I'm glad to live in a state that allows this (Washington). I wonder what the laws are for moving to one of the three states that allow self-medicated suicide when you find out you're going to die, as far as if it affects the waiting period at all?

It's weird to see other countries in the same spot for non-religious reasons. And I second the being glad to live in a state that gets this right thing.

But France seems to be having issues with this, if I'm reading this right:

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/jean-leonetti-l-euthanasie-est-le-contraire-d-un-acte-fraternel_719780.html?xtor=RSS-186

I am all for adults being allowed to choose not to live. I have issues when people make this choice for others who haven't stated they want it. In-utero babies for example. But this I think is great.

The very last thing I want, or need, in my life is peckerhead politicians and/or religious nutters making MY decisions for me! This is awesome, and I hope the appeal fails. We all have the right to live responsibly, and that should include the right to die responsibly too.
o.O

While I am a sincere believer in the Imaginary Sky Friend, my reservations on this issue are strictly social. (Incidentally, you'll get farther with people if you'll avoid referring to their core beliefs in contemptuous terms.)

I'm easily persuaded by arguments about the "right to die." My worry is when the "right to die" becomes the "obligation to die." I don't want anyone pressured out the door just because their lingering illness is draining their estate of cash, and the hiers are seeing their payoff go to doctors and hospitals, and I fear this is where we're going.

Lamont

Judge Dorothy McCarter declared that mentally "competent, terminally ill patients" may self-administer life ending medication and that physicians who prescribe the medications need not fear criminal prosecution.

Call me a cynic, but how long before the civil lawsuits begin? All it will take is one, for the physicians to put the brakes on this.

Just remember this when the state decides that physicians will prescribe/shall assist.

I told you so.

These "rights" that judges cook up never end with the individual. I'm a small "l" libertarian. Your rights end where others' begin. The day will come when doctors are forced to kill people. After that, the useless and hopeless will be culled by the state. Count on it.

Lamont,

The way that I read this, only competent, terminally ill patients can make this determination, not the hiers. And that is the way it should be. It is an individual choice.

To my mind, anyone who would rather have thier loved one suffer, than willingly find peace, is selfish to the extreme.

(Incidentally, you'll get farther with people if you'll avoid referring to their core beliefs in contemptuous terms.)
Lamont

Tell me Lamont how can I not be contemptuous of a system predicated on belief of the unprovable and in the case of christianity the core text is a millenia old second hand account that has been edited and pures dozens of times and that most belives never bother to read?

MarkD, some states have enacted a whole competing set of laws permitting caregivers to refuse to provide treatment that violates their conscience. In the case of refusing to dispense contraceptives or scientifically valid advice about abortion, a lot of people are upset that the state does NOT prevent medical personnel from following their own conscience. The sentiment is, "They should not take a job they are not willing to perform."

I agree that the state should not force both patient and physician to do something neither wants, but when it's a difference of opinion between the patient and the doctor, the patient's wishes should take precedence.

Many need life support to remain alive. We take these folks off of life support all the time - and they die. Sometimes it takes minutes. Sometimes longer. Depends on what their bodies can still do.

But death is inevitable. So that means we're ok with allowing people to die if s/he doesn't want to live anymore. Taking someone off of life support isn't *passive*. It is quite an active role in helping the person die.

To me, helping a person whose body is wasting away from, say Lou Gehrig's (kill my grandpa at age 54, one year almost to the day from his diagnosis. Still no cure.). Taking a person off of a machine that breathes for him is no different to me than inserting an IV and overdosing him on morphine.

Personally, dying of a morphine OD is probably much more enjoyable than dying from lungs that don't work. Enjoyable might be a bad word - let's go with humane.

I'm with Lamont and MarkD. I totally believe that people have the right to end their own lives. I'm just very uncomfortable with doctors being involved. If a terminally ill or otherwise suffering person needs assistance to die, I would rather it came from a close family member who has the person's best interests in mind, not someone just doing his job. And there should be some kind of living will involved.

As someone who has been on morphine Gretchen I can assure you it is very enjoyable

Also gretchen I was asking what poster put the 4400 on youtube

I back Gretchen's post. The opinion cited is so clear that I don't see the need to post mine.

Sure you should have the right to choose, but if you want a tough decision try having someone, perhaps your mother, ask "should I die"? Decision made in advance about what will be done can be very hard to stick to when the situation finally arises.

You might want to give this a whole lot of thought. There's a very real possibility we're going to end up with a government-run healthcare system in the next four years.

We already see Britain denying treatment to old people on basis of return on investment.

If you make euthanasia legal, and you have a government run health-care payment system, then you WILL have "The only thing we'll pay for is euthanasia. Anything else is on your dime".

It's a perfectly rational thing for a cost-containment system to do. The system doesn't have compassion. The system only cares about the bottom line. And if it's gonna cost more to keep you alive than they're gonna get out of you in tax revenues before you die, then you can fully expect them to offer you the needle, or go die in the park somewhere.

That is the best reason for never allowing physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication. You wanna die that bad, eat a gun. Don't give the government (or the HMOs for that matter) the ability to say "We'll only pay for you to kill yourself."

