Euthanasia

Woebot

Well-known member
I have some strong opinions about this. Basically I'm not in favour of it, I'm pretty much on the side of the Church when it comes to thinking this out, but obviously it's a complex issue.

Seeing as how in the UK the broadsheets think it's such a splendid idea to tinker with the current status quo, I thought I'd set up this thread and see if other Dissensoids have perspectives. Then I'll swing back later and chuck in my 5 cents.

Talking about it on a message board could be seen as trivialising the subject, but maybe it's not such a bad place (in the shadows) to gently open up the topic......
 
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droid

Guest
john eden said:
My position is that if people are terminally ill and their lives are full of unindurable, unsolvable pain, then if they choose to die that should be supported.

http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/

I pretty much agree. Saw a documentary about an Austrlian woman with 3 grown kids who was housebound for several years because of unbearable pain from a terminal cancer.

She was in sound mind, and asked her son to help her end her life peacefully, which he did - breaking the law in the process.

As you say - its a complex issue - but what would you do in that position? If your mother asked you to help her die after years of painful disease? Or if you yourself had a terminal illness, were desperate to die, but hadnt the strength or the opportunity to jump out a window yourself?

Im not being combatative here - not 100% sure of the answers myself...
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
given the quality of care in many hospitals/nursing homes, let those who wish to die get on with it.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
What of the wealthy 83 year old woman who is inveigled into a clinic by her children, impatient for their loot?

Assisted death should be kept from the statute books and remain the preserve of palliative carers, who practice it anyway without interference and without the risk of an appalling grey area emerging.


My instinct and experience tell me that the sanctity of life and faith in the capacity of the human spirit to reach for people with joy and tenderness at the most unlikely moments, should prevail.


These are of course selfish opinions, but they remain valid ones in this complicated debate.
 
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nomos

Administrator
This has been on my mind more than usual lately as I've had two family members slip into terminal states in the last month. The morbid tedium of this sort of situation has been really apparent to me this time around - knowing one will die and experiencing increasing amounts of pain, discomfort, infection, immobility, frustration and indignity while fending off the inevitable. Neither has asked for help to die, but if they did i couldn't say they were wrong. In 2002, my grandfather desperately wanted help to die while in the end stages of a very painful cancer fight and nothing could be done for him. I really don't see the honour in waiting out the last horrific days/weeks of an illness, or the moral justification for requiring a person and their family to experience that.

I'm not sure what the laws in Britain are like, but here the mother of a man who was terminally ill and carefully prepared his own suicide has been found guilty of complicity in his death and is facing a sentence of 14 years (although leniancy is expected unless they choose to make an example of her).

There really ought to be a legal way of dealing with this type of situation that doesn't impose unecessary suffering on the dying or the threat of prosecution upon families and doctors. Concerns over the abuse of such a mechanism, or even its potential eugenic applications, are well founded, but something needs to change.
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
I don't see abuse of the system as being that much of a problem. If the person asks to be euthanized then there's no problem. However if they are already in a state beyond being able to express their desires then a consensus between doctors and the family would prevent much abuse. Sure the family can pressure the doctor but the doctor isn't likely to agree if there's a good chance of survival. Otherwise it doesn't matter anyway and it's not fair to impose the cost of life support on the family/taxpayers.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
There's a great gulf between turning off life support (disabling the means by which a life is being artificially prolonged) and euthanisia (artificially introducing the means by which a life is ended).
 

jasonh

Newbie
I would support a person's right to assisted suicide - you control what you/your body does for a large proportion of your life. If that body is dying slowly, with no hope of restoration and no quality of life, you should be enabled to die with the dignity you deserve.

This would need a legal framework - a living will, signed off by the person wanting to die in such a way, with independent witnesses - to prevent the kind of situation already mentioned.
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
But most people who want euthanasia are in a hospital already. They may not require a machine to breathe but they are on a constant drug regimen. You assume that there's some natural life span. I am not sure that can be so easily dileneated. In any case, I don't see it as such a wide gulf.

As far as I know in the US it's not so simple to turn off life support even when the patient may want it.
 
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bassnation

the abyss
DigitalDjigit said:
But most people who want euthanasia are in a hospital already. They may not require a machine to breathe but they are on a constant drug regimen. You assume that there's some natural life span. I am not sure that can be so easily dileneated. In any case, I don't see it as such a wide gulf.

