Dignity and Compassion in Assisted Suicide
posted by: Ann Pietrangelo 190 days ago
Simple human dignity and compassion. It's hard to juxtapose that with end-of-life medical interventions that serve only to prolong pain and suffering, often against the wishes of the patient, while adding thousands of dollars to medical costs for no benefit.
Faced with such suffering and no hope of recovery, would you opt out if you could?
That's exactly what one Washington woman did recently, becoming the first person to take advantage of the state's Death with Dignity law. Diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and certain death, she made a conscious, well thought out decision about her own death.
In the comfort of her own home, with her family and her physician present, she took the prescribed medication that would end her life peacefully. Contrast that with the alternative mixture of powerful drugs, tubes and wires, and the beeping machines of a cold hospital room.
CNN reports that Washington's law was approved by about 60 percent of voters last November, and 401 people have taken advantage of Oregon's assisted suicide law since it passed in 1994.
It's not the right choice for everyone, but it is a welcome relief to many folks to know that the option is there, without drastic consequences for the loved ones left behind.
As uncomfortable as this topic may be, it is an important one and something we should be discussing with those closest to us. Advanced directives -- a living will -- is the best way to ensure that your wishes are documented, avoid unnecessary confusion for your loved ones. A medical power-of-attorney allows you to choose who will made decisions on your behalf, if you become unable. Laws vary from state to state.
Controversial though it may be, this is a compassionate law, and a dignified option that joins the patient and doctor together in the goal of easing suffering for the terminally ill.
More information on end-of-life issues can be found at:
Medline Plus, A Service of the U.S. Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health
National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
Individual state advanced directives can be downloaded at CaringInfo.org
Do you believe assisted suicide is acceptable?
Read more: cancer, health policy, end of life, assisted suicide, death with dignity
comments
My mother is in the last stages of Alzheimer's. When I visit her now (she is in an extended care facility) she doesn't know who I am. She sometimes can communicate with me with one or two words; most of the time she cannot speak to me. While I am with her she lays in her bed and stares at the wall or the ceiling. My father, her husband of 49 years, died last September. She is completely unaware of his passing and has never asked me about him since his death. The life she LIVED is over. Fortunately, I have a medical power of attorney and I was able to implement a DNR and add hospice care to my mother's care plan so that she will eventually be allowed to pass with some peace and dignity. I believe that any law maker or person who had to witness a loved one go through this kind of torturous withdrawal from life would be more receptive to the idea of assisted suicide. I know if my mother had the choice, she would have definitely opted for that rather than what she is going through now. It surprises me that people are all for "leaving it in God's hands" yet they are more than willing to interfere with the natural process of death by hooking a person up to any kind of artificial means available to keep them "alive." It makes no sense to me at all. As I watch my mother go through the last stages of a "second death" I am not afraid to die - I am afraid to live attached to a machine because of someone's perverse idea of what "life" really means.
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My Mother had bone cancer, she knew if she did not wear the brace, her spine would collapse, she would die...
One morning after her sponge bath, she refused to let me put it back on, she was tired of being in pain and bedridden.
I never put it back on, she died 29 hours later, and her suffering was over. I love her very much, and I miss her.
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I know that if it was me and I was suffering ~ I'd want to have the option of assisted suicide. People have "living wills" that state whether or not they want live saving measures (ie. shock paddles, breathing machines, etc.) taken to safe them or not and that's legal.
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I believe that it is a personal decision one must make when faced with illness that there is no survival rate or injury that is severe enough that there is no chance of survivial without the help of machines. However, this is not a choice that anyone should be able to make for you and your intentions should be clearly expressed so there is no question. Personally, I believe in quality of life...I would like to go out on a good day....not one in which my body is being forced to breath or one in which I am trapped in a body that is dead. I have watched to many loved ones die in an un-natural way to know that this is not what I want. My god is an understanding god, if I choose to make that decision, then we will have to have a talk about it when we meet.
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yes i believe people should have the choice to end there suffering when i saw a friend of mine how he sufferd with motor neurone disease,and my own husband with cancer you would not let your own pet suffer. i would just like to say i agree with every thing PAMELA H said
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The reason that dying with dignity has been criminalised is because they can't make money from dead people. Simple as that. While we are kept alive by drugs and machines we are fattening the coffers of the big pharmaceutical companies and paying rich doctors and hospitals. Once we die, all that stops. And if we choose to die at home, hospitals get nothing. We can't have that now can we [sarcasm intended]. Every natural process of life has been taken from us and medicalized for the same reason. From giving birth to menstrual cycles to family planning to menopause and dying. These things are not sicknesses, they are natural and normal human processes.
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We do this for dogs and cats and horses and so many more animals that are suffering why not humans?
Why make them suffer for sometimes many years what is to be gained by that just to make them feel terrible in so many many ways it just doesn't make any sense at all and that is a fact.
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Deborah, My husband has epilepsy and it is under control with medications. He has do not rescitate orders on file. My mother-in-law is in her late 70s and enjoys good health - but she has expressed wishes to not be rescitated if something happens.
I understand your wishes but there must be people who care if you live or die. Having aspergers is not the same as having a terminal disease and having disabilities does not mark someone for automatic 'offing'. What we are talking about here is assisted suicide - and the right of a patient to decide to die with dignity. We are more humane to our companion animals than we often are to our elderly and ill.
I knew someone whose aunt was 89 years old and was found to have breast cancer. They had to fight the hospital to not do invasive mastectomy surgery on her. She wanted to spend her last days at home surrounded by her loved ones - not subjected to surgery and chemotherapy.
The idea that you won't donate your organs because that would make them more important than you is mindboggling. No one is more important than you. You have dignity and worth & you are important! I know it must be discouraging to live with Asperger's and I don't know what that is like; but my 96 year old Aunt has it and she does not seem to be in the least bothered by it. Sometimes, she makes life difficult for others but most of the time she is pretty normal. Had a child, has grandchildren...
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I work as a volunteer on a pet loss web site, and every day I tell someone that the act of assisting their beloved best friend on the final journey was an act of love and selflessness. I believe that human beings, who are capable of clearly expressing their wishes on this subject, should have the option to end their own suffering when the time comes.
That said, assisted suicide could open a slippery slope that would make it possible for murders to go undetected, so there would have to be some very clear guidelines regarding documentation of the patient's wishes.
When we assist our best friends, we talk about putting an end to their suffering and letting them go with dignity. Why in the world can we not find a way to make that an option for the people we love so well?
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I'm an older person living alone. In addition to the do not resuscitate order, directions to my family; after witnessing so many deaths of loved ones and animal friends, when the first serious illness comes along,old age pneumonia, or whatever, it is the death angel coming in kindness and I plan to go along with it.After that point every struggle to prolong life in this world creates more pain and makes the passing harder. Of course I can only say what I want for myself, but it will be my death and it,as my life, belongs to me alone. I'm grateful that I don't have any one to take control and rush me off to health care that I don't trust in the first place.I've told the kids who work for me and my sister that, illegal as it may be, if they see me lying on the ground outside to turn right around if they love me, without letting anyone know and don't come back that day.My great wish being that I will die outside under the sky. I hope that my good angels will help me get out and as far from the house as I can when the time comes. I SO do not want to leave a nastiness behind to ruin my house for the next beloved I want to live there; be it my best friend, my niece, or the Tibetan monks I will be leaving it to, depending on fortune.I always wanted my last sight in this world to be the sky outside and as there is no-one that it matters to me to be with I expect to succeed .With my High Self's decision to leave,nothing can keep me here, if not intervention will occur anyway.
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