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posted by cmn32480 on Monday February 08 2016, @11:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-appropriate-to-joke-about dept.

I recently read New Physician-Assisted Suicide Law Opens Dialogue On Difficult Subject and found it to have an eminently readable, well-reasoned, and compassionate discussion. Here are a few excerpts from the article:

After a contentious debate, California's new physician-assisted suicide law was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last October. Once it takes effect, it will give terminally ill patients and their doctors a legally sanctioned process to have responsible and compassionate conversations about choices at the end of life. Hospitals and physicians must now develop their own policies for how the new law may be implemented. U Magazine contributor Dan Gordon spoke recently with two physicians at the forefront of these discussions at UCLA: Dr. Neil Wenger, director of the UCLA Health Ethics Center, and Dr. David Wallenstein, a specialist in pain management and palliative medicine.

[...] data show that in the four states where physician-assisted suicide has been legal (Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana), the number of people who actually go through with physician-assisted suicide is really quite small.

[...] Certain groups at the end of life, especially disenfranchised groups that have had difficulty getting adequate medical care all the way along, have difficulty believing that the right thing to do may be to receive less medical care. And if the physician has ... the consent of the state to actually help provoke death, that is an additional potentially difficult point that may need to be addressed in these rather sticky end-of life discussions. Thus, it is particularly important to be aware of the protections within the law. The law contains many carefully crafted checks and balances. There even is a provision in the California law that isn't in the Oregon law that requires patients to be taken aside in a closed space, with no one else there, to make sure that they're not being coerced.

[...] It is written into the law that this does not allow an infusion of medication to kill the patient. It does not allow mercy killing, and the patient has to self-administer the lethal medication.

The full article from which the referenced story was excerpted appeared as: Death Becomes a Matter of Choice. For more information, read the End of Life Option Act.

What say you fellow Soylentils? How can society properly care for the most vulnerable among us and yet also provide for their wishes to end what they perceive to be unbearable pain, suffering, and cost? Do you want all possible measures taken to keep you alive? At what point would you say "Enough is enough; let me go!"


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  • (Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @12:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @12:33PM (#300549)

    “Their life is absolutely pointless, but they do not regard it as being unbearable. They are a terrible, heavy burden upon their relatives and society as a whole. Their death would not create even the smallest gap--except perhaps in the feelings of their mothers or loyal nurses.”

    from:

    http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/index.html [holocaustresearchproject.org]

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday February 08 2016, @12:44PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday February 08 2016, @12:44PM (#300552) Journal

      but they do not regard it as being unbearable.

      Above I've quoted the important part from your quote. That's what differentiated euthanasia from this new law: Back then, it was irrelevant what that person wanted. Today, it's all about what that person wants, with safeguards against others just imposing their judgement on the person.

      Or in other words, with this law, what the Nazis did back then would still be murder, not assisted suicide.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @01:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @01:58PM (#300583)

        Or in other words, with this law, what the Nazis did back then would still be murder, not assisted suicide.

        Holy Shit! Thank you so much Sherlock mother-fucking Holmes! All this time I was thinking that forcefully killing people against their will could somehow be justified. Heck, I was going to euthanize a few people myself until I read you amazingly insightful post. Thank you soooooo fucking much!

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday February 08 2016, @02:12PM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday February 08 2016, @02:12PM (#300591) Journal

          You obviously considered that quote to be relevant to this discussion. That fact by itself is a message. Think about it!

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 08 2016, @01:00PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 08 2016, @01:00PM (#300559)

      Who "they" are, is kind of important, as otherwise it applies to everyone who's annoying, neocons, SJWs, extroverts, activists and community organizers...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @08:47PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @08:47PM (#300890)

        Who "they" are, is kind of important, as otherwise it applies to everyone who's annoying, neocons, SJWs, extroverts, activists and community organizers...

        Wow. This guy [sfgate.com] really gets around!

    • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday February 08 2016, @02:25PM

      by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday February 08 2016, @02:25PM (#300597) Homepage

      If you're trying to make a point, could you explain what it is?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @07:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @07:12PM (#300816)

        Hitler breathed air. Do you breathe air? If you do, you're a nazi! Nazi nazi nazi! REEEEEEEEEEEE

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @12:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @12:41PM (#300551)
    Medical technology has done great things in extending the quantity of life but very little on the quality of life.

    Having to move around with a respirator, with assistance, having to take dozens of pills every day, being in pain, struggling to eat and keep food down, spending every other month in the hospital , being tired all the time, etc... is a real shitty life. And not too long ago, someone in that poor health would have just died. But today's medical tech is keeping people alive far too long.

    The person I'm talking about WISHES they could die.

    How can society properly care for the most vulnerable among us and yet also provide for their wishes to end what they perceive to be unbearable pain, suffering, and cost?

    Aside from having dementia, how would someone like that be vulnerable?

    Do you want all possible measures taken to keep you alive?

    If keeping me "alive" is being on a machine or in severe pain, NO FUCKING WAY! It's my fucking life..

    When Robin Williams committed suicide, some idiots called him a coward. For one, it's NOT easy killing yourself. It's scary! Being a coward is just taking drugs/drinking to numb everything out. He had a horrific disease and he knew the horrible road he was on - and knew the pain and suffering it would cause his family. Also, don't forget that Robin's best friend of Chris Reeve. He personally witnessed what it's like to have one's quality of life disappear.

    No, this whole resistance to assisted suicide is just moralizing on the part of some people.

    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday February 08 2016, @12:59PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday February 08 2016, @12:59PM (#300556) Journal

      Aside from having dementia, how would someone like that be vulnerable?

      Well, they are vulnerable in the simple sense that they couldn't physically defend themselves in the same way healthy individuals can.

      There's also the fact that afterwards you cannot ask the dead, so you have to rely on existing evidence. Since you can only be convicted if it can be proven that you did something wrong, it has be be made sure that the only way to legally help someone die is if it can be proven without doubt that that person wanted to die. Otherwise, you could just claim (possibly with some manufactured evidence — note that this evidence wouldn't need to be convincing, it would suffice if it can't be outright debunked) that the person you killed actually wanted to die. To get you for murder, it then would have to be proven beyond doubt that your claim is false, which is hard if there's not enough evidence.

      By making sure that the conditions of the death are very unlikely to occur without the killed person actually wanting to die, this possible loophole to get away with murder is closed.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @01:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @01:02PM (#300560)

      Not just moralising, but based on a moral directly taken from Judeo-Christian scripture. We can't chose when we've had enough because some priest in a temple tells us a big man in the sky won't like it if we think for ourselves.

      Personally, I think it should be an inalienable human right to chose (to bring forward) the time of your own death. Forbidding that is unnecessarily imposing your will (and your Judeo-Christian morals) onto another for no gain at all, apart from your smug self-satisfaction that your cruel morals are the only correct ones, which is equally despicable.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday February 08 2016, @01:52PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 08 2016, @01:52PM (#300577)

        Personally, I think it should be an inalienable human right to chose (to bring forward) the time of your own death.

        AC is on to something but ran off track. So close, so close. The real problem is we already permit tons of that behavior, smoking, drinking, bad diet, bad hobbies, bad lifestyles, bad relationships... Most folks die younger because they or someone close to them made some decisions that in retrospect were pretty dumb. Sometimes its random, but usually not.

        The psychological barrier is if we don't let some terminally ill victim finish their job, we can pretend nobody is making dumb decisions. You can't ignore the cause and effect of a terminal pill or whatever the docs are providing, but you can with great effort ignore the cause and effect that smoking is perhaps not that good for you, or butt on couch plus TV kills 10000x more people per year than terrorists kill, etc.

        The problem with some dr providing a pill to terminal patients isn't that it is one persons terminal pill... its that its maybe 10-100 people's insight medication, and Americans would rather die than think, so better that some old smoker slowly painfully dies than their entire friends and family of 30 or so people feel awkward next time they go shopping and buy another pack of smokes. Or another six pack. Or sit on the couch all weekend instead of exercising. Or whatever moronity killed the terminally ill victim.