As far as I know in the US it's not so simple to turn off life support even when the patient may want it.

didn't someone come up with a machine to self-administer a lethal dose of barbiturates? i would imagine its hard for the doctors and nurses who have to do these things, even if its what the patient wants.
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
Lichen said:
There's a great gulf between turning off life support (disabling the means by which a life is being artificially prolonged) and euthanisia (artificially introducing the means by which a life is ended).

Yeah, the main difference being that turning of life support can result in a pretty agonising death a lot of the time - starvation, suffocation, etc etc, whereas the point of euthanasia is it's quick and pain free.

If the end is inevitable, why not let the sufferer choose the time and means of it?
 

Melchior

Taking History Too Far
Lichen said:
What of the wealthy 83 year old woman who is inveigled into a clinic by her children, impatient for their loot?

Assisted death should be kept from the statute books and remain the preserve of palliative carers, who practice it anyway without interference and without the risk of an appalling grey area emerging.

If you want to ensure the safty of the people who are critically ill, you need to have an extremely rigurous framework surrounding it. If you eave it in the hands of carers you have far more risk of the sort of thing you mention happening.

For what it's worth, if we could move away from the term euthenasia and towards assisted suicide, I think the objections of some people might be lessened. The element of lack of choice always comes up. If it's not freely chosen, it's murder, pure and simple.
 

wonk_vitesse

radio eros
john eden said:
My position is that if people are terminally ill and their lives are full of unindurable, unsolvable pain, then if they choose to die that should be supported.

yup i'd concur with that , if the law changes this is what it should enable and it should be very stringent. It should not be a 'treatment choice' but a carefully thought through process that is rigorous enough to avoid any doubt. I've had 2 relatives die in over prolonged stays in hospital. Both their wills left money to the voluntary euthanasia society.

My aunt, who died last year, was allowed to starve herself to death and cease any treatment, she had to endure nearly a mth of agony, I know she would have just liked to say good bye to everyone and go.
 
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fldsfslmn

excremental futurism
Euthanasia will never be fully accepted because it interferes with or subverts the medical/pharmacological industry. Any talk of ethics is secondary.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
quite surprised to see so many people come down in favour of it. thanks for your contribution as well lichen.

my own experience with this situation was that the time i spent with the dying person was immeasurably valuable. valuable for both of us i think.

i, perhaps idiotically, think there is some kind of sanctity to life's own rhythms. though whether i would have the courage to respect such a thing if i was diagnosed with a terminal illness is a different matter.

one point i think it's important to make, and this obviously runs counter to other people's experiences of hospices, nursing homes and hospitals, is that not only do people working there try their best to help, but also (and this is crucial, and may appear contradictory to what i'm sayinng) the way death is managed is usually with a hefty cocktail of drugs.

in the case of someone like diane petty, i wonder how close she wasn't in fact to being put down with morphine when her quality of life diminshed drastically? my fear is that institutionalised "law-making" meddling in what i'd see as gently functionable grey area, will produce nothing but negative results.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I don't think that anyone is saying that time spent with a dying person can't be valuable or is advocating assisted death in such a situation. But if a person is in great pain and feels that the agony of the last few months or whatever is going to prevent any such gain then they should be allowed to make that decision; just because the option is there doesn't mean that everyone is going to use it. The only argument I can see against offering people the choice (interesting, the terminology and the situation is similar to abortion, I wonder if being "pro-choice" in one is related to being pro-choice in the other) is that people may find a way to take advantage of people who are not of sound mind but this seems to be an issue of how to implement the law not an ethical reason not to do it.
 

Melchior

Taking History Too Far
IdleRich said:
I don't think that anyone is saying that time spent with a dying person can't be valuable or is advocating assisted death in such a situation. But if a person is in great pain and feels that the agony of the last few months or whatever is going to prevent any such gain then they should be allowed to make that decision; just because the option is there doesn't mean that everyone is going to use it. The only argument I can see against offering people the choice (interesting, the terminology and the situation is similar to abortion, I wonder if being "pro-choice" in one is related to being pro-choice in the other) is that people may find a way to take advantage of people who are not of sound mind but this seems to be an issue of how to implement the law not an ethical reason not to do it.

What he said.
 

milkandhoney

Well-known member
fldsfslmn said:
Euthanasia will never be fully accepted because it interferes with or subverts the medical/pharmacological industry. Any talk of ethics is secondary.

in what way does the medical "industry" benefit from prolonging the lives of those close to death?
 
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