What does everyone think?

[EweSheep]

...Paging Dr Kevorkian.....paging Dr Kevorkian.........

No one should suffer in pain when they are dying, having terminal illness that death is certainly a way out of the crippled or diseased body or simply brain dead. Harvest the organs if it was from a car accident, not diseased, or irreversable coma that it is certainly draining the family and insurance funds. We should make our own choices how we want to go with dignity.

Some religion would forbid you to do it. Not going there because it will open up a can of worms so I will leave that out for our sakes to keep this thread from closing.

Hubby and I agree on how we would be treated with dignity. Alzeihmers is not funny and runs in his family. If he would to have it, I am not sure I would put him down even he may not remember me at all. After all, he is alive, functioning fine but can't remember. I don't know how long the Alz. patients live to be but with good care and good nurses and good facilities, I am sure they can live a lot longer than the ones that don't.

I think it is case by case, how much suffering, quality of life, financial burdens, and family wishes. Wish the laws will change on the decisions of what we want for our love ones.

Worse case scenerio would be, someone wants to back out at the last minute.....now, that's scary. It has to be definate, no second guessing, no pondering thoughts of getting better when you know for sure, it is terminal that no amount of surgery is going to cure you. All surgeries do is to prelong your life a little bit longer. Look at Farrah Fawcett......her movie moved me, as well as one PBS series about self death in one foreign country that people go there to die under lethal injection.

 

[PaulaSB12]

I used to be very pro euthanasia but after how its been handled in Holland not now I am sorry but there are way too many doctors who would kill because they feel the person doesn't deserve to live.

http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/holland-background/
* 2,300 people died as the result of doctors killing them upon request (active, voluntary euthanasia).(7)
* 400 people died as a result of doctors providing them with the means to kill themselves (physician-assisted suicide).(8)
* 1,040 people (an average of 3 per day) died from involuntary euthanasia, meaning that doctors actively killed these patients without the patients’ knowledge or consent.(9)
o 14% of these patients were fully competent. (10)
o 72% had never given any indication that they would want their lives terminated. (11)
o In 8% of the cases, doctors performed involuntary euthanasia despite the fact that they believed alternative options were still possible. (12)
* In addition, 8,100 patients died as a result of doctors deliberately giving them overdoses of pain medication, not for the primary purpose of controlling pain, but to hasten the patient’s death. (13) In 61% of these cases (4,941 patients), the intentional overdose was given without the patient’s consent.(14)
* According to the Remmelink Report, Dutch physicians deliberately and intentionally ended the lives of 11,840 people by lethal overdoses or injections–a figure which accounts for 9.1% of the annual overall death rate of 130,000 per year. The majority of all euthanasia deaths in Holland are involuntary deaths.
* The Remmelink Report figures cited here do not include thousands of other cases, also reported in the study, in which life-sustaining treatment was withheld or withdrawn without the patient’s consent and with the intention of causing the patient’s death. (15) Nor do the figures include cases of involuntary euthanasia performed on disabled newborns, children with life-threatening conditions, or psychiatric patients. (16)
* The most frequently cited reasons given for ending the lives of patients without their knowledge or consent were: “low quality of life,” “no prospect for improvement,” and “the family couldn’t take it anymore.”(17)
* In 45% of cases involving hospitalized patients who were involuntarily euthanized, the patients’ families had no knowledge that their loved ones’ lives were deliberately terminated by doctors. (18)
* According to the 1990 census, the population of Holland is approximately 15 million. That is only half the population of California. To get some idea of how the Remmelink Report statistics would apply to the U.S., those figures would have to be multiplied 16.6 times (based on the 1990 U.S. census population of approximately 250 million).

http://www.pregnantpause.org/euth/liberty.htm

http://www.maranathacommunity.org.uk/pdf/aug-04-assisted-dying.pdf
3 Despite all these requirements, 1,000 Dutch patients are being killed every year
without their consent. In 1991, the first official report on the extent of euthanasia
practised in the Netherlands was published. The report concluded that voluntary
active euthanasia occurred in about 1.8% of all deaths or about 2,300 cases in
1990. There were almost 400 cases of physician-assisted suicide, some 0.3% of
all deaths. Disturbingly, the report found that in a further 1,000 cases (0.8% of all
deaths) physicians administered a drug with the explicit purpose of hastening the
end of life without an explicit request by the patient.12
8.4 A second survey confirming the above findings was carried out in 1995-1996. Out
of all the 135,500 deaths that occurred in the Netherlands in 1995 the survey
estimates that still 0.7% or approximately 950 patients died through euthanasia
without their explicit consent. Large doses of opioids that led to death were
administered in nearly 20,000 patients which is equivalent to nearly 15% of all
deaths.13 In 2001, still 1000 deaths (0.7% of total) were due to patients killed
against their wishes or without explicit consent. ‘Alleviation of symptoms’ with
possible life-shortening effects occurred in nearly one in five of all deaths, over
28,000 deaths in 2001.14
8.5 This data proves the fundamental shift which inevitably occurs in the doctorpatient
relationship if euthanasia becomes legal. In Holland, over half of all Dutch
doctors surveyed stated that they had performed euthanasia at some time. 23% of
the doctors surveyed stated that they had ended a patient’s life without his or
her explicit request.15

 

[MeatKing]

First off, I would more then likely prefer to die graceful, then of something else that it sure to kill me..

