There is nothing wrong with putting anything in writing you want. There is something wrong with expecting what you wrote 20 years ago to get much weight when the DA is considering a charge of murder at the bequest of other family. The DA would also would like to know that the patient chose to take those pills when they were taken rather than when someone else wanted to sneak them as the anti nausea meds. 'Here's your morning meds, Ma. Go ahead swallow, mom, just swallow" I realize this all seems paranoid, but this bill was passed over a decade ago, it was the very first in the United States and it had alleviate opposition from doctors, District Attorney, and the senior and disabled advocates lobby. Because all this activity is happening in the privacy of a home with no independent and impartial witness, its different from taking away life support in a hospital setting where what you wrote 20 years ago is not being translated and acted upon by a very exhausted caretaker family member, who just can't imagine weeks or months of this!
OK, maybe I should clarify....I believe in DOCTOR assisted suicide. A murder charge should be investigated if there's doubt. A care giver/relative would be indeed foolish to administer a drug that can so easily be detected. But if the patient has made known their wish to die that should enter into it but only if a doctor is involved. Family members may pressure a person to end it all but society, drug companies, doctors, home care , hospices, hospitals, and politicians who are paid by them could also, for profit, pressure the patient to stay alive....either is wrong. My father , who was being slowly tortured to death by several illnesses, prescription drugs , and doctors, said, ""I wouldn't jump off a cliff but I wouldn't be mad at whoever pushed me off..."""
You and I agree with the end goal. The AMA and many doctors are very leery of even having a doctor prescribe the drugs. This happens at home because that is where the patient wants to die, not in that (*)(*)(*)(*)ing hospital they spent months in and out of. doctors take that Hippocratic oath about not harming, very literally and seriously. A lot of doctors won't come near this with a ten foot poll for ethical reasons here in Oregon They do not want to assist people to die and they do not view that as their role. They sure don't want to make a housecall to put the pills in Sally Smiths mouth. Maybe we need to look at those hospice nurses and in home health care providers as an option when the patient is too weak.
Maybe doctors should review what "do no harm" means.......I think I would be harmed terribly if I had to live for months or years with a painful, debilitating disease that would only end in death. Death is not always the worst harm. Maybe they should review the fact that the patient's wishes come first, doctors afterall are hired help, employees of the patient. If a doctor doesn't believe it's his role that's fine as long as he tells his patient that upfront so they can find a more humane doctor.
I've always been at the cross-roads about this, but more inclined to believe a terminally ill person should have that right to decide whether he/she wants to continue living such a limited existence, w/no quality of life in it.......particularly when they're suffering in pain. Yes, there's drugs to eliminate the pain, but what kind of 'living' is that? We don't let our animals suffer.....what is so noble about making our loved one suffer?
Yes, I get that, but this is not the taking of one person's life by another, nor the forced ending of that person's life. It's voluntary and most places have requirements that verified extreme medical circumstances be present. Just for the sake of clarity, I know you disprove of government mandated health care, but you don't disagree with government mandated life? The government can decide that you must live, that you cannot take your own life, but they shouldn't help you to receive health care?
UK Supreme Court backs agreed end-of-life decisions... Supreme Court backs agreed end-of-life decisions 30 July `18 - Legal permission will no longer be needed to withdraw treatment from patients in permanent vegetative state, the Supreme Court has ruled.
That would def. change under a single payer - Socialist system... No? (don't get me wrong, lol - I espouse neither socialism or euthanasia). Death w/ dignity (imho) should not be legislatively sanctioned or become a CPT code for billing purposes. If opting for death w/ dignity one should be savvy enough to pull it off w/o formal medical assistance. Of course I could see myself opting for that, at the very very end, given extenuating circumstance...
There's quite a big moral gulf between suicide and putting down the sick dog. Death is the end result of both but that doesn't make euthanization and suicide the same thing.
