euthanasia -- yay or nay

[telecom_goddess]

I'm sure this topic has been brought up before but here goes......how do you all feel about euthanasia? Should it be legal, and people who want to practice it be able to do it in peace without a bunch of red tape?

I believe that it should be legal and easily available for those that are in misery and want to control their own destiny. We do it with animals..."put them out of their misery cause they are suffering"...why can't we afford the same courtesy to the human race? Life is precious yes but not THAT much that people should be forced to live in misery.

[HYHYBT]

In theory, I think it's right... but I believe that, in practice, it would be, simultaneously, too easy to get away with murder *and* too difficult to use legitimately because of regulations to prevent said murders.

If someone comes up with a reliable way to avoid those problems, I'm all for it.

[Lace Neil Singer]

The thing is, people kill off elderly relatives etc anyway, even without euthanasia. I don't think legalising it would suddenly make people think, "Hey guess what, we can get rid of Aunty Flo now!" They're doing it anyway, by poisoning or smothering and thinking they covered their tracks.

It would be a lot better if a person could make a living will to say that if they're in a vegetative state, for example, and there's no way they can come out (for example, in case of brain death) then doctors can administer something to let them pass away in peace. All you can do now is state "no ressussatation" and in some cases, relatives will ignore that anyway.

[Ipecac Drano]

One should be able to declare beforehand in writing under which circumstances their life should be terminated. Copies of this document should be left with an attorney and with a designated family member or friend.

Should the health care facility and/or the patient determine that termination should commence, the attorney as well as the designated person should be notified immediately.

[telecom_goddess]

Well I don't think it should be a means for relatives to get rid of other people.... It should be a means for that person to decide when they can die and how....

[Racket_Man]

One should be able to declare beforehand in writing under which circumstances their life should be terminated. Copies of this document should be left with an attorney and with a designated family member or friend.

Should the health care facility and/or the patient determine that termination should commence, the attorney as well as the designated person should be notified immediately.

this is what my Mom and Dad had done. they created a "Hard Power of Attorney" documents for the surviving spouse (which my Mom had to use when Dad went into congestive heart failure) or designated relative (all of us kids). the documents stated the exact conditions under which "live saving or extraordinary medical measures/proceedures were to NOT be employed". the documents were notarized and legalized (what means I do not know).

just keeping someone on life support after "brain death" just becasue medical science can is not a good reason to keep the body functioning. let them pass in dignity.

[lordlundar]

the documents were notarized and legalized (what means I do not know).

It's essentially a legal endorsement. A lawyer has gone over the information, declared that no part of it is illegal and with their signature and notarization (an embossment on the sheet that is a combination of the firm identification and bar standing), renders it an iron-clad legal document, whereas before hand was simply a piece of paper with writing on it.

[Lace Neil Singer]

just keeping someone on life support after "brain death" just becasue medical science can is not a good reason to keep the body functioning. let them pass in dignity.

I agree. To my mind, once the brain has died, the person has, too. All that you are doing if you use machines to keep them breathing, is keeping the shell functioning. The thing that makes you a person, whatever you call it; the spirit, soul or essence; is gone and never can return. Keeping what is essentially a corpse animated is not going to bring them back.

[Seshat]

I want to extend euthanasia beyond the brain-dead-body-functioning situation. Here's my (rough) guidelines:

* chronic loss of 'joy in life', with no realistic prognosis of improvement.

This can mean anything from the paranoid schizophrenic whose existance is a nightmare of delusions of being chased and attacked;
to a person whose mind is alive but their body is no longer functional, they've lost their most valuable senses, and they're stuck in a nursing home with the only 'bright' spot in their day being when they become aware of someone touching them, so they're no longer alone.

Yes, these must be extreme cases. Someone like me is not a candidate - if nothing else, you can stick me in said nursing home and run DVDs of classical music for me, and I can lose myself in that. Joy in life. (Besides, I have a prognosis of improvement.)


* severe chronic pain, with no realistic prognosis of improvement, and the available joy in life is insufficient to provide suitable distraction from the pain.

Most of these cases are going to be end stage cancer patients, some will have suffered severe and multiple spinal trauma, some will have other VERY nasty conditions. The pain will ideally be objectively verified - we don't yet have the technology to do it reliably, but I've heard of a couple of experimental units that provide non-invasive objective pain level verification.

If you need palliative levels of painkiller just to be able to listen to Mozart without writhing and screaming, you're a candidate. Palliative levels of painkiller will (usually) addict you, and just might kill you anyway.




