Euthanasia: those who "assist"

[denuseri]

First, if someone is going to kill themselves, its pretty much a moot point, they eaither will or will not.

I think if the person wants to die if they are incapacitated beyound a certian point, then let them, its there choice to go.

If they cannot do it for themselves for whatever reason, then there should be some kind of legal protection for those who would carry out their wishes when the time came.

Similar to how a DNR (do not rescesitate) order is executed.

It sure would save the the loved ones the metal anguish of having to do it illegally on their own, not to metion allieviate the undue burden placed on medical staff in such situations.

As for the hospice nurse...sounds to me like she is allowing her own beliefs on suicide to cloud her objectivity when it comes to how pain relief medications work, there are in fact patients who no ammount of pain medication seems to help and no one knows what those in some kinds pf commas are really experiencing.

In any event it sounds a lot better to me than removing life support and or nutrition and allowing a paitent to litterally slowly sufficate, dehydrate and or starve to death.

A practice thats allready allowed by law under certian conditions.

[Thorne]

I've already stated elsewhere that I consider suicide to be a personal decision, not one which the state has any business trying to prevent. In that same line, if a person wants to die, due to some incurable illness which prevents him from actually performing the suicide himself, then there should be legal provisions for his loved ones, or some neutral party, to assist.

But all decisions must come from the dying person. And they must be at least rational. An insane person cannot, by definition, make a rational decision. A person in a coma cannot make such a decision. They could, of course, set out conditions for their termination ahead of time, a living will kind of thing, but one which includes termination, not just forbidding resuscitation.

As denuseri said, that hospice nurse may be injecting her own beliefs into her observations. There have been many instances of people waking up during surgeries, paralyzed but aware and in pain. There have been reports of people waking from comas and reporting on things that went on around them, or of experiencing pain during their comas. In truth, we do not know how much someone might be suffering while unconscious, only that we cannot see that they are suffering. While this may help us cope, it doesn't help the patient.

So yes, I think assisted suicide should be permitted. And in some cases, termination of unconscious patients. We insist on allowing people their dignity in life. Why can't they retain that dignity while facing death?