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Posted on 02/06/2008 4:27:00 PM PST by SubGeniusX
After reading the Personal Health column on Nov. 27 on preventing geriatric suicide, Gloria C. Phares, a 93-year-old retired teacher in Missouri, wrote:
“I was healthy until 90, and then Boom! Atrial fibrillation; deaf, can’t enjoy music or hear a voice unless 10 inches from my ear; fell, fractured my thigh and am now a cripple; had a slight stroke the day after my beloved husband died after 61 years of marriage.
“I’ve lived a happy life, but from here on out it’s all downhill. Is there any point in my living any longer? I’m not living — just existing. I very much want to die, but our society doesn’t let me. Oh for a pill to ease myself out and end my pain, pain, pain.”
As this column said in November, untreated depression is a common cause of suicide in older people, though by no means the only one. But when I spoke to Mrs. Phares’s son Michael, with her permission, he assured me that she was not depressed, just tired of living what she views as a pointless and painful existence. He suggested to her, not entirely in jest, that she move to Oregon or the Netherlands, where physician-assisted suicide is legal.
Modern medicine can keep people alive into their 9th and 10th decades, when in years past they would have succumbed to any number of conditions. Now a small but growing number of these people are asking why. What is the point of living so long if you can no longer enjoy living? What is the point of living until your mind turns to marshmallow and you are reduced to an existence that is less than human?
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
I do not think it at all ethical or moral for society itself though to "pull the trigger".
I thought it as a Romney/Huckabee story.
Couple of taser shots should do it...
NYT pro euthanasia article ping
Expect to see a blizzard of these types of stories with the congruence of: Baby Boomer retirements; socialized medicine in the US; bankruptcy of Medicare; and precedents of Terry Schiavo and others like Hugh Finn.
Hey Jane E,
Aren’t you saying the “right” to die has become the duty to die and get out of the way? If I’m going to die (and I will someday), nothing you can do or say will stop it from happening. It’s inevitable!
Living Wills, Final Instructions, and documents such as these will help the decision making by family and guardians in the event of catastrophic illness or injury that leaves one unable to communicate wishes or desires.
However, we do not afford the same to people still able to communicate.
I’ll take the libertarian stance on this one. This should be a decision between the individual and their medical practitioner(s). It’s not a government issue.
The rules are simple:
1. Life begins at conception. It’s a living human at that moment- NO arguments.
2. During life, the time to die is when God says so, and only then. No, it doesn’t matter if you’re in pain or apparently non-functional. The Lord may yet have a use for you (even though this may not be immediately..or EVER..apparent), so until He says so, don’t try to end your life...OR others.
3. In your twilight years, do not try to end your life if you’re sick of living or feel useless. Ask God to give you strength and what He wants. He can make your life fulfilling right to your last breath.
Committing suicide is wrong, but you can’t very well stop someone from doing it. If she wants to kill herself, it wouldn’t be that hard to do.
But she doesn’t need to spill her guts to the death-loving New York Times. And she doesn’t need to further corrupt the medical profession just so she can commit suicide a little more conveniently.
Hell, if Pinch Sulzberger or Jane E. Brody want to commit suicide, too, that’s their business. But don’t drag everyone else into your perverted desires.
Otherwise we’ll end up like the Netherlands, where they kill people of just because they are inconvenient or cost too much, or the doctor wants to go on vacation, without even bothering to get permission from the patient or the family.
Then if you go to the hospital with a health problem, you won’t know if the emergency room doctor will help you or kill you.
The “State” has no business here.
There is a HUGE difference between self determination, and state sponsored euthanasia.
You've never really seen someone die slow and in agony, have you?
Ping
Anybody who can lift a frying pan owns death!
When the government runs health care, this won’t be an option for the old and sick. It will be a requirement.
The patient is not in a sound state of mind. She is depressed and her doctors are not handling her pain properly. I won’t drive down there and interfere, but a doctor “helping” her kill herself would be a travesty. She needs counseling and support, not a death squad.
I know, but masking mindless cruelty as “God’s Will” seems to be a favorite sport for some adherents of all the Abrahamic faiths in these times.
Yes...my mom.
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