Groups fighting for equality rights as per disability / human rights. That encompasses many disabilities. The point is safeguarding people with disabilities who are poor and more vulnerable - the majority are - from exploitation potentially leading to unjust deaths. You would not have to be poor to stand with them and add your voice if you wanted to.
Euthanasia in Canada, Supreme Court Ruled this Morning
- Thread starter blackbelt1961
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Groups fighting for equality rights as per disability / human rights. That encompasses many disabilities. The point is safeguarding people with disabilities who are poor and more vulnerable - the majority are - from exploitation potentially leading to unjust deaths. You would not have to be poor to stand with them and add your voice if you wanted to.
Lastpointe
Well-Known Member
And that is what the court decision is saying. Terminal illness, unrelenting pain.
Not people who are disabled. Unless they are also in unremitting pain due to a terminal illness.
revjohn said:
That's what we'll be doing in the immediate future - true. I have heard some wild speculation that the legislation will serve as a way of discovering which illnesses/disorders/conditions people most want permanent relief from - and once the list is made - bam - said relief will be prescribed for everyone in boat X.
@Lastpointe I read " 'inremediable' medical condition that causes physical or mental suffering" which scares me as to how broadly that might be interpreted.
Neo
Well-Known Member
I agree that the option would be placed on the table sooner, but it will always be in our control whether or not to accept such a choice.
The real danger comes from protecting ourselves from ourselves. Our propensity for greed, sometimes, can outweigh our compassion. At what point does the person who is pain become incapable of making that decision? Who then makes it? The family? The executor? The reason why we can euthanize animals is because they don't leave wills.
These are hard questions to work out. But we can't ignore them just because they are hard. There are some very real people who are in very terminal pain, some with no hope at all of ever getting better. To these people they should be offered a choice.
How we can be protected from abuse is something we simply have to work out. But ignoring it is not an option.
Carolla
wondering & wandering
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I am very doubtful that any new law will specify diagnosis/disorders - they will more likely outline the process necessary for physicians to follow to discern informed decision making, and circumstances as the Supreme Court has already indicated. These are personal circumstances and perspectives on the illness experience of the individual, not specific diagnoses.
When doctors tend to go with what they know, what they've seen a lot of - they may start to think the best prescription for X illness is death - and the public may acquire that understanding of X illess as well.
Neo
Well-Known Member
You're thinking the worst possible scenario here Kimmio, like a George Orwellington society or something.
We have to, I believe, grow up as a society and take on more responsibility, more respect and more love for both ourselves and our fellow human beings. Only then, I believe, will these hard decisions be made correctly. Do we wait till then to give us the choice, or do we face our problems now and try to make it work for everyone?
Seeler
Well-Known Member
One thing I'm thinking lifting this ban on assisted death with dignity might do is ease some of the delimna of doctors who I suspect have been doing it for some time. I'm imagining a patient in advanced stages of cancer. His life is a blur of pain. He barely acknowledges visitors to his bedside anymore. He gasps in pain, ring for the nurse, gets a shot of powerful pain killer. Within minutes his eyes glaze over and he drifts off to sleep. A couple of hours later he wakes, and within a short time he is begging for pain killer again. The nurse checks his schedule, asks if he can hold out a bit longer. Fifteen minutes later he is gasping from pain. He gets a shot, falls asleep. Wakes in pain. His doctor comes in, checks him. He begs for relief. His doctor explains that any increase in dosage might kill him. He answers that he doesn't care. He is prepared to die. Anything, anything to escape this pain. His doctor goes to the nursing station, writes a perscription and hands it to the nurse. She looks at it, then at the doctor. He nods his head. She gives the patient a shot. In a few minutes he falls asleep. When she checks him again he is dead.
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
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Yes, because it's a different subject. Live life with joy wherever you can find it.
But when death is inevitable, for f***'s sake, make it easier. Please.
But when death is inevitable, for f***'s sake, make it easier. Please.
Seeler, what you're describing is usually not the case, but you're not alone in thinking this.
https://www.hospicenet.org/html/pain_myths.html
http://americanhospice.org/caregivi...-in-the-seriously-and-terminally-ill-patient/
No Neo. It's not inconceivable. It's the natural course collective/ crowd thinking takes. Already had Bette, suggested tht her depressed friend might have prefered to kill herself. Already have Sue Rodriguez supporters thinking ALS would be automatically a reason to die....and so on. On the other side we have Stephen Hawkibg who can't walk, talk, can hardly blink - and he is one of the most brilliant people ever on earth. What I see are baby boomers fearing aging and planning their deaths but putting the security of persons' who try relentlessly to lead meaningful Ives with disabilities and have been seeking equality - at risk. How people think about disability is horribly ableist and if you want to talk Orwellian - in WW people with disabilities were exterminated in the hundreds of thousands. In North America, sterilized and experimented on and abused in institutions. Until about the late 60s early 70s. As late as the 80s in fact. Confidence in fellow humans? Not really. Not judging by some reactions here either - and I am asking people to think - before dismissing the concerns of PWDs rights groups. It's very disheartening. Think of it as the other residential schools. It has every place in this thread.
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Think about it like residential schools. It has a place in this thread.
BetteTheRed
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Kimmio, please stop mis-representing my words. I didn't use the word "friend". I know her through a 12 step program, based on strict confidentiality; she was absolutely strictly an acquaintance. I almost wish I had not opened my mouth, but I thought we needed the conversation opened beyond strict "terminal illness" guidelines. Some people want very badly to die for a long time. My own mother died a long protracted death starting with a severe stroke and a very badly broken ankle. She asked me a hundred times, if she asked me once, "why did god leave the job half done?".
I've gathered from your comments that you do agree with the right to die for those with a clear, soon, terminal diagnosis, like Dr. Low. So, we have progressed to the point that you agree that SOME PEOPLE have the right to choose their own death. What are your guidelines? What if there has never been, up to this point of illness, any documented disability of any sort. Does that change your rules?
I've gathered from your comments that you do agree with the right to die for those with a clear, soon, terminal diagnosis, like Dr. Low. So, we have progressed to the point that you agree that SOME PEOPLE have the right to choose their own death. What are your guidelines? What if there has never been, up to this point of illness, any documented disability of any sort. Does that change your rules?
People in severe pain that hasn't been managed properly will become depressed, angry, desire death for release from the pain, feel they've become a burden, etc.....
I do hope the government will include some criteria for seeking out positive pain management for some terminal prognosis, because effective pain management can make an amazing difference for many.
I do hope the government will include some criteria for seeking out positive pain management for some terminal prognosis, because effective pain management can make an amazing difference for many.
BetteTheRed
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Yes, but again, "pain" management does not encompass all of the reasons one might have to wish that dying might be easier, more dignified, more humane. Dr. Low describes his 'deafness' as living with a freight train in his head that drowned out all outside noise. That's not 'painful', nor can that be alleviated by 'pain' management. If one requires palliative sedation, why not move more towards palliative death?
@blackbelt1961 started this thread to get people's views not as a support group for people who love this decision and won't question it.
Neo
Well-Known Member
Orwellian! That's the word, thank-you. {wink}
I'm not sure why you keep focussing on persons with disabilities, this ruling by the Supreme Court is about specific cases with people with insufferable pain with no hope for cure. As far as I know Stephen Hawking is not in any pain like that. You are continuously distracting from the issue at hand here.