At Least 36 Died in Washington State in 2009 Under New Assisted Suicide Law

New York Times ^

[bgill]

But do we know that those who supposedly bought it were the patients? Do we know that those who died weren’t murdered?

[MsLady]

Here’s the problems with assisted suicide. First off, it’s murder, second it’ll do just what abortion did. Abortion started out to be only in the first trimester and only under strict terms. Now it’s a free for all and you can have an abortion at anytime for any reason. When will assisted suicide be a government mandate for certain reasons? And from a person who has known illness and felt horrible at how it was affecting my family. It would be really easy to talk someone in to suicide when they are the most vulnerable.

[highlander_UW]

They Hippocratic oath has become the hypocrite oath in WA state.

[Darkwolf377]

"Assisted suicide" is merely another way of normalizing euthenasia, and giving the government the power of life or death over us in yet another way.

Someday, the government will quietly begin withholding medical treatment from, say, fathers who haven't paid their child support, or some other group everyone hates. And bit by bit...

[muawiyah]

As a practical matter we need to prohibit physicians who've worked in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington or Oregon from being employed elsewhere in the country.

Doctors who get a taste for killing their patients will, given the opportunity, kill even more of them than allowed.

[Secret Agent Man]

Do we know they didn’t get these poisons and kill others with them, or sell them to others to poison other people?

[NavyCanDo]

The news in Washington must be keeping it all under wraps because I have not heard of any.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Don’t medicos have something analogous to “Oath Keepers”? This is a political issue. Probably most actual doctors there are aghast.

[Darkwolf377]

I have a feeling those doctors wouldn't want to work in states where they'd "have their hands tied" or whatever. It's like asking an abortionist to stop. It takes a special kind of person to kill babies in the womb or the aged and sick.

I need a shower just thinking about this story.

[muawiyah]

ALL doctors there have to be given an incentive to resist this stuff. Exile to their own foul nests would seem quite appropriate.

I figure honest doctors can figure out what to do with these creatures.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Thats simply wrong.

[Grunthor]

I hope and pray that if I become terminally ill and in constant pain, there is a zealot standing by to ensure that I die in mind rending agony rather than on my own terms.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Ironically, I, who would be willing to put up with such “agony” for reasons of my faith, would be denied a doctor who would honor MY wishes because he or she left an euthanasia state in disgust after attempting to roll back the situation. We have socialists here parading as heroes of freedom.

[HiTech RedNeck]

P.S. Grunt, a lot of people who find themselves in unbearable emotional or physical pain have not been adequately treated. Killing yourself is the chicken way out. I have no beef with treatments that may shorten life as a side effect if their primary purpose is the palliation of emotional or physical pain. I have a yakalo size beef with people who want to anti-constitutionally restrict the interstate practice of physicians in order to maintain some virtuous boycott.

[Grunthor]

Do not worry. I look forward to suffering wrenching pain so that your values are upheld.

[HiTech RedNeck]

How disappointed you would be if you just keeled over from a heart attack.

[Grunthor]

“How disappointed you would be if you just keeled over from a heart attack.”

Well it WOULD completely destroy my soapbox.

[DemonDeac]

“As a practical matter we need to prohibit physicians who’ve worked in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington or Oregon from being employed elsewhere in the country.”

Why? The overwhelming majority of them have not participated in an assisted suicide. Why punish them too?

[muawiyah]

Folks who work in a regime where it's NORMAL for doctors to kill their patients can no longer be trusted.

They know what they have to do to resolve the dilemma. They must be given every incentive to do so.