        I bet as a soc class / psych class experiment, if you make a pool of imaginary terminally ill victims as responsible via lifestyle choices vs some random accident of chance, the support for an end of life pill would be infinitely lower for the lifestyle people because most people do stupid stuff and having this pointed out to them makes them rather uncomfortable.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by number11 on Monday February 08 2016, @02:33PM

          by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 08 2016, @02:33PM (#300601)

          The real problem is we already permit tons of that behavior, smoking, drinking, bad diet, bad hobbies, bad lifestyles, bad relationships... Most folks die younger because they or someone close to them made some decisions that in retrospect were pretty dumb. Sometimes its random, but usually not.

          Of course. we permit people to join the army, play football, eat fried food, drive cars, etc. and that makes them die sooner. WTF does that have to do with anything? I'm not against making everyone wise and insightful, but first of all it's not gonna happen, and second, even if it did, every decision has a potential downside, and no one is going to end their life having made no mistakes. Something potentially unpleasant is going to kill you in the end, regardless.

          The problem with some dr providing a pill to terminal patients isn't that it is one persons terminal pill... its that its maybe 10-100 people's insight medication, and Americans would rather die than think, so better that some old smoker slowly painfully dies than their entire friends and family of 30 or so people feel awkward next time they go shopping and buy another pack of smokes. Or another six pack. Or sit on the couch all weekend instead of exercising. Or whatever moronity killed the terminally ill victim.

          You seem to be saying that people should die painfully, to serve as a teaching moment to others. Nice pedagogical technique.

          I bet as a soc class / psych class experiment, if you make a pool of imaginary terminally ill victims as responsible via lifestyle choices vs some random accident of chance, the support for an end of life pill would be infinitely lower for the lifestyle people because most people do stupid stuff and having this pointed out to them makes them rather uncomfortable.

          That's a little hard to decipher. An object lesson re the lifestyle choice of drinking and posting? Anyhow, I'd like to have the option at the end to take a pill, and not have to make my way down into the basement carrying my pistol.

          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 08 2016, @04:14PM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 08 2016, @04:14PM (#300682)

            WTF does that have to do with anything?

            I'm having trouble finding ways to rephrase it.

            Something like its a lot easier to ignore cause and effect of two packs a day for a lifetime, than to ignore one bye-bye pill on their last day. So we can pretend our own two packs a day habit has no negative effects tomorrow. After all, cause and effect don't exist for a lifetime of smoking if cause and effect don't exist for the bye-bye pill because it doesn't exist.

            Another theme is the good news about the bye-bye pill is sick people don't have to suffer, the bad news is the 10-100 survivors will as a group suffer more having to think hard about their own bad choices because the pill makes it pretty hard to ignore that choices have consequences.

            Overall I think the pill or whatever is a great idea. Just exploring why it makes some people all butthurt. Its easy to explain the holier than thou team. The paranoids do have a tiny little point they turned into Mt Everest. I'm exploring the remainder who get queasy at the concept of being unable to avoid the fact that effects have causes. In the spirit of you don't understand the problem unless you understand both side's point of view. I don't agree with theirs, so far, but I'd still like to know. And I think I'm on the right track. Or maybe a side track.

            Another interesting psych class questionnaire for drunk people on Amazon Mech Turk to answer: Split the survey group into people told the bottle of pills is pure and people told the bottle is 95% sugar pills along the lines of most firing squad soldiers get blanks so they don't feel personally responsible for the outcome. Then see how support goes for permitting terminally ill people to sample the bottle if they want to.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tathra on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:33PM

        by tathra (3367) on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:33PM (#301488)

        Personally, I think it should be an inalienable human right to chose (to bring forward) the time of your own death.

        the right to suicide is already included in the fundamental human right of self-sovereignty. you can do whatever you want with your own body so long as it doesn't harm others or infringe upon their fundamental human rights, because its your body. that includes putting whatever substances you want into it (drug use), killing off any parasites in it (first and possibly second trimester abortions), engaging in transactions with other consenting adults that others my not agree with (prostitution), and ending your life whenever you choose (suicide, possibly with assistance).

