Euthanasia (moral, Creator, church, zealous, experience)

[Booko]

Originally Posted by LSDLDS

For me the issue comes up when it's doctors asked to do the mercy killing. I believe it should be a doctor because of the medical training. However, maybe this needs to be a specialty that takes extra education and certain set standards.

The problem is it's in conflict with medical ethics.

Though it does seem like they manage with executions somehow. :

[Booko]

Originally Posted by Scott1

Besides... I don't think there is a Doctor in the world that can estimate for sure the time someone is going to die with the exception of air/blood/circulation issues.

Yeah, my best friend was told 19 years ago that she'd be dead within 6 months. She looks pretty good for a dead person.

Who is to decide what is "enough" suffering? The patient? At what age do you let them decide? 5 years old?.... 13?.....18? Who decides if they are competant to make that decision... medical professionals? Insurance companies?

I have serious issues with protecting the person who would make such a decision. Family members have been known to pressure people into doing such things before.

Why does it have to be physical suffering... what about mental suffering? Why shouldn't all depressed people be able to go down to the hospital and TELL the Doctor to enforce their legal right to end their life?

Physical suffering often brings on depression. There are times when the pain would've driven me to kill myself, if there had been means available and I could have left my kids motherless in their childhood just as I was left fatherless in mine. At least my father had a heart attack, so it was not something that would cause me to sit around and wonder "if I had been a better kid, would Dad still be here?" Which is of course where kids go with that sort of thing.

No... there are reasons to kill people... I just find it hard to believe that with modern medicine being what it is that people actually believe we can't keep people from PHYSICAL suffering during the end of their life.

You're quite right to point out that a problem with most suffering is really poor pain management.

I can give you enough pain killers that I could saw you in half with a chainsaw and you'll smile the whole time.... this is not about physical suffering... this issue is about viewing people who are near the end of their life with pity.... it's more about the guilt of family members who want it to end (in my opinion)..... but I could be wrong.

Well, to a point. There are still a few conditions that no matter how many drugs they give you, you're still in pain. Bone cancer is one of those. A friend of mine died last year from bone cancer. In his last few days it didn't manage how much morphine they gave him, he was moaning in pain. We were actually pretty relived when he finally slipped into a coma. You really wonder how much pain stimulation the nervous system can handle before it just decides to shut down the circuit.

But yeah, in most cases proper pain management, counseling, and other treatment for depression would seem to be FAR more preferable than euthanasia.

[Mestemia]

Euthanasia was once much less serious a problem. When doctors had fewer "supportive" aids, artificial respirators, and knowledge of electrolyte balances, patients with terminal illnesses tended to die quickly. Now, medicine faces the fact that a person can be kept technically alive for an indefinite period, though they can never be cured. Thus the doctor must decide whether supportive therapy should be instituted and for how long. This is a problem because doctors have traditionally felt that they should keep their patients alive as long as possible, using every available technique. Now, the morality - and even the humanity - of such an approach must be questioned.
There is a corollary: whether the patient facing an incurable disease has the right to refuse supportive therapy; whether a patient facing weeks or months of terminal pain has a right to demand an easy and painless death; whether a patient who has put himself in a doctor's hands still retains ultimate life-and-death control over his own existence.

Crichton, Micheal. A Case of Need (Appendix). First ed. New York City: SIGNET, 1969. 415-416.

[Booko]

Originally Posted by Tangnefedd

I believe we have the right to end our own lives if they are intolerable due to terminal illness including Altzheimers. I think, with certain safeguards, we should be able to ask someone to help us die if we can't do it for ourselves.I feel quite passionately about this subject after our experience this year when my husband, was desperately ill after a brain haemorrhage. I knew his wishes would have been to let him die rather than let him remain in a profoundly disabled state. I made sure the doctors knew this too. Although he has made a remarkable recovery, he does have a significant level of disability and sometimes he wonders if he would be better off dead! Should he have another haemorrhage he insists that no treatment is given, it will be down to me to make sure his wishes are fulfilled, by whatever means available to me!

I'm sorry to hear about your husband's condition Tagnefedd. I can sympathize with his desire to not want to live unable to make sense of my environment. But there's quite a stretch between just letting nature take its course by refusing treatment, and doing something active to end life.

It's an issue intertwined with many different religion-based beliefs, and because of that, while I hold to my own beliefs, this is one of those subject I prefer to address from a purely secular angle, as I don't recognize I have any right to shove my religious views down anyone else's throat.

[w00t]

Originally Posted by Booko

I'm sorry to hear about your husband's condition Tagnefedd. I can sympathize with his desire to not want to live unable to make sense of my environment. But there's quite a stretch between just letting nature take its course by refusing treatment, and doing something active to end life.

It's an issue intertwined with many different religion-based beliefs, and because of that, while I hold to my own beliefs, this is one of those subject I prefer to address from a purely secular angle, as I don't recognize I have any right to shove my religious views down anyone else's throat.

My husband is a very intelligent man and although at present he is functioning reasonably well, he can do the gardening and walk three miles by himself around our country lanes, he is not happy that he can't do any academic work and talk as well as he would like to. This is why he sometimes wishes he was dead as his intellectual functioning is veryl important to him. Quality of life is all important, not life itself, imo.

[Panda]

If someone wants to end their life then they should be aloud as long as they are judged to be sound of mind. Of course the problem arises as to what is being sound of mind?

[doppelgänger]

The Oregon "Death With Dignity" statute does and excellent job of balancing the various interests and concerns, IMO.

Legislative Statute - Death w/ Dignity

It was upheld as constitutional by SCOTUS last year.

[Booko]

Originally Posted by Tangnefedd

My husband is a very intelligent man and although at present he is functioning reasonably well, he can do the gardening and walk three miles by himself around our country lanes, he is not happy that he can't do any academic work and talk as well as he would like to. This is why he sometimes wishes he was dead as his intellectual functioning is veryl important to him. Quality of life is all important, not life itself, imo.

I'm in the opposite position. I'm an avid gardener watching my garden deteriorate. I can't walk a half mile without spending the next few days in bed. I can do academic work now, well, most days. Some days I sit in my chair like a lump and can't even get on here to post silly stuff, much less anything that requires thought. Two years ago I wouldn't even have been able to do that.

There's a difference, I'm sure, in that Alzheimer's is degenerative and at least I have some hope of reversing my condition, but having been in the position of being totally worse than useless, I can understand his wishes very well.

I'm not a big fan of pulling out all the stops to extend my life a little. Sometimes a quiet dignified death without all the machings that go ping is just more appropriate.

I hope he can enjoy the gardening as long as possible, Tagnefedd.

[w00t]