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.
That is your view point and I respect it. But I don’t respect
it forced on others who would be required to withstand excruciating pain for a few days for no good reason and zero hope of recovery.
I am with you on the under use of death penalty.
There have always been doctors who will over-prescribe pain and other meds to “help” a person leave this world a bit earlier.
By legalizing it, it is inevitable that what has happened in EU will happen here. It is interesting to see WHO and what organizations promote various agendas. Leftists invariably promote doc assisted suicide. They love death (of the innocent or suffering) - they want to reduce populations, there are too many (other) people according to them. But at the same time they are adamantly opposed to the use of the death penalty. They are mentally, morally and spiritually sick.
The innocent and suffering should be helped and protected; those who choose to do evil should be removed from the earth. WHen I say the death penalty is way underused, I mean it. Many crimes that are now not capital crimes used to be and the death penalty should be used again - for rape, kidnapping, child molesting, and all murder. And no 20 years of appeals, either. Anyway, that’s OT.
The suffering your relative had to go through and you and your family had to witness may well have been able to be somewhat alleviated with medication. Interestingly enough, many or most of those who are really behind the assisted suicide movement have other agendas. Wesley Smith (IIRC) wrote a highly interesting book on the subject.
I had a similar experience with my dad.I knew as a good catholic he wouldn’t have supported this when he was well, but when his body failed him he was left unable to communicate his wishes. I support the idea as a concept, but I have a problem with 1) forcing doctors to participating violating their oath, and 2) making it possible for avaricious family member to persuade a dying
member of the family to prematurely ‘pull the trigger’
out of greed.
Understood ... sorry for your loss ....
Husband, mom, son, and myself have already sent in out ballots with a big “no” vote.
Contrary to popular belief, pain medications will not relieve the extreme pain caused by terminal cancer tumors pressing on nerves. In my father-in-laws case his stomach tumor had grown to the size of a grapefruit and could not even keep water down, much less oral medication. In a 82 year frail body reduced to 80 lbs by the cancers, there is not enough flesh to inject pain medications on a continuous basis.
Having said that, I am very much pro-life, especially for the unborn. To kill a developed fetus who can easily survive on its own is murder one in my book.
At the same time the humanist in me can not tolerate people being forced to endure excruciating pain for the last few days of life. I am against all pain whether by criminal violence or by nature. However we can not give doctors a free license to euthanize indiscriminately. With carefully written rules, I must go along with euthanasia having witnessed such need first hand.
The Hippocratic Oath came about because a sick man’s enemies would pay off a doctor to kill the patient. The highest bid won.
Government would be involved since, presumably, Medicare would pay for the suicide drugs, and government endorses doctors by licensing them. When you corrupt the medical profession, you open up all sorts of very dangerous possibilities. I-1000 says you must get two doctors to agree. How hard is it to buy two doctors instead of one if you are wealthy enough and the stakes are high enough.
How many family members might decide that little old Auntie is wasting away “their” inheritance? How many might even succeed in convincing Auntie that it is better that she should just go ahead and kill herself because she is just too much trouble for the family?
In an ideal world everybody would be free to do anything they wished as long as they didn’t harm someone else. In the real world laws are passed to deal with the worst people among us that don’t care about anyone but themselves.
There are no perfect solutions and I-1000 is no solution at all. It is simply government endorsement of suicide.
It’s the person themselves who would request it - not once but twice plus have an interview ... if the person was incapacitated then they couldn’t ask for help .... it’s not the relatives who ask but the patient ... if auntie is wasting away their inheritance by trying to stay alive then it’s up to auntie to state that ... and it’s two independent doctors ... again, relatives have no say in whether auntie goes or stays .. it’s auntie that decides .... not them not the government ... and who else should endorse their own suicide but the person themselves ... you want the government and relatives to >make< you stay alive against your wishes?????
How many people have a price? How many doctors have a price?
All you have to do is pay two doctors enough and they will hear little old Auntie say anything you want them to hear.
It still doesn’t work like that ... Oregon has been very successful with their law and it’s the same as what Washington will have ... no evidence whatever of any malfeasance .....
.... it is the patient not the relatives that deals with the doctors .....
Doctors on the take deal with the highest bidder.
That’s if those relatives know what doctor ... see, the majority of us are for Prop. 1000 and it will pass so after Tuesday it’ll be a moot point ....
I’m a former GOP precinct county chair for Washington State. No big deal.
The State, and the church and the courts need to get out of end of life decisions. These tough calls, which have been made for thousands of years, are family decisions. The state has no say how my family lives or dies. It’s between my family and me....between God and my family...not between the state bureaucracy and me. Butt out State of Washington, it’s not your call.
"If we're allowed"
Muslim parents are "allowed" to kill their daughters if they wink at a Gentile or Jew
Genocide is "allowed" in the Sudan.
Which of these societies liberties would you have us emulate?
Another thought to ponder ~ at what point does DSHS push aside the doctor's advice and the family's pleas and proceed to snuff out a patient who may not be terminal, just having a downturn, or are having a bout of dementia due to over/wrong medication?
Who would the state consider qualified to counsel someone considering suicide (other than abortionists)? Would the state even allow clergy on a staff of professional suicide counselors, or would they object on seperation of church and state grounds (as if we don't know the answer to that).
Its not like the Libterdlies will stop voting if they kill themselves...
So whats the point in allowing them to kill themselves?
OK - whatever - you’re for pain and suffering and I’m not. The ballot will decide.
Have a nice day
/r/Jane
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