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday February 08 2016, @12:57PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 08 2016, @12:57PM (#300554)

    Do you want

    From what I've observed, most of the opposition is do gooder types who don't really care what the patient, doctor, or family want, but do want everyone to know they're holier and more devout than everyone else and if that demonstration means other people have to suffer, too bad for them, they should have been holier too.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Vanderhoth on Monday February 08 2016, @01:15PM

      by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday February 08 2016, @01:15PM (#300563)

      want everyone to know they're holier and more devout

      It's called "virtue signaling". People pretend to have the moral high ground because it's easier to shame people into thinking they are the bad people or will be represented as bad if they don't agree. It's usually coupled with "Kafka-trapping", where you accuse someone of something and any defense or denial is the evidence of the accusation.

      "Everyone needs protection, all the time, even from themselves and their own decisions. Only people who want to murder others would support it. Go on, prove you don't support assisted suicide so you can just legally kill people."

      Technically, if you do support assisted suicide it is so you can legally kill people. It's a matter of circumstance and reason, but in a black and white world where it's either right or wrong all nuance is thrown out the window and it's easy to paint your opposition negatively.

      Anyone worried about their reputation will go along with the moralizers, and who can blame them. It's pretty easy these days to have someone fired and/or ruin their lives with just accusations.

      --
      "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday February 08 2016, @01:33PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday February 08 2016, @01:33PM (#300571) Journal

      From what I observed, most of both sides of the debate are not arguing rationally, but are completely driven by what they feel to be right, and the other side then "obviously" must be wrong. It doesn't matter whether you think it should be allowed and everyone who thinks different is evidently just trying to deny people their free will, or whether you think it should be forbidden and everyone who thinks different is evidently supporting some sort of murder.

      As a rule of thumb, whenever you can't give a good argument for the opposite side to the one you support, then you are most likely not thinking rationally about the subject.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @01:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @01:00PM (#300558)

    She was in an old people's home and basically died of thirst. She asked to die. But no, not allowed.

    It was horrible to watch her struggle. Nothing human or dignified about the process. Just prolonged agony for everybody involved.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 08 2016, @01:30PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 08 2016, @01:30PM (#300569) Journal

      This, almost exactly.

      There is no dignity permitted the individual who is warehoused for the purpose of profiting the medical industry.

      There must be safeguards put into place, of course. Grandma shouldn't sign the papers on a bad day, then be put out of her misery before close of business. The request should be signed off on by a number of witnesses, including the Next Of Kin.

      Often times, it's better to just sign off on a "Do Not Resuscitate" form. After his second stroke, Father-In=Law did exactly that. His third stroke may or may not have been survivable, but he was already living a life seriously reduced in quality. He DID NOT want to face life if that quality of life were to be further reduced. Mother-in-Law and all four daughters had already witnessed that request, and they were still called in at the end to verify that was what everyone wanted.

      The medical industry hates to let anyone go like that, because there is still profit to be made, keeping a human alive for the last possible day, hour, or even minute.

      • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday February 08 2016, @01:52PM

        by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday February 08 2016, @01:52PM (#300578)

        I could even see people putting this in a living will. I've witnessed several family members suffer from dementia, spending the last months of their lives chained to a hospital bed because they had no idea what was going on and didn't understand they were hooked up to machines for "their own good", but by that point it's too late to sign papers willingly and it would have to be a family members decision anyway. Which is a very painful decision to have to make. Knowing there's some family history, I plan on having a clause, "If this, then that". so hopefully I won't have to suffer physically, they won't have to suffer financially/emotionally and it won't be up to my wife or daughter to make that call and spend the rest of their lives wondering if it was the "right" call.

