Do you believe in stopping life if

Status
Not open for further replies.
pb4uski said:
OP is in the US, I am in the US and you are in the US... the death with dignity law that I was referring to is in the US if you had followed the thread.

There is a nuance of a difference between death with dignity and euthanasia... the former is simply accelerating death since one needs a terminal illness to qualify (and must also pass a physchiatric exam). Since depression is treatable and not terminal, I would not be comfortable with that as a valid reason for euthanasia and it would not fall under death with dignity laws.
Click to expand...

I followed the thread. It is an incremental approach. First death with Dignity, then for anything. That is what has happened in the Netherlands. It won't matter if you like it or not. It's better than a person jumping off a bridge onto my vehicle.

I personally would not do it, but I can see if I needed a heart transplant, maybe someone that wanted to give me one would choose this option to allow their good heart to be put to use.
 
bmcgonig said:
Here's a powerful article about a woman with Alzheimer's that decided to check out prior to the worst happening. Very well written.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/magazine/the-last-day-of-her-life.html
Click to expand...

This thread is tough to read, frankly. And this article was tougher. As for me, I honestly don't know when I would want to "check out." Once I could no longer appreciate the things and people I love, that would be the time for sure. But, the woman in the article had some faculties left when she bravely took the pills. I don't know if I could do it.
 
easysurfer said:
............ Otherwise, might have one family member have one view, than other have a totally opposing view. With the paperwork done, I hope they are reasonable enough to say "well, at least we honor his wishes, which was in writing."
Click to expand...
In my late FIL's case, his daughter from his first marriage showed up and did all she could to stop his DNR order in the belief that "he couldn't have possibly meant it when he signed it". He was 92 and used up. Fortunately, MIL prevailed.
 
Last edited:
DH and I discussed this a lot- his mother started showing signs of dementia but her life was cut short by a fatal stroke before it got really bad. In principle we were OK with assisted suicide. When I thought of actually giving him a fatal dose of something, even if it were legal, or making it available to him and then leaving so I wouldn't be implicated, I just didn't feel that I could do it.

Two days before he died of acute myeloid leukemia, he did indicate that he wouldn't mind being kept oblivious at that point. He was under hospice care so there was plenty of morphine. We were both clear that he didn't want his life shortened- he just didn't want to feel weak and sick anymore. It's something I would have felt comfortable discussing with the hospice nurses but the next day he worsened and that final night he had an episode of terminal agitation so severe the the nurses increased his morphine and other tranquilizers and he died the next morning.

Just keeping him unconscious his last few days, with medical advice and the appropriate meds, was about as far as I would have gone.
 
When my late wife was diagnosed with cancer we were fulltime RVing, and pulled the 5th wheel into her mother's driveway.

She fought it as hard as she could; at the end her upper body was skeletal and below the waist she was bloated with edema. She was younger than me and the paramedic who brought her back to die thought she was my mother.

The night she died I was 'assigned' to giving her sublingual medication, (morphine perhaps, I don't know)....three or four of the nurses who had attended her showed up at her mother's house on their own time, and at one point I said to them that, if I could I'd kill her now.....(it was heartbreaking to see her in that condition).

They told me to keep giving her the medication.

I did, and once they'd all gone home I sat and whispered to her to "Let go, it's over, we lost".

She died within hours.

Had there been any chance we'd've continued to fight it together, but when it's over it's over....and when it's over you know it's over.
 
I have always been in favor of euthanasia.
 
This is something I've thought about, as I'm sure most have. I think it is a complex issue.

On the basic question, I think that people should have the right to make that choice for some issues, certainly those with terminal illness. Not for every health problem.

And, I could imagine situations where I could understand making that choice for oneself. I have been a pet owner almost all my life. And, for my pets I've often treated them even for very serious likely lethal illnesses. But, I haven't wanted them to suffer and have sometimes had to have them euthanized to prevent suffering. While I wouldn't someone else making that choice for me, I would like to have that option for me.

That said -- while I have given a medical POA to my DH, I don't have an advanced directive. The reason why is that I didn't like the wording where I live. It just seemed to foreclose treatment in too many situations where I would want treatment. If I couldn't make my own decision I would feel comfortable with my DH making that decision. But with an advanced directive, it wouldn't be him making the decision. I felt the directive would remove the flexibility and would lock in what would happen.

The dementia issue is a tough one. Yes, if I was diagnosed I would want to be able to say then that, yes, at some point I would prefer to die. But, the problem is that at that point they would feel that maybe I was being influenced by the dementia itself.

