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This is a hot debate in itself. We live in a multi-faith society and a person's own moral values can't fairly dictate what they do or don't do in a regulated profession. How is this much different then saying I work provide care for someone who is gay, a different religion or have different social or political views. When you work as a regulated health care provider you agree to practice under certain standards. If you canèt work within those standards then you should not be practicing. It is not my choice how my patients choose to live or die. I am here to provide information, options and to listen to their concerns. What THEY choose is on them and not me. As long as health care workers are working in their scope of practice, try to provide service in a dignified and neutral fashion and have done their due dilegiance then their should be no issue. People need to get off their moral high horses and remember what they signed up for.
In other words if you can't handle the heat get out of the kitchen.
I have already had this debate at work and I maintain that health care workers need to be professional and respect the rights and views of their patients and stop pushing their own moral, social or politcal agenda's.
I have seen some crazy abuse of power working in health care and I think especially with issues like this patients need to push back and stand up for their rights to CHOOSE even if they are not interested in making a certain choice. I personal feel just a morally guilty if I feel like we are with holding information and choices just because they are more controversal.
The Hippocratic Oath, for one thing. I don't disagree with the basic premise of if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen but the kitchen of the future wasn't the kitchen current physicians bargained for. I still maintain that there is nothing higher than one's conscience. If physicians of the future are required to fulfill requests of patients to die, then those at war with their conscience about it shouldn't become physicians.
We have to right to refuse medical treatment as it stands. The question is about the medically assisted choice to die, which as it stands, isn't simply based either on what a patient wants but very specifically about their mental and physical health as determined by physicians. So it's never going to be entirely about choice.
I watched the first video. My thoughts. It's not up to the nurse to make moral judgements on people that have chosen this route.
Couldn't agree more. Around the time that I was told that my Dad was terminally ill, during December 1972 (he died a month later) the case People v. Montemarno (link to news article), charging a doctor in a "mercy killing began. The article is about his acquittal. If you can't read the full article DM your email address and I'll send it. The jury's verdict, while not expressly supporting mercy killing (jury verdict's reasonings are not public knowledge) certainly evidenced a desire that these decisions be private.
My Dad's death is relevant since it bore on the handling of my Dad's case.
I watched the first video. My thoughts. It's not up to the nurse to make moral judgements on people that have chosen this route.
What I think is that no one knows what they will do until they are in those shoes. In that sense I am uncomfortable with the idea of the government making any laws for or against. What one thinks is incapable of being born changes sometimes when one is at that point. Contrary to what Botticelli seems to think, laws allowing for assisted suicide aren't in contradiction to better palliative care and better pain control for those who need it.
There are conditions which we think we would find unbearable when we are healthy that don't seem that unbearable when we are actually in that position. I think of Stephen Hawking as an obvious example. Few of us could imagine wanting to live if we had his condition. I had a childhood friend who was a quadriplegic as the result of a car accident in his early twenties. He was an active guy. He died a few years ago after having spent a large part of the year unable even to speak because he was on a ventilator. He had been so bitter about his accident that I was shocked when I was told that he had wanted to live. I had been thinking to myself it was good that he was out of his misery.
Couldn't agree more. Around the time that I was told that my Dad was terminally ill, during December 1972 (he died a month later) the case People v. Montemarno (link to news article), charging a doctor in a "mercy killing began. The article is about his acquittal. If you can't read the full article DM your email address and I'll send it. The jury's verdict, while not expressly supporting mercy killing (jury verdict's reasonings are not public knowledge) certainly evidenced a desire that these decisions be private.
My Dad's death is relevant since it bore on the handling of my Dad's case.
Thanks. I see in the US euthanasia is a state law, rather than a federal one, like in Canada. My feeling is that doctors have been giving people " an extra shot " as it were, to help them when dying. My grandmother certainly felt that about my grandfather.
What I think is that no one knows what they will do until they are in those shoes. In that sense I am uncomfortable with the idea of the government making any laws for or against. What one thinks is incapable of being born changes sometimes when one is at that point. Contrary to what Botticelli seems to think, laws allowing for assisted suicide aren't in contradiction to better palliative care and better pain control for those who need it.
There are conditions which we think we would find unbearable when we are healthy that don't seem that unbearable when we are actually in that position. I think of Stephen Hawking as an obvious example. Few of us could imagine wanting to live if we had his condition. I had a childhood friend who was a quadriplegic as the result of a car accident in his early twenties. He was an active guy. He died a few years ago after having spent a large part of the year unable even to speak because he was on a ventilator. He had been so bitter about his accident that I was shocked when I was told that he had wanted to live. I had been thinking to myself it was good that he was out of his misery.
This article explains some of the ins and outs.
People won't be able to have someone forced to have a medically assisted death. The person themselves must be of sound mind and be able to communicate that they want it. It also looks like the law is written to prevent people from using medical assisted dying as a way to commit suicide. The article mentions the possibility of court challenges to that, so I guess time will tell, but your friend who wanted to live, if he were alive today, would not have to worry about being forced to something they don't want.
Well, it's hard to track down a non-biased story about a patient identified only as "H" but honestly, nothing about this story sounds true as it is written. I wouldn't completely rule it out because weird things happen, but that would be an exception.
I work in an environment where you think people would be wanting to act on the opportunity for assisted suicide... I would with 1000s of patients each year and I have had no requests expressed by anyone.
I really in general think that this is on of those things that not that many people will actually follow through with and those who do usually tend to have had loved ones go through the same process or have actually worked in health care or a related feild really understand the disease process and are willing to agressively persue it.
We are not around ending lives because someone suddenly feels depressed. There are many steps before this can actually happen and most people ready to give up are usually so close to the end that they are not even physically able to express this wishes to act on this. I personally currently see the other end of the specturm ... families that just wont give up and accept that the person is dying and the only thing we can actually do is keep the person comfortable.
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