        --
        "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
      • (Score: 1) by Francis on Monday February 08 2016, @03:15PM

        by Francis (5544) on Monday February 08 2016, @03:15PM (#300629)

        The problem is that in the cases where this sort of thing would be warranted, you're making a decision for somebody else. That's something that the Nazis did and it was deeply problematic. A living will isn't really a proper substitute for somebody making an actual informed decision about where the line actually is. It's sort of an acceptable way of handling a situation where somebody is in a comma, but when it comes to something more complicated like dementia, where do you draw the line between impairment and too impaired to go on?

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 08 2016, @03:31PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 08 2016, @03:31PM (#300642) Journal

          I have to disagree, really. Presuming that the family and the soon-to-be-deceased are at all intimate, then they share values that are pretty close. So, one of my sons would do away with me at the first opportunity (I suspect), another son might be reluctant to let me go, while the third son seems to be as pragmatic as I am. I think that signing off on a living will in which my third son has the final say would work out well for me.

          As for those people who are not intimately involved in their family's lives - well - I suppose that you take the time to spell out precisely what you want done as you near the end. "I think that I want to be resuscitated once or twice, but if I need to be resuscitated two or more times in a 24 hour period, it's time for me to move on." Or, prose to that effect.

          As stated above, there do need to be some checks on the whole thing. I have listened to some real shite spilling out of the mouths of some relatives. "I wish the old broad would just die, so we get some peace and quiet around here!" That, from some old whore that a stepson hooked up with while in jail, producing a baby, which she later abandoned. That bitch would pronounce the death sentence on anyone who made life inconvenient for her in any way.

          • (Score: 1) by Francis on Monday February 08 2016, @04:14PM

            by Francis (5544) on Monday February 08 2016, @04:14PM (#300681)

            You can't make that presumption. These laws apply to everybody, not just the best case scenario.

            As far as spelling out precisely what you want, that's not realistic. You can tell them when you want them to pull the plug or what measures are OK, but that's not really assisted suicide. Even in cases of pulling the plug it's not an easy thing to determine whether or not somebody is actually at the point where they wanted the plug pulled.

            The bottom line is that it's not possible to draft a law that would cover these situations appropriately.

        • (Score: 2) by pendorbound on Monday February 08 2016, @04:34PM

          by pendorbound (2688) on Monday February 08 2016, @04:34PM (#300696) Homepage

          For me, I put that line quite clearly in writing. It doesn't have to be complicated, but it does take a little bit of trust.

          There are two people on this planet whom I trust to know who "me" is. I've placed in them the power to determine if at any point I'm not "me" any more. Whether it be due to brain injury, oxygen deprivation (which essentially == brain injury) or any kind of degenerative dementia or similar.

          Me right now doesn't care if me of the future is "still happy." Being me of sound mind now, I believe that I have the right to determine for my future self that at the point two ultimately trusted individuals accept that me is gone, there's no reason for a still happy doddling person who isn't me to continue wasting resources. It doesn't help them to pretend the person they love is still here when the mind that I am today is no longer functioning properly.

          That said, if there is a doddling version of me at some point in the future, I'm not advocating strapping him down & killing him just because people don't think he's me any more. If that person is able to live relatively on his own, not in pain, and happy enough to be who is he, that's fine. Rock out in whatever's left of my body, future almost-me; and enjoy the time you've got! But if it comes to a point that there's enough me left in there to realize that what's left is missing too much. If my cognition or memory or anything else that I consider key to my me-ness is gone, and future almost-me doesn't want to continue that way, I think it's reasonable for that person to determine with the confirmation of two other people who know who the real me is that it's time to go.

          As far as bringing the Nazi's into it, the problem isn't another person making that choice. The problem is removing the choice from *me* who gets to make that choice. I'm in no way comfortable with a government or health care professional determining whether the person they're treating is the same person who's typing this reply right now. I do trust two people to make that determination if the need ever arises.

