Euthanasia

[April]

This topic came to mind after reading the 'Suicide' debate board. This isn't meant to debate suicide, but the act of helping someone else end their life.

 

http://www.tdnforums...__fromsearch__1 (This is the original suicide board)

 

Euthanasia, for those who don't know is when you when you assist someone with ending their life. The broad concept is that it's a doctor helping a patient. I want to expand that and say in general.

 

1. Is it right for a doctor to help a patient that is suffering physically?

2. Is it right when the patient is going to die anyways?

3. Is it right for a friend to supply the means or to help their friend end their life in any way?

 

There is also involuntary Euthanasia (when a patient is against Euthanasia)

There is non voluntary euthanasia is where the patient is unable to give consent. (An example being vegetable state.)

(Passive non voluntary euthanasia, which is withhold life support, is legal some places.)

 

And of course, voluntary euthanasia. When the patient gives consent or asks for their life to be ended.

 

So my question to you guys, is Euthanasia ever acceptable? Should someone's life really be ruined for 'mercy killing?'

 

Obviously, I am against involuntary and non voluntary(on the edge about this one) but if someone really wants their life to be over, should it be okay to assist them?

[chibi_chibi_tsukino]

I think it is acceptable in some cases. For example a very old person who favour death over more pain. On the other hand I think involuntary Euthanasia is always wrong, and I believe in the case of 'young' people it is also wrong ('young' here includes people in their 50s with a stroke).

[Sweetdang]

Removing religion from the picture, I would say that if you want to be killed then you should be granted your wish. (I mean, your life, right?)

 

Including religion into the picture, your life is not yours, but created by God, and thus you cannot steal away from the gift of life.

 

My mum's already said that she'll never want life support - she doesn't want to live on borrowed time.

[Welcome Back Apathy]

The reason why we have debates is because things are not in black and white. Every issue we debate has shades of grey, limits on what our beliefs will allow, etc. This issue is definitely a grey area issue in my beliefs. There are definitely times in which it is black and white to me, though.

 

Here is my checklist. If a person satisfies all of the below points, then euthanasia is 100% okay by me. To shorten the things I am going to say, I will refer the problem ailing the patient "the disease" even if it is not actually a disease.

1) The disease will never go away.

2) The patient has a diagnosis that he/she will die from the disease within a few years. (Let's say three years, just so it's measurable.)

3) The patient cannot serve normal functions in everyday life. That is, they cannot leave the house/hospital. They cannot work. They cannot make food for themselves if someone else does the grocery shopping.

4) THE DISEASE MAKES LIFE WORSE THAN DEATH. This is really the main one. There is definitely a such thing as "worse than death", as I brought up in the suicide debate. The difference between my past ailments and my black-and-white euthanasia checklist, though, is that the worst parts of my ailments did go away.

5) Most importantly, despite the fact that I just said #4 was the main one, the patient must consent to it, unless they have permanently lost the capability of consent. If they have permanently lost the capability of consent, then it is okay to assume consent unless they have said in the past their views on the matter. This is why I think everyone should have a living will, or at least should express their personal views as to life support. Make the consent black-and-white.

 

If a person satisfies all of the above, then yes, they should be euthanized as per their decision. 100% black-and-white to me. I'm a utilitarian, but I understand that people might shape their own priorities differently from how I do, so that's why I say they need to satisfy ALL of the above for 100% decision. (That is, if someone's priority is how the patient can still contribute to the world, then that might outweigh the rest of the checklist, and the patient still might not be euthanized.) In each one of these points, euthanasia is the better decision.

 

1-4 are enough to satisfy me that a person can be euthanized, but ultimately, it is the patient's decision if they can decide. If they decide they want to live, I'm not going to tell them their logic is flawed just because it's different from mine. It's THEIR life, and THEIR decision.

[April]

I personally feel if someone wants to die. Without a doubt wants to die. Then they should be allowed and Euthanasia should be legal. It'd be humane and painless.

 

Otherwise people end up trying methods and they don't always work. Not even a gunshot to the head all the time. And people end up worse than when they started.

