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Posted on 11/02/2008 9:16:57 AM PST by wagglebee
When voters in Washington state head to the polls on Tuesday, they will consider Initiative 1000, which would make the state the second in the nation to legalize the grisly practice of assisted suicide. Washington residents should reject assisted suicide to a solution to helping elderly, terminally ill and other patients.
In the minds of most Americans, assisted suicide brings to mind Doctor Kevorkian, the iconoclastic crusader who appeared more interested in publicity than putting the interests of patients first.
While a Jack Kevorkian may not come to Washington to flout the current laws, making the practice legal doesn't help patients.
For many, assisted suicide involves the same principles as the abortion debate -- where death becomes a handy solution when government or society seeks quick fix solution to a problem.
Just as abortion doesn't solve the problems of providing medial care, education assistance, financial aid or comfort and support for pregnant women who believe they have no other option when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, assisted suicide is no legitimate option for patients.
Merely legalizing assisted suicide doesn't provide patients with better medical care or health insurance, it doesn't alleviate the pain and suffering that illnesses can bring for patients who don't want to take their life, and it doesn't yield cures, provide better hospice support or strengthen the doctor-patient relationship.
It certainly doesn't alleviate the concerns of a throw-away society that increasingly views the elderly, the disabled, and the infirm as burdens to society rather than blessings.
The old saying that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it applies to the debate over I-1000. All Washington voters need to do to determine if the supposed safeguards in the ballot proposal will actually work is look at the problems associated with the state of Oregon.
Just weeks ago, researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University released the results of a study showing one-fourth of the people killed in assisted suicides in Oregon were depressed but received lethal cocktails anyway.
Of the patients involved, 26 percent were independently diagnosed with depression. they weren't treated -- giving credence to the notion that assisted suicide is a cure looking for a problem.
Who knows how much pressure was applied on those patients by family members, doctors, medical personnel, or how much pressure they put on themselves to take their own life rather than seek medical and mental health assistance. The "easy" solution of taking one's life seems like a good idea to those who are worried about being a burden to family or patients who are concerned about how to pay medical bills. Assisted suicide only adds to that pressure.
Assisted suicide puts the doctor-patient relationship in an improper light -- and it's no wonder that state medical associations across the nation have opposed it in other states where voters considered the idea.
The role of doctors and medical staff as healers is a longstanding one. Patients already face concerns in the form of medical personnel who already take it upon themselves to euthanize or hasten the death of patients without opening the door to legitimatize their actions by allowing assisted suicide.
The slippery slope of assisted suicide to euthanasia is no longer a question as European nations who were supposed to close the door to doctors actively killing patients have opened it wide.
Also, the case of Barbara Wagner is becoming less and less far-fetched.
Washington voters need to know how she was denied treatment and told that insurance would pay for an assisted suicide but not medication that could help her. As more and more economic pressures are placed on the medical system, the pressure to take patients' lives as opposed to the cost and effort of medicating them will only increase. Again, assisted suicide exacerbates that problem.
Ultimately, it's no surprise that doctors groups, disability rights groups, religious organizations, and pro-life organizations have banded together in other states to stop assisted suicide. They all have valid points to make about the problems associated with the practice and states ranging from Michigan and Maine to Hawaii and California have rejected assisted suicide because they understand the pitfalls.
Washington voters, please don't make the same mistake. Reject the out-of-state money telling you to vote for I-1000 and help your fellow Americans who worry that your vote will force assisted suicide on the rest of us if the pro-suicide movement snowballs.
Vote no on I-1000.
I’m a pilot and if I was involved in an accident which most likely would be fueled by aviation fuel and was burned horribly damm right I don’t want to continue an existence horrible disfigured ..... if I couldn’t get help then I’d find some other method as would anyone else ... but if you’re in a hospital tied to your bed then ..... hopefully they’d have one of those morphine machines where you can control your input ... maybe a nice way to go ......
Aside from the main issue of morality, assisted suicide is a slippery slope which eventually and most certainly leads to euthanasia. Who would ever have believed when abortion was first legalized we’d someday be debating whether babies should be partially born then killed.
When you get the AMA to agree to give pain killing drugs to dying patients at the manufacturers cost and stop this crap about worrying they will become addicted to the pills, that’s when I will agree to Say No to Assisted Suicide. Until then, don’t even bother to post the articles.
>>Of the patients involved, 26 percent were independently diagnosed with depression. they weren’t treated — giving credence to the notion that assisted suicide is a cure looking for a problem.<<
What, you expect that someone who is in such serious condition that they have agreed to assisted suicide to become cheerful? Ignorance abounds.
This article is 3/4 about the money that the doctors and terminal care givers will lose and 1/4 about compassion for the dying.
wagglebee, I forgot to mention but this form of suicide probably prevents the organ harvesters from coming in with their knives and cooler boxes, doesn’t it. There’s a lot of cold hard cash in a fresh corpse for the organ harvesters, isn’t there? It would be a shame to see all that money go to waste.
If the person was suffering from cancer then the organs might not be OK - cancer could have spread to them and maybe un-noticed .... one woman died of rabies when the cornea transplanted to her had the virus ....