Luj - the user is 4400episodes. The episodes are listed by episode name and divided into four parts a piece. I kept an episode listing open and just did a new search after I watched all four vids.

Some ramblings/elaborations:

Though I've never taken anything harder than a perk (wisdom teeth), I would wager that it beats trying to breathe with lungs that are basically solidifying...while you're completely paralyzed and need a nurse for every little thing.

My argument (re: aborting babies who might be mentally retarded) was that death isn't necessarily the worst option. That living is perhaps worse in some extreme cases. On the flip side I also feel that being mildly retarded may not mean life is less enjoyable or appreciated (making the whole thing tough for me. Which I don't mind - I think it should be a tough thing to decide.). That all said, I don't support the notion that simply being alive is the best thing for all persons. A long, painful terminal illness isn't "mild retardation".

Maybe slipping away into a painless, quiet death tucked into a warm bed with loved ones around is far better than wasting away for two years. People can't be with you every moment of the day until your fate arrives. Not everyone gets a warning. You'll probably die alone wearing a diaper and your last meal will have been pureed Rice Crispies and milk with a spoonful of sugar (that's what Papa had to eat - liquefied everything.).

And I'm sorry - no one is waiting at the end of it with a gold metal for the sport of suffering. It doesn't make you a better person to decide to rot in a hospice room.

Good point in the last paragraph, there Brian. In spite of the Libertarian mantra that corporations are good and government is bad, they're both equally likely to screw you over. After all, both are organizations whose operations evolve (however they might have started out) to promote one end: the continued well-being of the organization.

And a bit of advice about eating a gun. Best to use a small caliber and hold a garbage can lid on the side of the head opposite the muzzle. Splatter is hard for the undertaker to clean up.

"not someone just doing his job. And there should be some kind of living will involved."

Living wills aren't always binding. Check your state laws. MA doesn't have a living will or advanced med directive statute; only health care proxies, which give someone the ability to make medical decisions OBO you in case you can't.

I think the fact a doctor is just doing his job is *exactly* what makes him the best person to help assist. Maybe you're thinking you'd like a family member to push the button to release the drip? ...no one said it had to be a totally clinical experience. But if a doctor is overseeing it s/he'll ensure you actually do die, instead of turn yourself into a veggie. Furthermore - it'll ensure painlessness. Who wants to play around with a bunch of OTC pills or a gun?!

We're talking about ending some major pain here - cowardly or not, why add to it?

A doctor can be a non biased voice in an otherwise very emotional process.

Gotta love those prairie states. You can drop your kid off in Nebraska and head on up to Montana to off yourself.

I have had 4 deaths in the family in the last 2 weeks. Dec is always bad for us. 3 were chronically ill and/or old, and one was reasonably old and diabetic, but an MSRA infection is what offed him. None were sans family when they died. In fact, when the brain tumor cousin died, the hospice nurse sat for HOURS taking notes of the whole experience because it was, as she said, the most loving, normal, supportive thing she had ever seen. And good death is her job. As I've said, I and I think anyone in my family would have supported said cousin had he wanted all the meds at once. He chose not to. It should be, and must be, a choice. That an adult makes for themselves.

Most recent death was an 89 year old great aunt. She was gone in her head and unable to care for herself. This came about fairly rapidly, she had not been in a nursing home for more than a few months, and was somewhat herself when she went in, could go out for lunches, etc. At the end, she could not say she wanted no IV fluid or nutrition. But she HAD made that clear to family prior, for years. So the family made the call. Again, it was the adult patient's choice.

A Dr just doing his job would be fabulous, to make sure it happened correctly and completely. But a Dr just doing his job should not make the decision. Only the patient.

If you have denied the reality of your eventual death so strongly that you have never stated your wishes to anyone or in writing, I think the conservative (not cruel) approach needs to be followed.

The Hippocratic Oath precludes a doctor killing someone.

Hmm. The original Oath forbade doctors from performing abortions.

Have you bothered to define "harm"?

> Enjoyable might be a bad word - let's
> go with humane.

Reasons to like Gretchen (partial listing):

1. This comment

2. She's probably the youngest regular contributor here (or maybe Purp). She reduces our mean age substantially without saying goofy things. (And Lord knows, this is a mean age we live in....)

3. (More later)

> Tell me Lamont how can I not be
> contemptuous of a system predicated
> on belief of the unprovable

Humility, that's how... By acknowledging that religion addresses typical needs in the human heart that your own propensity for snot-blowing can't quite answer.

(Lamont, thanks for stopping in.)

> when it's a difference of opinion
> between the patient and the doctor,
> the patient's wishes should take
> precedence.

It's an interesting verge. For a long time I thought pharmacists shouldn't be compelled to offer morning-after pills. Even if they're wrong that it's murder (I believed), they shouldn't be compelled by the state to override their best judgment. Then Reynolds of Instapundit casually made the point that a pharmacist enjoys a state-sanctioned monopoly in an important market, and our fee for that monopoly is submission; we don't allow those guys to decide whether or not selling heroine to healthy teenagers is moral, either.

This issue covers some of that territory. But maybe we need to let some doctors live with the presumption that their careers are only about making people stronger and healtier... So if you want to do yourself in, you gotta get another doctor.