But,

There was a fire around here a few weeks ago, A young family baby few weeks old, 18 month old and 2 or 3 year old.. Mom, baby and eldest died, off the bat.. Father jumped a window with 18month in hands, 18 month old dies

Father was in mediclly induced coma for a few weeks. He had tattoo's on his arm of 3 kids and his wife, all died.. Tatoo's burned off in fire...I'm sorry, but if that ever happened to me, don't wake me up... God help him.. He I'm sure would rather not wake up.. I know that sounds harsh, but if my hubby and all my kids die.. Don't wake me,

 

[ladyride]

This is & will always be a touchy subject. The religious, moral,ethical, emotional issues are deep within us all, they are personalized by our upbringing & our own life experiences. Now with that said I feel everyone has the right to make that decision for themselves. But the people in our lives cannot or will not always accept our decisions. As another poster pointed out make a living will, this legally insures what you want or don't want. Discuss with your family members what you want done so it does not come as a surprise to them when the tough decisions have to be made your vote is already there. This is just being responsible, not a pleasant reality we all have to face sooner or later. With life comes death it is how we face both that makes us the complex human beings we are.
Now for the gentleman in question it seems to me he has made his decision. His wife has made hers. Right or wrong we DO NOT have all the story of these folks most difficult journey they are making. May God be with them. Many thoughts & prayers to all who are involved with this situation.

 

[dewey]

Allowing and/or assisting someone to take their own life over Depression just seems so very bewildering.

And in this case I believe that they should call it exactly what it is...depression...over a tough condition that is lifelong, yes...but depression no less.

That it's despression based seems evident since if the person's medical condition were terminal/degenerative and nearing end of life, they'd at the least qualify for hospice assistance if they so desired.

Besides, no assistance is needed if someone really wants to do it. My high level SCI friends always say that there's a hill/cliff/bridge somewhere if someone is really so inclined and they take a pretty hard line on that.

Spinal cord injury is not a terminal condition.

Even though everybody daily has their own choices to make, I hope that spinal cord injury will never become a qualifying condition for AS. (Nor Depression.)

My best friend is paralyzed from the neck down. His day to day life takes more strength, courage, and bravery than most could even begin to imagine and some do not have that (and I would judge nobody). As a roller, he contributes more to life than most walkies ever will. There was time he wanted to end it, and he's told me that's not an uncommon desire in the first years or in situations where there's little support, but to have anyone believe that a challenging physical condition should ever be deemed worthy (qualifying) of AS is appalling to him.

 

[caspernc]

I am glad my dear Aunt didn't give up when she was diognosed with a rare cancer. The chemo caused her to have a stroke. My Dad and my Uncle went to the nursing home around the clock to help her. They wouldn't let her give up. I have had 10 more years with her. (can only visit once a year as it is on the west coast, She named me when I was born) My mother passed with breast cancer when I was 27. And I miss her. She desided not to fight, but she had always been scared of everything. EVERYTHING! Why does that person want to be your friend? Why is that car slowing down in front of the house?....ect. Now my dear Aunt Bobby has had a relapse and is on a differnt type of chemo. She get steroids and boy is she funny. She called me during Irene wanting to know if the chickens came out of the coop in the storm. She said she thought of the funniest things at 3' oclock in the morning and just could hardly stand to wait to call me.... She knows I don't get up until 7 am, east coast time! She is SSSOOO funny. But then again she has God on her side. She beleives and is at peace that He has a plan for everything in her life. That is the one thing that no one has talked about here. Belief. The Lord God is my shepard.

 

[piecemaker]

Quote:
DH and I have agreed to do what we can for each other should the time come that one of us are in this situation. DO NOT want to live like that no life support. Know some one with a son in coma for 18 yrs. When he was 18 months old he drowned and doctors said he would die with in the year but he has last 18 yrs. They said they hate that he has had the life he has had. They do what they can to keep him comfortable. The government pays $261,000 a year for his care. Not trying to upset any one but would you want your loved to life this way?

 

[mamawolf544]

I think it is a decision between you and your family and the GOD of your choice. I don't believe this is anything that the government should be involved in.
I have had very serious heart issues for about the last 10 years, they finally won the battle to put me on the heart transplant list. But it is still my choice when the time comes. And I have every gadget known to man to keep me occupied, the best doctors, animals out the wazoo

But I can still get very bored because I am pretty much homebound. But I am happy with my life, so I am not planning on going anywhere. But I can understand if you think your quality of life is bad, and you have seen a doc, then you probably know what you are talking about.

 

[JulieNKC]

Quote:
x2
I had my daughter removed from her ventilator when she was 3 weeks old. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, and hopefully the hardest thing I will ever have to do. She had a very advanced case of a form of MD that had her pretty much paralyzed from birth. It's called SMA, and is similar to lou gehrigs but affects children or infants depending on the type. My daughter had one of the most sever cases her doctor's had seen on an infant so young , and she was at a fairly large children's hospital. Her diaphram wasn't even strong enough to allow her to breath. Rather than have her suffer from surgeries (trach, heart defect repair, etc) I did what I thought was best. I still don't know if I made the right decision (although even with the surgeries her dr.'s said it wasn't likely she would live to her first birthday, and they did kind of push me towards my decision I feel). I hope I did. I still wonder everyday though...
I have made it abundantly clear to my family what my wishes are in this situation if I am placed in it. I hope if something ever happens and I don't feel my quality of life is worth living that they will allow me to go peacefully on my terms.

 

[Fierlin1182]

I'm sorry to hear about everyone who had such experiences