My family is sure that my grandfather was quietly euthanised. He was in a hospital, unconscious from - oh, I forget. A stroke, I think. One of those 'death by old age' conditions.
Everyone who wanted to come up to see him did. We grandchild-generation saw him one night, and agreed to let his daughters see him alone the next morning, intending to see him again that afternoon if he was still around.

The daughters went in to see him, then came out in tears and went to comfort each other. The doctor went in, came out shortly after, sent a nurse in, and the nurse quietly went to my mother and her sisters and told them he was dead.

There was no hope of recovery, and the doctor (if we're right) chose to spare us the possibility of his living-corpse lingering on for days or weeks on end. Let everyone say their goodbyes, then pull the plug.




Now... as for the problem of the misuse of euthanasia: that's a very, very tough one. I know when I'd use it, and it's very clear to me which cases are clear 'go for it', and which are clear 'don't', and where the grey blurry area is.

I think we'd probably have to use the system we do now for some types of edge case - use magistrates as advocates for the person-who-cannot-help-themselves. A magistrate or assistant speaks to (or tries to communicate with) the patient, then the family comes to the magistrate to make their case. The magistrate then makes a ruling. I think this would come under Family Court, at least in Aussieland.

Where the patient themselves is both mentally capable of making a decision and capable of communicating it (even if they need assistive technology to do so), simply having an authorised witness present as a court representative, and having them look for signs of coercion or duress, should do the job. (If they see any coercion or duress, they dump the situation neatly into the police' lap as a potential case of attempted murder.)

[Racket_Man]

My family is sure that my grandfather was quietly euthanised. He was in a hospital, unconscious from - oh, I forget. A stroke, I think. One of those 'death by old age' conditions.
Everyone who wanted to come up to see him did. We grandchild-generation saw him one night, and agreed to let his daughters see him alone the next morning, intending to see him again that afternoon if he was still around.

The daughters went in to see him, then came out in tears and went to comfort each other. The doctor went in, came out shortly after, sent a nurse in, and the nurse quietly went to my mother and her sisters and told them he was dead.

There was no hope of recovery, and the doctor (if we're right) chose to spare us the possibility of his living-corpse lingering on for days or weeks on end. Let everyone say their goodbyes, then pull the plug.

that is what happened with my Dad. he had collapased (congestive haeart failure) on the kitchen floor while my Mom was in the basment. she was down there for like 5 - 10 minutes before finding him lying on the floor. the EMTs got there FAST (within 5 minutes) but his heart had not been really beating for most of that time. they rushed him to the hospital and immediately put him on life support.

the state in which they lived had certain legal/time requirements and tests that had to be performed before the Dr's could pronounce him "brain dead" such things as 2 EEG test 48 hours apart and the life support was really the only thing keeping his body functioning. all of the test said he was braindead

at least it gave all of us (siblings and grandchildren) time to get there to say goodbye. all of the legal requirements were fufilled and Mom, who had all of the legal documents had the life support removed.

strange but we all were there in the room when everything slowed and stopped.

[Lachrymose]

I'll extend it even further and say that we should have the option to die at any time we want regardless of the circumstances.

Total control of our own lives.

Yes, that would possibly upset family, etc. but you would have to personally take that into account.

[girlinaz]

I'm all for it. As a nurse, I have seen so many patients whose families could not let them go, although the patients themselves were ready.

[Imprl59]

I am all for it as well.

I have a friend who works in a nursing home. The whole concept makes no sense to me... If my dawg gets sick and can't be cured I put him to sleep but if my granny gets sick and can't be cured we feed her through a tube let her lay there in agony every day for years. So many of the people there haven't been aware of themselves for years yet they do everything they can to keep them alive. I hope that if I ever get in that shape someone has the decency to take me out behind the wood shed and shoot me.

[telecom_goddess]

I am all for it as well.

I have a friend who works in a nursing home. The whole concept makes no sense to me... If my dawg gets sick and can't be cured I put him to sleep but if my granny gets sick and can't be cured we feed her through a tube let her lay there in agony every day for years. So many of the people there haven't been aware of themselves for years yet they do everything they can to keep them alive. I hope that if I ever get in that shape someone has the decency to take me out behind the wood shed and shoot me.

My sentiments exactly. Why are we so willing to put pets out of their misery but not humans? in fact it's worse because we do have intelligence and can feel the pain of a life like that even more than an animal.

[Andara Bledin]

I am for it, myself, although not to quite the degree as Lachrymose.

I'm a proponent of quality of life over quantity of life.

^-.-^