As doctors drop opposition, aid-in-dying advocates target next battleground states

[rangerrebew]

As doctors drop opposition, aid-in-dying advocates target next battleground states
Nation Jan 27, 2018 11:23 AM EST

When the end draws near, Dr. Roger Kligler, a retired physician with incurable, metastatic prostate cancer, wants the option to use a lethal prescription to die peacefully in his sleep. As he fights for the legal right to do that, an influential doctors group in Massachusetts has agreed to stop trying to block the way.

Kligler, who lives in Falmouth, Mass., serves as one of the public faces for the national movement supporting medical aid in dying, which allows terminally ill people who are expected to die within six months to request a doctor’s prescription for medication to end their lives. Efforts to expand the practice, which is legal in six states and Washington, D.C., have met with powerful resistance from religious groups, disability advocates and the medical establishment.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/as-doctors-drop-opposition-aid-in-dying-advocates-target-next-battleground-states

[Suppressed]

Good.

I love how they always cite disabled opppnents, never pointing out that many in the disabled community are very supportive if this. .. as makes sense. Disabled persons know what it's like to have self-determination impeded or to not be able to get needed assistance.

[Joe Wooten]

The main trouble with this is that it is the start of a very slippery slope. The Netherlands legalized euthanasia a while back and now government doctors have ben caught euthanizing patients without their or their families permission. The bureaucrats WILL take advantage of these laws to get rid of inconvenient people.

[Oceander]

The main trouble with this is that it is the start of a very slippery slope. The Netherlands legalized euthanasia a while back and now government doctors have ben caught euthanizing patients without their or their families permission. The bureaucrats WILL take advantage of these laws to get rid of inconvenient people.

As will other people.  Grandma getting to be a pain and still sitting on a big pile of loot?  Euthanasia becomes all too tempting for impatient would-be heirs. 

[anubias]

I get what y’all are saying, but after having a front row seat to a loved one’s suffering, I would like the option to take that pill if I get in a similar state.  I should be able to end my life when I choose as I will not ask my family to risk prison to help ease me out.  I’d rather take the chance that the government or relatives getting rid of me early, than not have the option.

[Oceander]

I get what y’all are saying, but after having a front row seat to a loved one’s suffering, I would like the option to take that pill if I get in a similar state.  I should be able to end my life when I choose as I will not ask my family to risk prison to help ease me out.  I’d rather take the chance that the government or relatives getting rid of me early, than not have the option.

Understood, and to my thinking that’s what makes it such a difficult issue, because there are really vital interests at play on both sides. 

[Neverdul]

Having gone through seeing both of my parents die after long periods in an ICU, on life support on ventilators, and long after it was obvious to both the doctors and our family they were dying and couldn’t be saved and finally removed from that life support, if given a choice to end it or perhaps hasten the end of the suffering just a bit, I’d want that the option of having that choice.

I’m pretty sure that in my father’s case, after 8 weeks on a ventilator and at the end of those 8 weeks and with no hope of recovery, that he was given morphine, enough to ease any of his pain and suffering when we had removed from life support and perhaps a bit more than just that, and so as to not prolong his inevitable death longer than necessary and I and my brother were fine with that.

I understand the slippery slope argument and that concerns me as well, But I’ve also seen the dark and cruel side of keeping someone alive for the sake of keeping them “alive”.

I saw that with my MIL. She was very sickly for the last 10 years of her life and then terminally ill with cancer and refused to eat anymore and while she could still speak, all she said to me and her son was that she was “ready to and wanted go home” yet against her and my husband’s wishes because her daughter who never bothered to visit her before she became so ill or after, even once, after she was placed in a nursing home objected to her end of life wishes, she was placed on feeding tube. She suffered a heart attack and despite the Do Not Resuscitate Order, was revived. But then she spent the next year of her life, if you could call it “life” unconscious, unresponsive and curled up in a fetal position, often having bedsores and several infections until she suffered a massive and fatal stroke.

