Judge: Docs can prescribe meds for aid in dying (Rules self-euthanizing a fundamental right)

ABQ Journal.com ^ | 13 Jan 14 | Scott Sandlin

[xzins]

State law provides a fundamental right to a terminally ill, competent patient to choose a physician’s aid in getting prescription medications that will allow a peaceful death, a state judge ruled Monday in a seminal case.

Second Judicial District Judge Nan Nash said Drs. Katherine Morris and Aroop Mangalik, both oncologists at the University of New Mexico Hospital, could not be prosecuted under the state’s Assisted Suicide Statute, which is defined as the act of “deliberately aiding another in the taking of his own life.”

The practice recognizes that the patient is dying from his or her underlying disease and allows the patient to have medication, usually sedatives, that may be taken at a time of the patient’s choosing to achieve a peaceful death. Patients who most often choose the option are those dying of cancer.

Nash found that the right exists under the New Mexico Constitution, which prohibits the state from depriving a person of life, liberty or property without due process.

“This court cannot envision a right more fundamental, more private or more integral to the liberty, safety and happiness of a New Mexican than the right of a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying,” Nash wrote in the opinion. “If decisions made the shadow of one’s imminent death regarding how they and their loved ones will face that death are not fundamental and at the core of these constitutional guarantees, then what decisions are?”

[itsahoot]

Good way to rid yourself of the politically incorrect.

I used to wonder how Hitler got all those people to report to the train stations, not anymore. We have plenty of would be conductors right here on FR.

[itsahoot]

What the heck is happening in New Mexico?

It is not just New Mexico, look at all the supporters of the death merchants right here on this thread.

[BykrBayb]

Nice and neat. No muss, no fuss, and nobody has to give a damn whether you ever lived or died. And don’t worry about anyone who might be stupid enough to be hurt by what they perceive as a loss. If they’re so low that they think the likes of you could have been an actual improvement in their life, their feelings aren’t worth considering anyway.

[EternalHope13]

Ruling says they can, not that they have to.

Doctors can perform abortions, or choose not to.

^ This is a KEY distinction.

Were the ruling “you have to”, I would be screaming bloody murder. All this ruling means is that doctors cannot be hauled off like Democrat-voting, welfare-mooching street pharmacists for giving a terminally ill patient enough morphine to not go through agony we wouldn’t let a PET go through.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Homicide legally just means the death of a person by the actions of a person, including suicide. However, "assisted suicide" opens the door to the assumption of coercion, or at least facilitation, which is legally not always acceptable.

For instance, say a person has severe depression. They are miserable and want help, to the point of claiming they want to commit suicide. This is why there are suicide prevention hotlines, to try and provide them with help so that they don't commit suicide.

It would be remarkably easy to persuade or coerce them into actually committing suicide at that point. And there are increasing numbers of people who are more than happy to encourage them to kill themselves.

In parts of Europe, organizations that facilitate suicide are becoming so solicitous in their encouragement of the public to kill themselves or be killed with help, that it is becoming like a horror movie, with self cleaning "suicide boxes" on street corners. "If you want to die, we can help!"

The twisted and sick lizard expert Dr. Eric Pianka gave a speech at a Texas university to a large crowd of scientists, hoping that 9 out of 10 people on Earth would die of some kind of airborne ebola, "for the environment". And he received a standing ovation from all but two of the attendees, one of whom notified the FBI, because some in that audience might actually have had the ability to create an ultra-contagious form of ebola.

With a lot of people like that in the world, any possibility of rational assisted suicide goes right out the window. They have the same mindset as did the General SS guards at Auschwitz. People to them are not human beings, they are just "in the way".

[AnAmericanInEngland]

People who say there is no right to decide to end ones own suffering, have never had to live through what you did. If they had, they’d stay out of the most personal decision one can make.

Euthanasia is not about forcing one to end their suffering, its about having the option , which free will grants, not a law, legislated nor written in a religious tract.

[CodeToad]

“Foolish” “curse”??

Nothing but sophestry from you. Childish ideology.

[Mamzelle]

Well, not *onvicted*--but I recall a doctor stranded with an ICU full of patients during Katrina…no electricity, no help, no water, no AC…and no way to even open the windows. Imagine all those respirators just going quiet, and then all the hell breaking loose.

The patients were in great distress, and the only thing the doctor had to work with was sedatives--morphine.<> Of course, many died, and enterprising lawyers started calling for her head for "intentionally" killing them.

This was the single most enraging incident involving a cruel accusation to a doctor I have ever witnessed. There were criminal and civil charges against her, and patients came to try to testify as to her efforts. No one seemed to notice that she could have *walked* at any time. She eventually beat the rap, but not without arousing a bitterness in me that will never go away, towards the whole anti-doctor legal and cultural climate.

Now I've started hoping that the medical personnel just *walk*--and let the world see how many lawyers come to help!!