I have heard some say that the person with dementia is actually not that miserable at the time. Their family is more likely to be miserable. And, I could see that for advanced dementia.

But, then what I found horrifying was this story:

Sick, dying and raped in America's nursing homes

It is about sexual assaults of nursing home patients with dementia. I just shuddered the entire time I read it. I can't imagine anything more horrifying.

But, I don't think there is an easy answer to the dementia situation.

Oh - for me and the assisted dying. I don't know. I'm not of the view that if I get a tough diagnosis that I would immediately end all treatment and just wait to die. If I felt that there was some meaningful (even though unlikely) chance for survival or extended reasonably good quality of life then I would probably want to try it. The place where I could draw the line would be when the treatment itself decreased quality of life and was not effective and it became clear that it wasn't extending life in a good quality of way. I guess I think I would know when I was at that point.

A good book on end of life care is Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.
 
Last edited:
No, I do not endorse killing another human beings because they are ill. (That's not to say I would have been all that upset if someone put a bullet in that disturbed Las Vegas sniper before he murdered all those innocent people). As far as being terminally ill, I can see declining the use of extraordinary measures, and signing a DNR, but not easily.

My experience with hospital staff seems to be the opposite of what many cite here, very willing to let my parents shuffle off this mortal coil, before they were ready.

I recall when my son was 20 he went into the hospital for surgery, and they were after him to sign a DNR. Umm, no.

It seems quite horrible to me to deprive someone of food or water. I am crazed if I'm without water for two hours. So when someone has dementia, it's ok to torture them by depriving them of food or water? That was one of the options.

And all dementia is not created equal. So what happens when that person who so boldly said they wanted to be killed off, regresses and becomes frightened? Reminds me of the people who when they are 50 are proudly proclaiming that they would rather be in a nursing home than possibly place any burden whatsoever on their children; but when they are 85 and in the nursing home they are howling to get out.

It's too much of a slippery slope.
 
My mother was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Not Alzheimer's, but she was very quickly cognitively impaired and could not be left alone, though she did not need skilled medical care. She quickly lost the ability to speak.

Soon after, she was also diagnosed with ALS, which was affecting her ability to swallow.

Her health care power of attorney statement said no keeping her alive by unnatural means if there was no hope of reversal.

For years and years before she got sick, she had said many times that if she ever "got goofy," she wanted us to take her out and shoot her. Said joshingly, but the underlying sentiment was strong.

The question of a feeding tube came up very quickly, because of the ALS. She was so healthy otherwise - with a feeding tube, she would have lived for years, unable to care for herself.

My father, understandably, balked at what he considered to be consigning her to die by not putting in the tube.

Her dementia doctor said that it is rare for doctors to recommend a tube in this situation, but it's the family's decision.

After much discussion, my dad agreed to turn down the tube.

We did everything we could to keep her nourished as her ability to swallow degraded. By the end, we were feeding her thickened Gatorade, which she could barely get down without choking. She lost about 40 lbs over the course of her illness.

Eighteen months after she was diagnosed, she became unable to swallow. She began to develop pneumonia as her chest muscles stopped functioning, and died at home four days after her last calories.

She would have been horrified at what she turned into (though she was actually very childlike and happy).

I have no regrets, because I know it is what she would have wanted. All we did was decide to let her body dictate her path.

Medical interventions if an illness can be reversed or handled is one thing, but we're all not going to live forever, and to me, just because you can try everything doesn't mean you should.

YMMV.

My mom was 73 when she died, and should have lived to be 100. She was a force of nature, and meant everything to me. But I knew her wishes.
 
Katsmeow said:
Oh - for me and the assisted dying. I don't know. I'm not of the view that if I get a tough diagnosis that I would immediately end all treatment and just wait to die. If I felt that there was some meaningful (even though unlikely) chance for survival or extended reasonably good quality of life then I would probably want to try it. The place where I could draw the line would be when the treatment itself decreased quality of life and was not effective and it became clear that it wasn't extending life in a good quality of way. I guess I think I would know when I was at that point.

A good book on end of life care is Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.
Click to expand...

I second that book recommendation- I read it after DH died and it made me feel even better about his decision not to seek aggressive treatment for his leukemia- they gave chemo a 3% chance of success and he was 78 and already weakened by the disease and 10 years of polycythemia, a precursor. My 85-year old mother made the same decision with her breast cancer recurrence and died the month before DH. Both, IMO, did the right thing.
 
