watervole | Assisted dying

Assisted dying

WAs thoroughly pissed off by a women on the radio this afternoon who seemed convinced that if I was terminally ill and expressed a wish to die that I would definitely change my mind after discovering how wonderful palliative care was. She seemed to think that pressure from relatives who wanted to save on medical bills and my pain were unfair factors pressuring me to die.

Wake up, woman! It is MY life. If I am going to die, I would like to have some control over when and where and far from considering my relatives to be greedy and grasping in being worried about the cost of care, I can state categorically in advance that the reason I save up money for my kids is so that they can inherit it. I do not want it all spent on terminal care - even if the person being terminally cared for is me.

Furthermore, I would like to be able to die at a time of my own choosing and to be able to say farewell to my family and friends while I am still aware enough to recognise them. I do not want my family to have to sit through my bedside while I spend three or more days in a coma that I will never come out of. I have seen what that does to people and would not wish it on anyone I loved.

I am not so afraid of death that a few extra days or weeks of life are to be grasped at any cost.

She is welcome to prolong her own life to the very last possible moment (why is it always religious people who are so afraid to die?), but what possible right does she have to prevent MY choice?

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true, how true and very how true.

I second the abouve

It may be true that "religious people" are often afraid to die--maybe they feel guilty over something and haven't figured out yet that God actually has forgiven them.

I'm a devout Christian, and while I won't say I'm not a bit nervous about dying (I mean, we don't know what it will be like, exactly, so it's kind of a hold-your-breath-and-jump kind of thing), I don't think I'm all that scared of it.

That said, I'm no more willing to choose the time of my own death than I am to choose the time of someone else's. It's not really for me to say (if we're not considering circumstances of self-sacrifice or some such thing) when I'm no longer needed on earth.

If I'm ever terminally ill, though, I am so signing a DNR and all that. I agree that hanging on forever puts the relatives/friends through an experience that is just gruesome. Better to simply go, rather than artificially prolong "life".

You hit the nail on the head. I agree 100%!!!!!

I am a religious person who is not afraid to die. It just might be my religion, of course.

I certainly want to be in control of how I die if I can. It's such a personal decision that can only be done by the person dying.

I always thought that I felt this way because I was childless, but that's not it, as I am seeing from reading other similar posts by people over the last year or so.

No, no. I'm a religious person and I'm not afraid to die. Looking forward to it, actually -- yay for heaven and no more illness and aches and pains and weariness and unfitness.

At the same time, no, it isn't MY life. God gave it to me, and it's God's decision as to when he takes it away from me. If he wants me to stick around, then I must stick around, however painful it may be. A quote from one of Zenna Henderson's stories kind of sums it up: "If you're so all-fired eager to go busting into His [God's] house uninvited you'd better stop bawling and start thinking up a convincing excuse."

That being said, I'm with

izhilzha in not wanting any heroic measures to prolong my life; if I'm dying I'm dying. But even if I'm terminally ill, it still isn't my place to call for assisted suicide. It's still suicide, and that's just not on. Money has got nothing to do with it.

That's fair enough, and it is your choice. The problem is that we live in a society that forces that choice on other people. It should be up to the individual to decide. And it shouldn't be up to a relative to help them unless they really want to. If a person who is terminally ill wants to end their own life then the medical profession should be empowered to do that.

There was a documentary yesterday that I had on in the background, it was about some debate and vote about changing the laws. There was a family of a woman who went to Switzerland(?) for assisted suicide and she did it fairly soon after being diagnosed with a terminal illness because she wanted to be capable of making the journey and able to do it while she was still mentally sound. Her family were saying that she'd have lived a bit longer if she had had the option at home and could have made the decision sooner.

There were a few people on who said that at their worst they wanted to die and would have taken the way out if it was available and they were now glad it wasn't - that was after palliative care. But, frankly, their arguments didn't convince me that this was the solution for everyone.

Before the vote there were presentations by people on each side of the argument and the "against" view was very silly. He basically said that this would just be the start if we allowed it, and before you knew it they'd be recommending death as the most cost effective cure for ill people who were knocking on a bit. He was most irritating.

There were lots of religious views, given, too and they were also irritating. "Life is life, it's all precious, who are we to say who has better quality of life and who deserves to live?". Gah... I'm with you. I'd really like to have permission to make these choices for myself.

The point is, it isn't up to the individual to decide. It's up to God to decide, irrelevant of whether the individual is a Believer or not. It's His universe, we're only tenants.

It's up to the individual to decide whether they believe there is a God who would be annoyed if they were to kill themselves.

But, we DO decide. Every time we administer an antibiotic, every time we operate to save a life, WE are making the decision that someone shall live.

If we have the right to inject one drug to save life, where is the difference to inject another to end it?