[Mamzelle]

Eric Planka, PhD, not Dr. Eric Planka, which implies an MD.

[Mamzelle]

This is an over-reaction. Enough morphine to dull pain given over a long enough period will eventually kill you. That doesn't mean your death is intentional. Beware of kicking up too much of a fuss, or those meds might not be available to you or someone you love when in intractable pain. The fashion has swung back and forth for decades.

One gov agency will come into a hospital and beat up the staff for "not treating pain aggressively." The other gov agency will come in and beat up the staff for "pushing pain killers." It is Kafka-esque. But be very careful of attacking individual doctors.

I think this article is a mess. You will find hospices in your town, well-run hospices, that provide morphine. It is not assisted suicide, but there is a high probability of eventual death. Of course, the probability for death for all of us is 100%.

[itsahoot]

It is not assisted suicide, but there is a high probability of eventual death. Of course, the probability for death for all of us is 100%.

A rose by any other name. When Roe was first blessed by the court, I stated then that old people were next. Well we have arrived helped in no small measure by a medical society that has willingly killed 50 million babies.

I had some stents put in a couple years ago and the Doc wanted me to stay overnight. The floor nurse came in and started pushing me to sign a DNR. I have a life long history of VFib, so I wouldn't sign, she became very incensed, and finally stormed out of the room and no nurse came back into the room. I had a monitor on that I disconnected at 1:00 am and no one ever came into the room to check.

If I didn't want to sign a DNR, they just were not going to enter the room, just in case I flatted out. Is that really where you want us to go?

[i_robot73]

People who say there is no right to decide to end ones own suffering...are the same side of the Left coin: you do not own your self.

It’s the ‘Conservative Catch-22’: No Dept. of Health, Food/Drug, etc. (some, demolish the guild-like licensing), then turn around with the standard “there should be a law...” when something they don’t like rears its head.

Most posts, IMHO, seem to feel this is the slippery slope. The day, soon, when MAY will turn into SHALL.

Personally, as a (L), I hope to be well enough to take myself out when *I* feel the time is right. And as you state, I want the OPTION.

[Gay State Conservative]

Why don't we give *New* Mexico back to *Old* Mexico? That way anyone who wanted to die could be beheaded by a drug cartel and their head could be displayed in a public place...just as is now done in cities like Nuevo Laredo.

[Gay State Conservative]

And 10 years from now “terminally ill” will be defined as: “All of us will die some day.”

Or,as Jokelyn Elders once said..."everybody's gotta die of somethin'"

[Gay State Conservative]

And under those circumstances, I believe it would be my right to elect to exit this life on my own terms.

It could be argued that such a situation would be,for you,between you and your Creator.But to me the central issue is the involvement of *physicians*.On the one hand,if a member of your family...one who *truly* loved you and wasn't just trying to get his/her inheritance...got a hold of enough pain pills to kill a bull elephant and gave them to you that might be one thing.But having a physician deliberately kill you.Nope! No thanks! Then,we'd be approaching a Dr Mengele situation.Or,better still,we'd be approaching an abortionist's frame of mind..."oh,I helped 10 young women reclaim their lives this morning".

No thanks! No thanks! No thanks!

[cherokee1]

I guess you mean that when I get a little older and close to the edge someone is going to come around and take most of the powder out of my bullets? So I don’t hurt myself too much? Seems to me that a guy who is pretty beat up and about done has a right to ask for a little help that won’t result in ruining the living room couch? I’ve seen too many guys go out the hard way to entirely buy into that “pain killer” option solely.

[xzins]

I mean that controlling pain is fine, but that intentionally killing someone is not fine.

[narses]

Indeed. Life is short, precious and sacred.

[ourworldawry]

““Foolish” “curse”??

Nothing but sophestry from you. Childish ideology.”

---

Oh don’t give me that psychobabble routine. And why take such offense to a truth? It IS “Foolish” to curse someone.

There is more ‘substance’ in that, then in the manner in which we leave this body.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I quite agree, but it’s a longer explanation to point out that the “Population Bomb” fraud, “Dr.” Paul R. Ehrlich, PhD, named after but having absolutely no relation to one of the greatest scientists in history, Dr. Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), is a butterfly expert, who advocated a worldwide tyranny of forced abortions and sterility drugs in food; and that “Dr.” Eric Pianka, PhD, a lizard expert, got a standing ovation from a roomful of “scientists” for proposing the extermination of 90% of the world’s human population via airborne ebola virus.

I mean, seriously, why does anyone listen to these “Dr.” Frankenstein types, whose outlook on life is horrific and insane, far worse than “Dr.” Mengele or serial killer “Dr.” Harold Shipman, whose intellectual descendants, doctors all, now regularly, and legally, murder enormous numbers of helpless victims in the UK, annually?

I’m not trying to be sarcastic, here. This whole thing is just too evil and bizarre, and these people need to be thrown into cauldrons of boiling tar, for the good of all mankind.