Death With Dignity (DWD) and Non-Terminal Issues (compared, education, support)

[evening sun]

I have no problem with a person ending their life if they are ill or very old. I hate young suicides. However, if a person is 104 & wants to die, listening to Beethoven, I don't see why he had to go to Switzerland to do it. He could do it at home, or out in a field.
Assisted suicides should be for people who are unable to move to do it themselves.

[SkyLark2019]

I still have emotional issues from watching the long terrible death of a woman who had cancer.

If death is inevitable, assisted suicide is the best thing. What is noble about letting a person die in agony to appease superstition?

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by SkyLark2019

I still have emotional issues from watching the long terrible death of a woman who had cancer.

If death is inevitable, assisted suicide is the best thing. What is noble about letting a person die in agony to appease superstition?

Thank you. I've watched that too. Fifty or so years ago I drove my Mom from Baltimore to Morgantown, WV where one of her aging uncles was in the University of WV Hospital and dying of brain cancer, one of the worst cancers. We looked in on him, he was in a coma, with tubes everywhere and machines beeping. At that point it fails to be healthcare and is more a case of cruel and unusual punishment. When one is terminal with no hope of recovery we should be allowed the option to take a pill and gently go to sleep. Ten states have that and bills are pending in more states.

When it comes to "appease superstition" one of my gripes is with the Catholic church. It runs ~600 major hospitals and ~2000 nursing homes around the country. They take in billions every year keeping dying people alive as long as possible so they can milk Medicare or Medicaid while hiding behind the religious fiction that life is precious. The only thing precious to the Vatican is money and power. When DWD came up as a statewide ballot issue via public referendum in Colorado the measure passed with ~70% approval, despite the Diocese of Denver spending over $1M to fight it. This nonsense is part of the reason that fully a third of Medicare spending occurs in the last year of a person's life.

The Compassion and Choices website has stories about people who chose the DWD method to end their life before untold misery befell them. One I vividly recall was a woman in her late 20s who was terminal; she planned her end and did it as a party with lots of her pals gathered around to celebrate her life. They all held hands as the patient went to sleep.

All of us should have that option.

[Lillie767]

This is certainly a complex subject. How to separate euthanasia from a rational decision to end one's life? How to reconcile the horror of Karl Brandt, the driving force of the Nazi euthanasia program, who continued to espouse that euthanasia benefited the individual as well as society, with an individual's right to personal self-determination?


At his trial in Nuremburg, Karl Brandt testified:

"I am deeply conscious before myself that when I said "Yes" to Euthanasia I did that in my deepest conviction, just as it is my conviction today, that it was right. Death can mean relief. Death is life - just as much as birth. Never was it meant to be murder. I bear this burden but it is not the burden of crime. I bear this burden of mine, though, with a heavy heart as my responsibility. Before it, I survive and pass, and before my conscience, as a man and as a doctor."

https://nbg-02.lil.tools/transcripts...ate=1947-07-19

Is he describing death with dignity?

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by Lillie767

This is certainly a complex subject. How to separate euthanasia from a rational decision to end one's life? How to reconcile the horror of Karl Brandt, the driving force of the Nazi euthanasia program, who continued to espouse that euthanasia benefited the individual as well as society., with an individual's right to personal self-determination?


At his trial in Nuremburg, Karl Brandt testified:

"I am deeply conscious before myself that when I said "Yes" to Euthanasia I did that in my deepest conviction, just as it is my conviction today, that it was right. Death can mean relief. Death is life - just as much as birth. Never was it meant to be murder. I bear this burden but it is not the burden of crime. I bear this burden of mine, though, with a heavy heart as my responsibility. Before it, I survive and pass, and before my conscience, as a man and as a doctor."

https://nbg-02.lil.tools/transcripts...ate=1947-07-19

Is he describing death with dignity?

No. He tried to save his own neck by rationalizing and justifying his forcing death on others who were unwilling to die or simply not mentally competent to even know what was going on.

DWD does not force anything on anyone. It is totally voluntary and 100% the freewill choice of the patient.

[chrisCD]

So how do you rationally separate the young, jilted lover over the young person that just doesn't want to play life's game or they don't they do. Put an age limit, unless someone is clearly terminal? Allow a hearing before a Judge to convince them that you are making a rational, of sound mind choice?


There also diseases that are not immediately terminal such as dementia and Alzheimer's (gosh I have had to write that word far too many times). My mom's best friend went fast, but it was my mom's worst nightmare to face a similar fate. My mom has not gone fast. She did not want to be where she currently is, but she had a few good years, before she wasn't capable of making the choice for herself any longer.



cd : O)

[MarisaAnna]

Originally Posted by chrisCD

So how do you rationally separate the young, jilted lover over the young person that just doesn't want to play life's game or they don't they do. Put an age limit, unless someone is clearly terminal? Allow a hearing before a Judge to convince them that you are making a rational, of sound mind choice?


There also diseases that are not immediately terminal such as dementia and Alzheimer's (gosh I have had to write that word far too many times). My mom's best friend went fast, but it was my mom's worst nightmare to face a similar fate. My mom has not gone fast. She did not want to be where she currently is, but she had a few good years, before she wasn't capable of making the choice for herself any longer.



cd : O)

Here is a fairly simple outline of how it will operate here.

https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/volunt...%20this%20date.

It does not cover dementia and being tired of life, nor is it available yet in other states.
But the advocates here are closely watching developments overseas where it has been extended.

I my mother’s case, the last few days were shortened by morphine, which my brother requested in case she was in pain. That is common.

[steiconi]

The physician's oath says "First, do no harm." If someone is terminally ill, or in pain, or incapable of living a happy life, it's wrong and causes harm to forcibly keep them alive.

I think we each have the right to decide when it's time to go. It's pretty arrogant for governments, religions, and medical personnel to tell us we have to follow their rules on something so personal. We have rights, they don't give us rights.

Younger, healthy people should probably get counseling before making that final decision, but their pain is real even if it isn't physical.

[Only2Chins]

Originally Posted by Lillie767

Watching someone die in hospice care at home was the worst experience of my life. No hydration; no nutrition. Just a slow wasting away. Every day worse than the one before. Life slowly ebbing away.

I do not want to subject my family to that experience.

Passively dying is not better than pro-actively dying. It is seriously worse.

My father signed papers to disallow extended measures if his condition became incompatible with life. That's what happened. He had such a massive stroke, his head and face were distorted and he fell into a coma.

When I visited him in the nursing home, he was totally unresponsive and no longer receiving n/h. It was ugly to watch, for sure. He wasn't in pain because morphine was regularly administered. As the days ground by; it took him two weeks to die; the horror was bad enough that we'd step into the hall and say baldly to one another "I wish someone would just give him too much morphine."

Since his death, I've begun to do a lot of research on the issue of stopping nutrition and hydration. There are a number of hospice vloggers who discuss this. In effect - it's better to stop than continue in many-many cases. Medical journals back that up.

Someone who explains that well is is Nurse Julie. She changed her career from an ICU nurse to hospice specifically because of the suffering she had to facilitate in keeping dying people going. She wants to help the dying have a good death, but also counsel the living who keep the vigil.

It's an ugly process for outsiders to watch, but I've reached enough of an understanding that the edict will be part of my end-of-life paperwork.

[CCS414]

Regardless of the law, there are non violent options out there like the helium hood. Your body, your choice and no one should be subjected to prolonged suffering when quality of life has deteriorated.