I could understand the religious argument if they also tried to ban anything that would artificially save life.

That is your belief. Other people do not share that belief. So other people should not force their beliefs onto non-believers.

These are excellent points!

So other people should not force their beliefs onto non-believers.

That is a moral belief, you know. Not a logical argument.

If we have the right to inject one drug to save life, where is the difference to inject another to end it?

Because one is cherishing God's gift of life, and the other is rejecting it.

I could understand the religious argument if they also tried to ban anything that would artificially save life.

Some do. Isn't there some religion that forbids blood transfusions or something?

Yes, just like it's up to the individual to decide whether or not to throw rotten tomatoes at the Queen. If you choose the action, you choose the consequences of that action.

Jehova's witnesses don't reject all medicine and they certainly haven't tried to ban medicine for everybody. They refuse to accept blood transfusions because they believe God has forbidden them to do so, based on a particular interpretation of the Bible. Although they can be a bit pushy with their door-to-door Witnessing, as far as I know they've never tried to push through a legal ban on blood transfusions that would apply to people with different beliefs to their own.

The Jehova's Wittness's reject blood transfusions on Biblical grounds. Something to do with the soul being in the blood. (they're fine with your own blood being salvaged and put back into you)

Hm. Well, as a believer, I'm certainly not afraid of the whole being dead thing--I expect the next life to be a great deal more pleasant than this one; but I'm not looking forward to the *process* of dying; that does scare me a bit.

But there's a reason some people oppose assisted suicide that has nothing to do with religious belief, but with the psychological effects of being ill. The wish to die may be the illness speaking, or guilt about running out the money or feeling a burden on one's family. So far I don't know of anybody that's come up with a reliable method for telling the difference between a sound, reasoned decision to die and a temporary idea that would pass the instant the patient felt a bit better.

[If we have the right to inject one drug to save life, where is the difference to inject another to end it?]

Because one is cherishing God's gift of life, and the other is rejecting it.

Even more simply, the Bible specifically endorses medical treatment for illness and prohibits murder (which most people understand to include self-murder). As doctrines go, the source of this one is fairly straightforward.

Not at all.

The logic runs: either God exists or he does not exist.

Assuming he exists, for the moment, if he wished for everyone to do as he wanted, he could have made them that way. Furthermore, he could have programmed all of us to behave in whatever manner he wished.

However, as we all do different things, and have different ethical beliefs, he must have had some reason for doing so.

So he must either have wanted us to do his will out of our nature and, according to the Bible, he will reward the obediant ones with salvation.

Will he reward, with salvation, those who are forced into doing his will? (Even if the Bible contains his will, which as a translation of texts written down between 600BC and 400AD, much revised and editied since then must be in doubt.)

If he did so, he would not be omniscient, would he? Also highly unfair. If he is highly unfair, why should we do what he wants in the first place? If he is not unfair, he will not reward people forced to do his will with salvation. If he will not reward those people with salvation, he must wish them to make their own choices - i.e. he must have given us free will, which I believe is a major tenet of Christian philosophy.

Therefore no one who believes in God should force anyone to follow what he or she believes God has ordained, because that is not God's will.

Q.E.D.

according to the Bible, he will reward the obediant ones with salvation

No, actually, he will gift the penitent and believing ones with mercy, because Christ has taken the punishment in our place. ALL people have disobeyed God's law, and ALL people are under the sentence of death.

His universe, His rules. Irrelevant of whether you believe in Him or not.

As a coda:

If God created the world he is a 100% bastard who likes to hurt things, and I will not worship Him even if he did create me.

This still does not answer my logic about why you should or should not force others to believe in him. Nor does it answer why, according to traditional Christian belief (see Dante) those who did not have any chance to believe in Jesus should be condemmed to the circles of hell.

Or are you telling me that 20th Century Christianity has some direct line to God that was denied to those who studied the Bible through two thousand years?

Besides, I was not only referring to the Christian God, but to the Islamic God. I understand the Jewish God isn't into the afterlife and salvation, but I could be wrong about that and stand to be corrected.

You've been listening to Satan's lies again. He's got a real great propaganda machine, does Satan. Father of Lies, y'know.

Or are you telling me that 20th Century Christianity has some direct line to God that was denied to those who studied the Bible through two thousand years?

Oh, puleeze!

According to your logic, nobody should prevent murders, because that would be "forcing your beliefs on other people", and "getting in the way of free will". Don't be ridiculous.

Ah, you must be a heretic who believe that Satan created all that was bad in the world - like the species of animals that eat other animals alive, and can survive in no other way. Like the stupid way that humans reproduce. All the parasites. All the carnivores.

Hey, did God actually create anything?