          Full disclosure: I've watched as three grandparents died in Hospice facilities where they had progressive ideas about end of life (at least progressive as compared to those who adamantly oppose physician assisted suicide). In all three cases, my relatives were in & out of consciousness (but mostly out), all in pain, and and all with no hope of meaningful recovery. They probably could have hung on for weeks with IV-based fluids and nutrition. They had made it clear in writing to their spouse or children (my parents) that they did NOT want that. They were being treated in places where physician assisted suicide isn't an option. Still, in all cases, the staff made it clear that they could do or not-do certain things; and that certain decisions would unquestionably accelerate their deaths. They made it clear what the consequences of the choices would be, and left the choice in the hands of the people who knew their patients wishes. Suspending IV fluids, and providing pain meds in quantities that were technically appropriate for their size/weight in a healthy individual but excessive in a dehydrated unhealthy individual made their deaths a matter of hours in which they were deeply asleep rather than days of suffering. There's no doubt in my mind that it was the better choice for all three of them.

          • (Score: 1) by Francis on Monday February 08 2016, @04:43PM

            by Francis (5544) on Monday February 08 2016, @04:43PM (#300704)

            It is a 3rd party making the decision for you in cases like that. If you're not in a state of mind that's competent to make the decision, then there's little difference between this scenario and what the Nazis were doing.

            The laws that allow physician assisted suicide generally require that the person that was seeking the assistance be competent. Even Dr. Kevorkian refused to do the actual killing, the patient had to be the one to actually activate the device, not the doctor.

            This was and is the case specifically because there's no good way of knowing whether somebody still wants to go through with it other than to have them actually do it themselves. Even in cases where people get their own supplies, some people get cold feet and can't go through with it. Allowing somebody else to intervene is beyond fucked up. If you don't want it badly enough to make the decision in the moment and carry it out, then you shouldn't be having an irreversible procedure performed.

          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday February 08 2016, @05:00PM

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday February 08 2016, @05:00PM (#300717) Journal

            I believe that I have the right to determine for my future self that at the point two ultimately trusted individuals accept that me is gone, there's no reason for a still happy doddling person who isn't me to continue wasting resources.

            If that happy future person is not you, then from where do you get the right to decide on the fate of that person?

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @07:07PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @07:07PM (#300812)

          That's something that the Nazis did and it was deeply problematic.

          Godwin, is that you? Hold on, Nathan Poe has something to say to you.

          where somebody is in a comma,

          ,

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:08PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:08PM (#301505)

          Comparing Power of Attorney to Nazis isn't a valid comparison, just so you know.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @04:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @04:00PM (#300669)

      My sympathies. I watched my 72-year-old mother succumb to cancer. She wanted to throw a party, say goodbye to everyone, and "drink the hemlock" publicly; of course that's not allowed. There was absolute certainty, from multiple doctors, that nothing would make more than a few months's difference - at great cost, with additional discomfort.

      I understand the hesitations of some people about potential abuses, but almost all of those hesitations can be addressed by writing the rules properly: people over a certain age can decide whenever; ditto people with clear test proof of fatal/incurable conditions; and anybody can write up a pre-order for "when I get into compliance, whether I can still act at that point or not".

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by inertnet on Monday February 08 2016, @02:42PM

    by inertnet (4071) on Monday February 08 2016, @02:42PM (#300605) Journal

    The Netherlands was the first country to adopt an 'euthanasia law'. If I'm correct it obviously requires a request by the patient, and confirmation from at least two physicians after careful consideration (they need to take a number of days to decide). The deadly medicine is then applied by the personal physician (if (s)he is up to it) or the one that gave the second opinion (I'm not 100% sure, doing this from memory, luckily I haven't had to deal with this in my family yet).

