TxDas is right above you - s/he wants to be killed if s/he gets dementia so s/he doesn’t have to take personal responsibility for him/herself.
With professionals who want to be able to kill people, we’re already there.
While I have worked with dementia patients for fewer years (34 rather than 40) than TxDas, I completely disagree with his view.
Dementia patients don’t KNOW they have no ‘dignity’ (whatever that means). They are human, they are still loved by families and still have value as human beings. They are in reality little different than children.
It is cowardice to make someone else kill you because you don’t want the responsibility of doing it yourself. And to put that burden on family members is reprehensible. There are such things as DNRs and Medical Directives where the individual states their desired care and medical treatment.
If he doesn’t want to live so be it, but every person I have cared for in the last 34 years were still human beings and we have no right to end their life any more than we should kill unborn babies.
And it is sickening how often I have seen so called ‘professionals’ forget that they are to care not destroy.
Do I want to be a burden to my family? No. But that doesn’t mean that I want to be killed either and I would be grateful if my family cared enough to let me live until GOD calls me home, not man.
Interesting take on TxDas' point of view.
If, years before I have dementia or some other terminal disease, I execute a living will specifying my wishes, how is that dodging personal responsibility for myself? On the contrary, I'd be a vegetable and not know or care what was going around me, but it would be my family with the burden of caring and paying for me. Why should I push that responsibility off onto them? How selfish.
I lost both of my parents to cancer, and I watched them suffer a slow, lingering, and painful death. At the end they were in hospice, where they were given morphine for pain, but were allowed to continue to suffer until they passed away.
My wishes would be that when I'm at the point of being in hospice's care in the final stages of death, that instead of morphine I would be given something that would put me to sleep and end my suffering.
It is easy to turn this into Nazi-era killing of people because they might get sick, but until you witness the real suffering - twice - that goes on for weeks and months, you'd hope for something a little less painful at the end of your own life.