[hrtbrk]

If you're terminally ill, and in a lot of pain, yes 100%.

 

Two of my grandparents were terminally ill and basically begged to die simply to stop the pain (one's body was shutting down as she was 98 and my Grandpa had many cancers spread throughout his body in the matter of months)

[Kwa]

As someone who is in the medical profession, I have to say that I am FOR euthanasia, but can totally understand why it is not yet legalised. It is such a slippery slop and something that will be so hard to regulate.

 

Say a person had to have a certain percentage loss of quality of life. Who is to say how one person interprets quality of life compared to the next?

 

Say it is based on what medical condition you have. What if someone wants to die, but they don't 'qualify' because the don't have the right condition or their condition isn't severe enough. This also goes back to my first point, someone who is in a lesser stage of a disease may feel they can't handle a anymore and wish to die or someone who is much more advanced may still feel they have some fight left in them.

 

Lots of people say that if you are very ol and frail and are going to die soon anyway that should be okay and while fundamentally, yeah, thats a great idea, many elderly people may not have a full comprehenion of exactly what they are agreeing too (anyone who had worked with the eldery will know that often they simply say 'yes' to everything even if they don't understand).

 

One way to combat this may be to have people write a 'death plan' or somesuch, whereas if a person is ever in such a position where all the requirements of a death plan are met (full of cancer, comatose for X amount of time, unable to complete basic self care....whatever) then it would be all systems go. However, who is to say that what you put in a plan at 20, 30, 40, 50 you will still feel the same about in X amount of years when you have children, grandchildren, family and friends in the picture.

 

I could go on and on. But at the end of the day, I think there are just too many variables at the moment and once some people start doing it, there will be too many precedents set for everyone else to do it.

 

If it was something to ever get up off the ground it would be something that would need an awful lot of rule and regulations in place to make sure it was safe for everyone involved.

[Angeló]

I'm in the medical field too but I'm against euthanasia

 

To me it's just .... unethical ...

 

And as Sweetdang said ... God will take your life when God decides to ...

[Trig]

The reason why we have debates is because things are not in black and white. Every issue we debate has shades of grey, limits on what our beliefs will allow, etc. This issue is definitely a grey area issue in my beliefs. There are definitely times in which it is black and white to me, though.

 

Here is my checklist. If a person satisfies all of the below points, then euthanasia is 100% okay by me. To shorten the things I am going to say, I will refer the problem ailing the patient "the disease" even if it is not actually a disease.

1) The disease will never go away.

2) The patient has a diagnosis that he/she will die from the disease within a few years. (Let's say three years, just so it's measurable.)

3) The patient cannot serve normal functions in everyday life. That is, they cannot leave the house/hospital. They cannot work. They cannot make food for themselves if someone else does the grocery shopping.

4) THE DISEASE MAKES LIFE WORSE THAN DEATH. This is really the main one. There is definitely a such thing as "worse than death", as I brought up in the suicide debate. The difference between my past ailments and my black-and-white euthanasia checklist, though, is that the worst parts of my ailments did go away.

5) Most importantly, despite the fact that I just said #4 was the main one, the patient must consent to it, unless they have permanently lost the capability of consent. If they have permanently lost the capability of consent, then it is okay to assume consent unless they have said in the past their views on the matter. This is why I think everyone should have a living will, or at least should express their personal views as to life support. Make the consent black-and-white.

 

If a person satisfies all of the above, then yes, they should be euthanized as per their decision. 100% black-and-white to me. I'm a utilitarian, but I understand that people might shape their own priorities differently from how I do, so that's why I say they need to satisfy ALL of the above for 100% decision. (That is, if someone's priority is how the patient can still contribute to the world, then that might outweigh the rest of the checklist, and the patient still might not be euthanized.) In each one of these points, euthanasia is the better decision.

 

1-4 are enough to satisfy me that a person can be euthanized, but ultimately, it is the patient's decision if they can decide. If they decide they want to live, I'm not going to tell them their logic is flawed just because it's different from mine. It's THEIR life, and THEIR decision.

