Euthanasia: those who "assist"

[Ozme52]

Here's a question for you, then: Would you draw that line just for yourself, or for everybody?

I initially draw it in the context of the initial post, and the smothering of someone with a pillow.

I can understand someone not wanting to throw the switch, certainly. While you may know intellectually that you are helping your loved one, emotionally it might seem like you're killing them. I can imagine many people feeling like that. That's why they want the doctors to do it for them. Or give the patient the means to do it himself.

But legal issues aside, you run smack up against the religious prohibitions against suicide. How many patients would be unwilling to push that button because it would condemn them in the eyes of their Church? Isn't suicide the unforgivable sin?

Bringing religion into the conversation makes it about religion and not ethics. But in that context.. it's an easy answer. "Thou Shalt Not Kill"
If you believe one religious precept, then you might as well believe them all.
Not to mention...Unforgivable sin? It's a rule of the church, not one of God's rules. Like eating fish on Fridays. (A rule that was created for economic reasons.) Even the commandment has unspoken text. It's full of loopholes. "Thou Shalt Not Kill (people of our faith.)"

And you still have the problem of patients who are non-responsive, virtually brain-dead, yet still breathing. They cannot push the button themselves. Could you do it for them?

I probably couldn't. Should you, without having discussed it first? If the patient is terminal and knows it, and didn't discuss it? Nope. You shouldn't. If they did, then there is clearly a point in the progression of the disease where s/he can make that decision of when and still push the button themself.

I've experienced this situation myself. My mother-in-law had a massive stroke, leaving her comatose and all-but dead. The doctors said she would not awaken, and that even if she could there was too much damage. She would be a vegetable. But they could keep her alive indefinitely with a feeding tube.

I didn't have to make the decision, my wife and her father did, but I was asked for my opinion and they made what I believe to be the right decision: they refused the feeding tube. The hospital would provide no food or water, except for the little amount of fluid she would receive with the medication she was given to block stomach acids. We were also told that we could ask for morphine injections if we felt she was in any pain. This was, I believe, the doctor's way of letting us "push the button."

I don't know if my father-in-law realized that, but it doesn't matter because he wouldn't have done it anyway. Neither would my wife. I think I would have, but I can't be sure. It was hell watching her die slowly, even though there was absolutely no indication that she was in pain or aware of her situation. She lasted less than a week.

A very difficult question. An unexpected and sudden debilitating event. I don't have a good answer for you. I just don't know.

What I do know, (with no intent to point fingers... just noting the situation...) euthanasia is against the law but we allow morphine overdoses and/or starvation to side step it. It's a hell of a loophole.

I'd be much happier with a change to the law first, and then identifying the circumstances under which direct assistance is allowed.