a good choice for bone pain if this is what she had. Just because a GP writes a does range does not mean that is the top limit of a drug.

You are limited in your knowledge and experience as a care worker.

a reply to: earthblaze


The lady in question was on the maximum dosage she could have.
She was refereed to a pain team and they gave her the morphine.
Don't question my experience in the field yes I was just a support worker doesn't mean I didn't know about my job.
Anyhow lets get back to the op.