 

I'm inclined to really agree with all of your points. However, I think the most IMPORTANT one is that the patient must consent to it. I also think it's important to have a living will, and a power of attorney. With regards to pets, we recently put my pet down because yes, treatment was expensive, but also because it wasn't worth it for HIM to put him through surgery, radiation, and different medical procedures the we KNEW he would not enjoy because of the pain. Sorry to get off topic- but I just wanted to kind of defend that.

 

I believe that it should be painless- as is animal euthanasia- and should be for good reason. I don't think that a 40 year old with cancer who has just started chemo can say, hey- I just want to die. Most forms of cancer are completely treatable by that stage. This situation changes if the person is 80 or 90 years old though.

[kristinaapril]

But to address your concern about cancer. My mother has survived cancer, but many family members and friends have not. Cancer does not kill according to age. Someone who is a teenager can die a painful death from cancer. A wonderful lady who was my mother's work colleague underwent a double masectomy, and was undergoing chemotherapy. The cancer had spread too far by the time she was diagnosed with it, and it had spread to her bones. She died an excruciatingly painful death, where even morphine could not numb the pain. She was in her mid-thirties. Depending on the stage of the cancer is what I would consider first, before factoring in the age of the patient.

 

I'm for euthanasia for that reason. If someone is in so much pain and on there death bed, why would you want to torture them? As a cancer survivor, if it got to the point that I was in so much pain I would opt for euthanasia. I honestly can't understand why it's not legal. It's my body, my life. If I want someone to help me die, let them. Obviously, I'm sure if this is to happen there would have to be large amounts of documentation and whatever else.

[Welcome Back Apathy]

This debate has been inactive for a long time, so I hope the moderators do not mind if I bump it. I'd far rather bump it than create a new topic on it.

 

Election Day for Americans is coming up very soon. On my ballot (the Massachusetts, USA ballot) is this precise issue: the issue of assisted suicide. Here are the requirements for being allowed to request an assisted suicide:

• An adult patient who is diagnosed with a terminal illness and determined by two doctors to have six months or less to live is allowed the choice to use the Death with Dignity law.
  
• The patient must voluntarily request his or her doctor write a prescription for life-ending medication. Doctor and healthcare provider participation is voluntary.
  
• Two doctors must confirm the patient is mentally capable of communicating health care decisions and confirm the patient is making a voluntary, informed choice.
  
• After the patient makes the request, there are required waiting periods before the writing of the prescription.
  

A little more information about how it works...

• Doctors are required to inform patients about all their end‐of‐life care options, including palliative care, pain management, and hospice care
  
• Two physicians must verify the mental competence of the terminally ill patient and the voluntary nature of the request
  
• Three requests must be made by the patient for the prescription, two oral and one written. There is a 15‐day waiting period between the first oral request and the writing of the prescription, and a 48‐hour waiting period between the written request and the writing of the prescription
  
• The terminally ill patient's written request must be independently witnessed by two people
  
• Only adult residents of Massachusetts may receive prescriptions under the act
  
• The patient may change his or her mind at any time
  

I got these off of the "Yes on Question 2" site, which was sadly more informative than the unbiased sites. It even had the full wording of the law: http://www.yesondign...sp?c=525&p=1755 I'm going to check the opposition and see what it says, but I like that Yes on Question 2 does let you know how the process works. (I did NOT like that under "facts" it had opinions. Come on, guys, that's NOT how a fact works!)

 

What do you think? Do these requirements match up with yours?

 

 

EDIT: Still reading up on the "No on Question 2" stuff, but the campaign website is not very informative. Rather, I think this article makes a far better argument against it: http://www.theatlant...ressive/264091/

While the Yes on 2 site asserts that no abuse has occurred in Oregon or Washington, the No on 2 people say that there has been abuse; it just hasn't been investigated or reported. There are cases in which the insurance providers refuse to cover life-saving drugs but WILL cover the lethal prescriptions because they are cheaper.