When we had her body transferred to the funeral home, the funeral director called my husband to inform him that because of his mother’s prolonged vegetative state and her having been curled up in a fetal position for so long, that in order to lay her in a coffin, he’d have to literally break some of her bones so he could lay her out. 

There is nothing live affirming IMO in that sort of death.

[anubias]

Having gone through seeing both of my parents die after long periods in an ICU, on life support on ventilators, and long after it was obvious to both the doctors and our family they were dying and couldn’t be saved and finally removed from that life support, if given a choice to end it or perhaps hasten the end of the suffering just a bit, I’d want that the option of having that choice.

I’m pretty sure that in my father’s case, after 8 weeks on a ventilator and at the end of those 8 weeks and with no hope of recovery, that he was given morphine, enough to ease any of his pain and suffering when we had removed from life support and perhaps a bit more than just that, and so as to not prolong his inevitable death longer than necessary and I and my brother were fine with that.

I understand the slippery slope argument and that concerns me as well, But I’ve also seen the dark and cruel side of keeping someone alive for the sake of keeping them “alive”.

I saw that with my MIL. She was very sickly for the last 10 years of her life and then terminally ill with cancer and refused to eat anymore and while she could still speak, all she said to me and her son was that she was “ready to and wanted go home” yet against her and my husband’s wishes because her daughter who never bothered to visit her before she became so ill or after, even once, after she was placed in a nursing home objected to her end of life wishes, she was placed on feeding tube. She suffered a heart attack and despite the Do Not Resuscitate Order, was revived. But then she spent the next year of her life, if you could call it “life” unconscious, unresponsive and curled up in a fetal position, often having bedsores and several infections until she suffered a massive and fatal stroke.

When we had her body transferred to the funeral home, the funeral director called my husband to inform him that because of his mother’s prolonged vegetative state and her having been curled up in a fetal position for so long, that in order to lay her in a coffin, he’d have to literally break some of her bones so he could lay her out. 

There is nothing live affirming IMO in that sort of death.

I am so very sorry that you and your husband had to go through such an ordeal.  My heart breaks for you both.  The dying process can be horribly cruel for all concerned, especially in a case such as yours.  Your experience is exactly what I wish to avoid for myself and my family.

[Joe Wooten]

I get what y’all are saying, but after having a front row seat to a loved one’s suffering, I would like the option to take that pill if I get in a similar state.  I should be able to end my life when I choose as I will not ask my family to risk prison to help ease me out.  I’d rather take the chance that the government or relatives getting rid of me early, than not have the option.

Been there, way too many times in the last few years, including my father. I still do not want to legalize euthanasia. It makes too many convenient loopholes to get rid of inconvenient old farts.

[Fishrrman]

Joe Wooten wrote:
"Been there, way too many times in the last few years, including my father. I still do not want to legalize euthanasia. It makes too many convenient loopholes to get rid of inconvenient old farts."

I -DO- want to see it "legalized".
Frankly, I don't care about the "moral" implications.

I'd prefer to "go home" the Soylent Green way.
Far better than some of what I've read above.
(If you don't know what I'm referring to, I suggest you watch the film)

Again, I don't care a whit for "the slippery slope".
When the time comes, I want an easy way out.

My opinion only, and I don't particularly care what others think.

[Joe Wooten]

My opinion only, and I don't particularly care what others think.

For that matter, neither do I.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

I'd think in most cases, people could take matters into their own hands (or with assistance from a relative or friend) easy enough.  Many of those who can't would be incapable of making the decision, opening up previously mentioned issues. 

Another consideration, and I apologize to anyone who has been in a difficult place for bringing money into this, but what would this due to healthcare costs?  I've got to think malpractice insurance would go through the roof due to all the wrongful death suits.  Maybe "doctors" need a special license to kill their patients, and only those that choose to get one have to pay more?  Will there be so many legal hoops to jump through for doctors to protect themselves that the patient ends up dying naturally anyway?