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.
A companion article I just found that I’ll ping out tomorrow:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2742545/posts
Organs of those killed by euthanasia being used (harvesting)
The Telegraph ^ | 14 Jun 2011 | Simon Caldwell
Posted on Thursday, June 30, 2011 11:19:50 PM by bronxville
Doctors are impressed by the superior condition of lungs taken from people who killed by lethal injection compared to those extracted from those killed in accidents...
Surgeons in Leuven between 2007 and 2009 successfully transplanted four pairs of lungs from people who died from euthanasia.
The authors of the study, Initial Experience with Transplantation of Lungs Recovered From Donors After Euthanasia, insisted that doctors were acting strictly within Belgian guidelines on euthanasia, which was legalised in 2002.
They reveal how ‘donors were admitted to the hospital a few hours before the planned euthanasia procedure’.
‘A central venous line was placed in a room adjacent to the operating room,’ said the report by D. Van Raemdonck et al, a team of surgeons from Leuven
‘Donors were heparinised [injected with an anticoagulant] immediately before a cocktail of drugs was given by the treating physician who agreed to perform the euthanasia.
‘The patient was announced dead on cardiorespiratory criteria by three independent physicians as required by Belgian legislation for every organ donor.
‘The deceased was then rapidly transferred, installed on the operating table, and intubated.’...
The paper showed that about 23.5 per cent of lung transplant donors in Belgium and 2.8 per cent of heart transplant donors are killed by euthanasia...
Dr Peter Saunders, of Care Not Killing, an umbrella group of more than 50 British medical, disability and religious charities opposed to euthanasia, said he was shocked by the report...
The report comes just a year after researchers found a high proportion of deaths classified as euthanasia in Belgium have involved patients who have not requested their lives to be ended by a doctor.
Belgium became the second in the world after the Netherlands to legalise euthanasia since the fall of Nazi Germany..