Incidentally, as I do not believe in God I also do not believe in Satan. I am not listening to either of them because they are totally imaginary beings. Nor can you produce one shred of independent evidence to prove that they exist - or that Jesus existed, come to that.

Not at all.

Societies - all societies, even animal ones - have rules. These are not 'beliefs', but rules. When you break the rules of the society you are in, that society either kills you or imprisons you or exiles you. These are, to use Dawkins' useful term, 'Memes'. On a cosmic scale, I don't know if murder is right or wrong, or even if there is such a thing as right or wrong. What I do know is that it generally disrupts societies, and takes gene lines from the gene pool, which is why the meme for preventing it or punishing it is so strong in many human societies. Though those human societies quite often believe that killing someone outside the society involved is not murder. As happened during the crusades, now I think about it.

You also seem to be unable to separate morality and religion. Considering that the ten commandments were nicked from Hammurabi's laws, this is a bit rich.

Though the Oregon experience does suggest that this does not happen very often, as the number of assisted suicides is very few and falling. Have you seen the hoops that you would have to jump through under this bill to get that syringe full of poison/painkiller. Two doctors, both of whom have to agree that you are terminal and in pain. Counselling. Too independent witnesses who are not related to you and one of which is a lawyer to witness your statements. All of this will take time. If you are going to get better you will probably start to recover long before you get that far.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

I'd say a reliable method is a living will - which is effectively what this posting by me is. If I am ever in that situation and express a wish to die, you may conclude that I thought about it long ago when I was sound in wind and limb. (Feeling a burden on one's family is a perfectly valid motive - like I said, I want my money to go do my kids and my favourite charities, not hospitals)

Oh dear. I think if that was my radio it woudl now be living on the road outside.
I'm sure there is wonderful care available but I agree; when I decide I've had enough, I'd like to make that decision.

This is long. My apologies.

Seeing as some folks seem to be tying this in to religion, I'll state right now that I'm a firm atheist. Always have been, as far back as I can remember. Religion is a matter of personal choice and should not be used to inform policy on a matter as sensitive as this. By all means make choices for yourself based on religious principles, but please have the decency to allow others to make their own decisions about their own lives.

"Assisted dying" is a subject I have strong feelings on -- I sat with my mother (also not religious) during the last week of her life as she died, slowly and painfully, of liver cancer. She was just 51. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer some 19 months previously, while her father was dying of liver cancer himself. Just months after finishing chemo and radiotherapy and being given the all-clear, she fell ill and we discovered that a few of her cancer cells had migrated to her liver. As with my grandfather, the disease moved swiftly. She was put onto chemo almost immediately, but there was really nothing that could be done. She went into hospital shortly after Christmas and never came out again.

My mother was perfectly lucid but in constant pain in the last weeks of her life -- her liver was swelling, the cancer was spreading, and she was losing control of basic bodily functions, which she found hugely distressing. She was too weak for further chemo... which wouldn't have done any good even if she had been strong enough. One painkiller after another was failing to give her any relief -- I slept in the room with her for the last week and had to call the nurse three times a night, every night, for more pain relief. They finally (!) gave her a morphine drip that seemed to give some relief and just hours later she slipped into unconsciousness and died the following day. I was with her at the end and that, at least, was peaceful.

She had always been a firm believer in voluntary euthanasia, and during that last week she was furiously angry at the laws that meant that our dog was allowed a quick and painless end (we both went into the surgery with Petra when she was put down and it is incredibly fast and humane), but she had to suffer agonies. No amount of palliative care could have helped her and there was no hope of a cure. She loved life (had been planning on travelling extensively after her apparent recovery from breast cancer, maybe even coming with me to a convention or two -- I'm a second-generation slasher!) but, to her, that wasn't living and it sure as hell wasn't dignified.

Put simply, my mother was the sort of person that this bill is designed to help -- and it is help. With safeguards in place it needn't be the start of any sort of slippery slope and it seems to be working well enough in Oregon. I was extremely close to my mother and even six years on I still miss her dreadfully, but I wish that she had been given control of her own passing. It would have made the whole thing so much more dignified and have saved so much suffering.

I think the difference lies in the fact that if I wish to throw rotten tomatoes at the queen, I am able to attempt the action. It is one that I can carry out of my own free will.

If I wish to die and I am fit, I can carry out the act myself (and face any consequences myself). If I am terminally ill, I am denied that free will. I am not strong enough to go to the sea and drown myself. I can only ask for a drug.

I am prepared to face the consequence, but I am not allowed to make the decision, in spite of the fact that the act harms no one except myself.

Every time a species goes extinct, a gift of God is being destroyed, yet I never see the same objections.

Leviticus 17:11

"I refuse to prove I exist" says God "for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing"!

Exactly.

You believe in God. That is faith.

I don't. That is logic.

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