    Last year the retired Minister of Health under who this law was passed back then, got murdered by a religious nutcase, who "was commanded by God" to do so. Earlier he had murdered his sister who let him live in her house, because he was afraid that she would "commit euthanasia" on him. Which would have been impossible because the person has to request it himself in the first place. If you want to search for information about this case: the victim was former minister Els Borst, her killer is Bart van Urk.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:53AM (#301234)

      Just goes wonderfully to show how logical many religious people are. I mean isn't thou shall not kill a fucking commandment?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:24PM (#301519)

        Most religious people simply aren't sane. It needs to be illegal to indoctrinate minors into a religion and for minors to attend religious practices of any sort, such as church or Sunday school, especially in the US where its a violation of the first amendment. How can one be free to choose the belief system of their choice when they're indoctrinated into their parents' religion almost since birth?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @03:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @03:43PM (#300656)

    what is worrying me is the word "cost". the cost to be sick. the cost to be old.
    if we are talking "cost" then maybe hand out codoms for free, this way there's nothing
    to get old or sick.

    also if we talk "cost" there would be a ton of stuff we could do to keep "cost" down.
    prohibit alcohol. prohibit smoking. prohibit cars. prohibit wars. prohibit "junk
    food".
    the list goes on and on.

    srsly tho, if somebody wants to die, it should not be because of "cost" but because
    theres no known cure (not because its expensive), because theres horrible pain, because
    you cannot move anymore, etc.

    but not and never "cost".

    i assume that being "sick" sucks and everybody tries to avoid it like the devil
    and if this true then healthcare should be universal and provided by the government,
    like deadly roads, deadly electricity and deadly di-hydrogenoxid.

    really, who lives in a world that calls itself democratic and doesnt offer free universal healthcare
    for their citizens?

    fear of cost, fear of being sick. i dont need "cost" to tell me to fear being sick.

    • (Score: 1) by Francis on Monday February 08 2016, @04:20PM

      by Francis (5544) on Monday February 08 2016, @04:20PM (#300684)

      It might sicken you, but somebody has to pay for the cost. Up until relatively recently nobody could pay and even if they had resources there wasn't anybody to pay, and so people in that kind of situation would just die.

      We don't have the resources necessary to pump a million or more dollars into performing heroic measures or keeping people's bodies alive in order to avoid sickening people. The main question here is at what point it becomes acceptable to let people end their own lives. We're not even talking about ending other people's lives for their own good like the Nazis did, this is something that's arguably good whereas eugenics as practiced by the Nazis was as pure evil as evil comes.

    • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Monday February 08 2016, @04:27PM

      by theluggage (1797) on Monday February 08 2016, @04:27PM (#300690)

      what is worrying me is the word "cost".

      Welcome to the real world. Cost is an issue. Deal with it.

      In this context, I think the cost issue is "Is it worth spending my kid's college fund keeping me semi-conscious in bed for another year before my inevitable death". That's not a nice decision to be faced with, but if the "victim" is capable of making that decision then it should be theirs to make.

      You seem to be interpreting it as "oh no, I can't afford life-saving treatment that would give me a decent quality of life". That option is already widely available to many without a change in the law - even countries with free healthcare systems have to draw the line somewhere.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:30PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:30PM (#301526)

        You seem to be interpreting it as "oh no, I can't afford life-saving treatment that would give me a decent quality of life". That option is already widely available to many without a change in the law - even countries with free healthcare systems have to draw the line somewhere.

        Its not available in the US currently. Medical costs are the number 1 cause of bankruptcies. People give up their houses to pay their medical bills when they're still relatively young and will have many decades of quality life remaining, provided they can afford the life-saving treatment they need to live out their best years.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 11 2016, @04:01AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 11 2016, @04:01AM (#302535)

        Sounds reasonable. Some people are too poor to live. Euthanasia could solve a lot of the world's problems.

  • (Score: 1) by kanweg on Monday February 08 2016, @04:24PM

    by kanweg (4737) on Monday February 08 2016, @04:24PM (#300688)

    Animals are better off than humans. We have laws that animals should not suffer when they're about to die. Not so for humans.

    It is your life. If others are right that an all-powerful higher being does not approve, the higher power will be able to punish you. If they are wrong, letting you suffer is cruel.