Gill Pharaoh is a British nurse who decided to end her life to avoid the horrors of old age. She was 75 years old and fairly healthy when she went to an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland. She had cared for elderly patients most of her career, and written books about care giving, and she didn't want to live through what she had seen. She had a blog about her life which included her end of life plans. Her plans were well thought out, and she followed through.

Gill Pharaoh died at Swiss suicide clinic because she didn’t want to be a burden | Daily Mail Online

I also have an exit strategy, and I believe I will know when to use it when the time comes. My fear is waiting to long and not being able to act on my plan independently.
 
Last edited:
It’s a personal choice in my opinion. The laws associated aren’t a primary concern, so debating the issue isn't essential to me, but I’d be for laws allowing personal choice.

Once quality of life is gone from my perspective, I’d rather any/all my residual $ go to heirs and charities versus medical strangers and hospitals admins. YMMV
 
Last edited:
Yes for me. Having seen my mother's quality of life in the nursing home before she passed, I wouldn't want to live that life. Quality is over quantity for me.
 
Last edited:
Senator said:
It is an incremental approach. First death with Dignity, then for anything. That is what has happened in the Netherlands.
Click to expand...

As far as I know the current criterion here in The Netherlands is medical: you need to suffer unbearably, without hope for improvement. It's roughly the same in Belgium.

The 'next level' would be what they call 'completed life' here, which is on the table as a proposal by some parties to apply to people over 75 years old who feel their life is, well, completed. The main difference is that there need not be a medical reason, just the will to end.

I'm very much in favor of such a law if implemented properly, with safeguards.
 
MarieIG said:
No, I do not endorse killing another human beings because they are ill. (That's not to say I would have been all that upset if someone put a bullet in that disturbed Las Vegas sniper before he murdered all those innocent people). As far as being terminally ill, I can see declining the use of extraordinary measures, and signing a DNR, but not easily.



My experience with hospital staff seems to be the opposite of what many cite here, very willing to let my parents shuffle off this mortal coil, before they were ready.



I recall when my son was 20 he went into the hospital for surgery, and they were after him to sign a DNR. Umm, no.



It seems quite horrible to me to deprive someone of food or water. I am crazed if I'm without water for two hours. So when someone has dementia, it's ok to torture them by depriving them of food or water? That was one of the options.



And all dementia is not created equal. So what happens when that person who so boldly said they wanted to be killed off, regresses and becomes frightened? Reminds me of the people who when they are 50 are proudly proclaiming that they would rather be in a nursing home than possibly place any burden whatsoever on their children; but when they are 85 and in the nursing home they are howling to get out.



It's too much of a slippery slope.
Click to expand...



Cutting off food and water is cruel for dementia. But I’m pretty sure in most advanced directives, and I’m certain in mine, that cutting off food and water is only an option if there is no brain activity. I don’t see any suffering in that case.
 
bmcgonig said:
Here's a powerful article about a woman with Alzheimer's that decided to check out prior to the worst happening. Very well written.


https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/magazine/the-last-day-of-her-life.html
Click to expand...
That is quite an article. It illustrates the difficulty with making a decision to kill yourself before you become incapable of doing so. Sandy seems to have done it at precisely the right moment. But without the active cooperation of her family I doubt she would have been able to get it done. To be safe, and to avoid the decision being taken away from your old self by your less cognizant new self, I suspect most would need to do it sooner - before they would prefer. An interesting factor in the article is that there is probably no effective way around that dilemma. The Dutch experience shows that laws permitting assisted suicide for incompetent Alzheimer's patients in accordance with directives drawn up when the patient was competent don't work. In practice the vast majority of the Dutch doctors just can't bring themselves to kill someone who no longer is able to articulate that desire. To me this indicates that peoples' fears about euthanasia laws opening a slippery slope towards premature death is probably misplaced.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

B
How much do you spend per month on fitness?
2 3 4
Replies
88
Views
2K
Surewhitey
Surewhitey
2
Reducing stock exposure in Retirement, age 60+
4 5 6
Replies
144
Views
9K
Onda
O
sengsational
Meditation Resolution
2 3 4
Replies
81
Views
5K
ERD50
E
C
Help, my Medicare Number was changed, what do I do?
Replies
8
Views
2K
SecondCor521
SecondCor521
Ready-4-ER-at-14
cash account for inheritance purpose
Replies
4
Views
632
catii
C

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom