David Karnos retired last year after teaching philosophy for 31 years at Montana State University Billings. Every year, he taught a class on death and dying, exploring end-of-life subjects including euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
If we think such discussions are new, he said, it's worth remembering that the most famous philosopher in history, Socrates, killed himself by drinking hemlock in 399 B.C.
"We've argued about it for 3,000 years," Karnos said.
In Montana, the age-old debate over end-of-life decisions took on a new urgency early last month, when a state district judge ruled that Montanans have a right to doctor-assisted suicide...
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To talk about the issue of physician-assisted suicide, the first thing you have to do is sort through the words and phrases used in the debate - starting with "physician-assisted suicide."
The Rev. Milous "Mike" Repka doesn't care for the term. "I think of it as an assisted way of dying rather than suicide," he said.
Dr. Deric Weiss, who has been with Billings Clinic since 1997 and is board-certified in internal medicine and in hospice and palliative care, also favors calling it assisted death.
Writing in the Dec. 11 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Robert Steinbrook said designations like "death with dignity" and "physician-assisted suicide" can be considered "emotionally charged and judgmental," depending on which side of the issue you're on...
As we all know, this past Novembers election saw Washington States voters duped into passing the so called “Death With Dignity” initiative, making us the second state to allow “doctor assisted suicide.”
The measure passed due to a massive campaign from out of state sources that see the death of others as “humane.” Or, as many refer to it, the “Culture of Death,” that group that sees suicide and abortion as peaceful and humane, but are virulently opposed to the execution of mass murderers...