As much as I hate the idea of killing those who cannot defend themselves, ie. abortions, I have a hard time regulating that same issue with knowledgeable adults.
I think anyone considering suicide should be required to listen to or watch videos describing every possible alternative months before they get to the point of no return but then if they still wish to go through with it six months or a year later, that should be up to them and only them.
I can think of many reasons why someone would want to do it and a lot of them make a lot of practical sense. You have to get the 10 Commandments out of the way though.
“You have to get the 10 Commandments out of the way though.”
Actually there are over 600 commandments - the Ten is just part of them. You violate one you’ve violated all ... that is what Jesus came for - when He said “It Is Finished” He was referring to those commandments. Now it’s Grace, not Law.
A knowledgeable adult should decide for themselves what they want without outside interference. I do want a stranger deciding for me what is best for me. If I want drugs to end my pain it is my decision. As for the unborn, they have no say whether they want to die or not.
God is the judge, not man.
/r/Jane
If anyone reads hospice literature or talks to hospice personnel, you will see that they do provide pain meds and are on the forefront of not worrying about whether a terminal cancer patient will become “addicted” to them.
The argument is specious and without merit.
Regarding the slippery slope argument above, and “looking to EU for guidance”, that is not what I meant at all. My point is that once the door is opened for doctors to kill people if they ask for it, then people can and will be coerced or pressured into “asking” for it, or not ask for it at all, or other people will decide it’s the best thing. As IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW in Europe, and will most assuredly happen here if more doc assisted suicide is legalized.
It’s not a question of looking to EU for guidance, it’s a question of leftists who love death wanting to eliminate more useless eaters. It’s a question of people lives’ being valued only if certain criteria are met, and if not met, the lives are considered useless.
If you value life - not just your own, but others’ - then abortion, assisted suicide and euthenasia are all evil, without exception (regarding abortion, if the life of the mother is really at stake, then in IMO it’s good - such as ectopic pregnancy, side note).
As a straight GOP voter, I voted YES on this one.
I personally witnessed my father-in-law die of stomach cancer last year. He had unbearable pain, kept vomiting even water much less any food, and it was simply devastating to me and my wife to watch him suffer like that. The doctors told us the cancer had spread through his intestine, liver and gall bladder and there was nothing humanly possible to save him. But they could not euthanize him! He was obviously too weak to kill himself. This is simply disgraceful.
“If you value life”, there’s the problem right there. I do believe that some people need killing. No, not the kind, gentle way that prisons do it, I would prefer that many criminals die a slow, painful death that leaves and strong impression on all who have thought about committing the same crime.
Also, you read too fast. Did you not see “at the manufacturers cost”? I am not talking about $18,000 a month to administer drugs to and bath a dying person. I want to see the costs brought down so that they don’t bankrupt the widow.
Read #30 and reply to it, if you can.
Why wasn’t he on morphine or pain killers?
To me it’s selfish. If a person is in pain, dying anyway within six months why not let them end their suffering? The hospitals are raking in tons of money keeping that person alive. If an individual wants to end their suffering they should be allowed to do so. Where do others get off telling them they have to continue in their pain? Oregon has had this law for years and it works.I totally agree with you. If you read the text of the initaitie, there are a number of safeguards in place. The person has to have a terminal disease with 6 months or less to live. They have to request it (THEMSELVES) several times (with multiple weeks between requests), etc.
Many of the same folks opposing this initiative were making the same doom and gloom prognostications before the Oregon law passed, and we haven't seen old people being wheeled off to the ovens, death camps, or any Logan's Run or Soylent Green scenarios being played out there.
Bottom line, I get that some people believe it is morally wrong to kill oneself, even when you have 3 months of unbearable pain left before you die anyway, but I don't think it's the state's role to say whether they can or can't. I don't see any difference between this and any of the numerous scenarios where the left wants the government to tell me what to do.
Suicide is between oneself and their God ... if God is all love and understanding, He’d know ...
If a person understands that each individual is an eternal soul wearing a mortal body, then every life is authored by the Supreme. It is the job of God to decide when people die. It is not the job of people themselves or those around them. Of course, a person can always decide to commit suicide. But it is a great evil and should never ever be encouraged by any level of government or the medical profession.
If a person voluntarily stops eating and drinking they will die within one week or less, especially if they are suffering from a terminal illness. Anyone can do it and no one can stop them short of forcing re-hydration on them. If a person has signed papers that they do not want it, they will not get it.
And with pain medication it is not painful; quite different when someone is forcibly starved against their will as was Terri Schiavo. I have seen several people pass from this world in that manner.
Anyone who thinks that euthanasia (which is really what doc assisted suicide is) should read what’s happened in the last few years in Europe. That will happen here if doc assisted suicide becomes legal everywhere.
Useless eaters will be offed, I guarantee it. It is abortion’s evil twin.
The pain killers had to be injected since he could
not keep anything down in the stomach. He was 82 and
very frail. There was not enough muscle mass to inject him.
Besides the pain killers can not kill all of the pain
caused by tumors pressing on the nerves. Unless ofcourse
an overdose is given which would kill the patient anyways.
I value life and I also am a big promoter of the death penalty, it is WAY underused.
I already did (vote “no” that is).
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