    Bert

  • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday February 08 2016, @05:05PM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Monday February 08 2016, @05:05PM (#300721) Journal

    How many of these prescription overdose deaths are actually suicides? Say granny has a rotten spine and gets morphine, and then saves up enough to take 20 at once, putting herself to sleep? How is that counted?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:01AM (#301131)

      >How many of these prescription overdose deaths are actually suicides? Say granny has a rotten spine and gets morphine, and then saves up enough to take 20 at once, putting herself to sleep? How is that counted?
      I've read that far more gun deaths in the US are suicide rather than homocide or lawful self defense. Anecdotal? Sure.

      If it were your time to choose, wouldn't you choose something more effective than 30 minutes to an hour before unconciousness due to slashed arms? Talk about suffering...

  • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Monday February 08 2016, @07:58PM

    by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Monday February 08 2016, @07:58PM (#300843)

    The ones I know are unanimous and emphatic in favor of people dying in agony having the option to cut it short. It's impressive how intense they are.

    There should be screening for depression first, so that depression doesn't kill (more) people.

    Me? If I land in the hospital at my age it will be a car crash or something like that. It will likely be fixable. That kind of pain is transitory. Heroic measures, please. But if it's pancreatic cancer ...

  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 08 2016, @10:26PM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday February 08 2016, @10:26PM (#300975) Journal

    Proud DNR here. I may be only 30, but I'd rather be fertilizer for vegetables than a vegetable myself, if you take my meaning.

    Virtue-signalling aside, this has its roots in the US's Calvinist early settlers, the Puritans. It's a combination of "If you're suffering you deserve it," "if you're suffering it's God's plan," and "if you think THIS is bad, wait until he chucks you into endless Hell fire for daring to disobey his plan."

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Monday February 08 2016, @10:52PM

      by purple_cobra (1435) on Monday February 08 2016, @10:52PM (#301003)

      Same shit in the UK. Ultimately it all seems to be either full-on God Says No or just hand-wavey objections with a sly wink towards a deity.
      It's bollocks. All bollocks. The proposed UK law had enough safeguards in it that it would have made it very unlikely that the process could be abused but no, the whole process was killed. So if we have the misfortune of having some unpleasant genetic ailment that stops your muscles and joints working while your brain is still intact, well you'll just have to put up with both the pain and the mental torment. Just because.
      I don't understand. And I hope I never do.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:05AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:05AM (#301133)

      >this has its roots in the US's Calvinist early settlers, the Puritans. It's a combination of "If you're suffering you deserve it,"
      > "if you're suffering it's God's plan," and "if you think THIS is bad, wait until he chucks you into endless Hell fire for daring to disobey his plan."

      ISIS uses this doctrine as well. If someone or something lived/died/won/lost, then it was "God's will." Scary how it's similar to doctrines kicked out of Europe for "being too extreme." (Calvinists, Quakers, Shakers, etc.)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:21AM (#301113)

    The choice of whether to live or die is the ultimate fundamental freedom. Those who are denied the right to end their lives are slaves.

    However, there is also an ongoing depopulation agenda pushed by elites that is quite alarming. Rather than simply colonizing space, they would turn humanity into a "sustainable" equilibrium (which they dictate the terms of). This leads to extinction. Life must be virile, not pacified, contained, and stagnant.

    While I fully agree that medical institutions who seek to milk the living for their life savings while torturing them to death via unwanted maintenance is a horrific example of people-farming, I also acknowledge that we should be careful that we don't slip down the slope into acceptance towards mandatory term limits for your life.

    The spark of life is to precious to squander in the name of greed and geopolitical control.

    If ever humanity progresses to the point of immortality, then voluntary ends to one's life will be the only option of escape. Imagine the immortal's delima: "I've been everywhere and done everything I wanted to do, and I'm tired. I don't want to consume resources anymore, I just want to die." Now realize that you don't have to be an immortal to become wary of living. However, we must take care that this does not become the opinion of the society at large, nor the decision placed in hands other than your own. That way leads to extinction of the most precious commodity in the universe: The only instance of sentient we are aware of.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:02AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:02AM (#301237)

    I'm not a doctor or anything but it's decribed as peaceful and reliable. Apparently it's painless. I'd be glad to hear your experiences and opinions, if any.