PS- A few years ago a dear family member fell into early dementia and eventual death. Her first and most intrusive (surgical) care was provided at a Catholic hospital, though we were (she was) not Catholic. Everyone in that building was clear-minded and explicit about the things that made life worthwhile. I had expected to hear, at some moment during her weeks there, at least a whisper of rhetoric about the nobility of suffering or a suggestion that typical sorrows are a component of a righteous life.

But that whisper never came. Her many doctors were always brutally/wonderfully clear with her and her family about how things would go as her conditions progressed. They always took the time to be sure we knew what was what; but none of this medicine came coated in sugar.

Her care, paid for from a typical pension, rivaled that received by the President of the United States.

So when the Amys of the world (and others) describe religious belief as kindergartner's cartoon of colorful deception and happy ignorance, I know that it's not true.

(Actually, named for a minister in the Methodist Church [my grandfather], I knew it wasn't true anyway. But I'm nowhere near as contemptuous of the Vatican as before that crisis.)

The Catholics run some of the best hospitals in the country. So do the Methodists. I am a little irked that the catholic and fabulous hospital I delivered my other 3 children at won't tie my tubes for me during this next c-section. I either have to choose another hospital or get it done later as as separate procedure. But you know what? I am free to do just that. It's their right to decide what non-life-saving treatments they'll offer. As much as I disagree with their stance on BC, I'll uphold their right to have it at THEIR hospitals.

And I've never heard one say suffering was good. Not at any of our family deaths. heck, I've never heard anyone period say that. Religious or not. I think some of you nonbelievers equate religion with cruelty for some odd reason. Even if they don't believe you should kill yourself early, they do believe you should be made comfortable.

Criddo - you made my morning!!

Actually brian, the hippocratic oath is to do no harm, it says nothing about assisting patients who are suffering, end that suffering. But please, try again.

There's a very real possibility we're going to end up with a government-run healthcare system in the next four years.

The odds that we'll end up with a mandatory single payer system in the next thirty years, are about the same as you growing an extra arm. Sure, we can't entirely discount the notion, but it is exceedingly unlikely.

then you WILL have "The only thing we'll pay for is euthanasia. Anything else is on your dime".

There is a huge difference between rationing healthcare and making the only option suicide.

That is the best reason for never allowing physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication. You wanna die that bad, eat a gun. Don't give the government (or the HMOs for that matter) the ability to say "We'll only pay for you to kill yourself."

Considering we don't have any form of UHC at the moment, not worth worrying about. And even if we get there, we're never going to see demands that people choose euthanasia or nothing.

At worse, there will be choices between entering hospice and getting the script - with only the former being an option today in similar situations. You seem to have some idea that healthcare isn't rationed today. Even if we're only talking about people who have insurance, treating terminal illness is a huge expense and at the very end a lot of insurers bow out of all but hospice care.

But the biggest problem with your fantasy of fear, is that your concerns should not trump my right to end my life with dignity and on my terms. I accepted a long time ago that I am probably going to have a fair amount of misery towards the end. Cancer and heart problems are just a fact of life for the paternal side of my genetics. While there is little reason to expect the end to come while I'm young, when it does it's probably going to really suck ass.

I will not waste away, palsied, tremoring, while invasive cells eat away at the healthy ones that are left. I will not wait and either suffer, or be incoherent with the massive quantities of painkillers necessary to keep me comfortable. I am going to go on my terms. I am going to go with dignity. And your petty fantasy of fear should not get in the way of me going with more dignity than eating one of my guns.

As a human being, one of the best things I've ever done and one of my greatest privileges was to hold my family member's hands while she died at a local hospital, surrounded by her loving family. How do you rearrange your molecules so that you can walk away from someone's bedside for the last time?

A friend of a family member killed himself in his own home. His wife had to find his body.

I have a family member who might take the same approach, to go out on his own terms before he loses his agency. I hate to think that, in the absence of a terminal illness, this senior citizen's best option is to die alone despite having family members who love him and live nearby.

Kelly Corrigan wrote a great book, The Middle Place. It includes a line I'm going to botch, about how sometimes your love for someone sinks hooks into you so deeply that they can't go down without taking you with them.

If anybody on this planet loves you, a dignified death that honors a life lived on your own terms is a huge gift to those you leave behind.

In the age of home health care and ubiquitous recording devices, I think we can come up with a protocol for assisting our adult loved ones in fulfilling their wish to die at home at their chosen time with their chosen drug cocktail, with sufficient monitoring/ recording to protect those who assist from being prosecuted, and those who are vulnerable from being offed early and against their wishes.

At least in Washington (and Oregon since we took their law) no doctor or institution who feels that it's against their Hippocratic Oath or personal ethics needs to prescribe the life ending medication if they do not want to. The person needs to ask for it three times over a three week period, twice in writing, and you will be evaluated psychologically by someone other than your usual doctor. There needs to be witnesses that are not family members or beneficiaries or medical staff. Only the person who has the prescription can take it, they can not be assisted and you need to have only 6 months to live in order to get the prescription. You do not need to inform your family members, though they recommend it.