EUTHINASIA
 

Now this is a topic for you to get your teeth into. Euthinasia are you for or against. I personally Don't think that people should be made to suffer. But what do you all think.

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Its ILLEGAL!





Oh come on.. You knew I would say that :)

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I was waiting Harry.  :D
I was waiting.
And you didn't disapoint. ;D
Here we go again.
Or do we.

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hehehe not with me we dont... not a subject I feel comfortable debating TBH

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Harry, are you sure euthanisia is illegal?? In Holland it has been legal for years...........
;D ;D ;D

He he he, I didn't disappoint either!!

Seriously, it's a bit above me too. I really don't feel comfortable with the subject. I am fundamentally against it as I believe life to be such a special thing and really so precious, I don't think man has the right to interfere with the course of nature. I am thus also passionately against the death penalty and cannot understand suicide, but obviously the subject is much deeper and this is my one-sided opinion. Anyone else anyhting to say?

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I agree with euthinasia, as long as you are of sound mind you SHOULD be able to decide if you want to live or die, say if you are terminally ill and in a lot of pain. If you kept a animal in those conditions then you would be accused of being CRUEL

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It's hard for me to evaluate. I do agree Janet, but unless you've ever suffererd, I think it's hard to be able to say how you would feel. Thankfully I've never been in that situation and I find it hard to believe I would ever end my life. I agree on the sound mind bit, though, definitely.

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Researched this in the late 80's during nurse training, I can still to this day say that I have not been able to make up my mind. To be in such a debilitated state, with no quality of life must be the most horrendous thing to have to endure, but it was not legalised during the 80's debates, as the government thought that it would frighten people, especially the elderly.
I think if the person is of sound mind then it should be their choice, but experts still disagree on what constitutes a sound mind :)

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Jo - if your completely against humans interfering with life & death - does this mean you wouldn't have a life saving transplant or blood transfusion?  Or let your children have them if needed?  It's all the same. We don't mind interfering  with death to save people who we feel are not at their time to go - yet we shy away when it comes to people who are terminally ill & would like the right to choose to die with diginity.

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I could sit and cry when I hear stories of how people have been imprisoned for not wanting their loved ones to suffer
The patiant should be able to choose a dignified end if they so wish. Why should people have to suffer in pain. Or live a life of no life.
It's a poor do when animals have a right not to suffer and are put out of there pain and suffering.
Same thing when it's your time to go and your brought back against all your wishes.

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Sorry Jo i agree with it.Would you see a pet suffer, no.Well its just the same thing with humans.If there is no way out why make somebody suffer even more by making them wait for what is inevitable anyway.As to the death penalty.In child abuse cases i am all for it.With the D.N.A. stuuf nowadays its 99.9% and even the pill only gives you that guarentee.

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Can't agree with the death penalty. If they have done it, then they should be made to suffer.
It's a totaly different subject Mik.

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[quote author=Mik_Dickinson link=board=anything;num=1063153959;start=0#10 date=09/10/03 at 22:26:03]As to the death penalty.In child abuse cases i am all for it.With the D.N.A. stuuf nowadays its 99.9% and even the pill only gives you that guarentee.[/quote]


I believe we started this topic somwhere before but you didn't come back to it I noticed?

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[quote author=ShortStuff link=board=anything;num=1063153959;start=0#8 date=09/10/03 at 21:01:29]Jo - if your completely against humans interfering with life & death - does this mean you wouldn't have a life saving transplant or blood transfusion? Or let your children have them if needed? It's all the same. We don't mind interfering with death to save people who we feel are not at their time to go - yet we shy away when it comes to people who are terminally ill & would like the right to choose to die with diginity.[/quote]

Not the same subject. Jo's talking about medical intervention to end a life, not preserve it.

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Well after seeing my Grandfather die of cancer and go through it all in the hospital with Morphine injections.Watching him slowly go for days.Wilting away basically before your eyes.In the end he was not half the man he was.He also asked them not to give him the morphine injections .He thought it would end quicker, but no his wishes were not respected.Still he died as we all will do and i thought it would have been better to give him an injection there to end it all.Would have been a relief for my grandad.After  all it was inevitable.So they made him go through real pain in the last 5 days.B******Ds.An animal would not have suffered that much

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Sorry about that last sentence but it is a subject i really do feel strongly about

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Sorry about your grandfather Mik, but giving morphine actually helps end it, as it depresses the nerves of the respiratory centre of the brain therefore stopping breathing. If your granddad was in pain they should have given him more. I asked them to with my gran, who also died of cancer, and it did the trick, died within 2 days of them upping the dose. :(

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Still it would have been nice to see him have died with more dignity.He was a gentleman until the day he died and he deserved more.Legailsed Euthanasia would have given him a better way out

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The Mcmillan nurses due an excellent job and some patiants handle pain better than others and I do think it should be a matter of choice. Dignity, should be allowed to the end.
It bad enough haveing the fear of the unknown and the worry about leaving loved ones behind without the added fear of someone getting into trouble for helping retain that dignity. helping

Totally agree with Shortstuff
 

couldn't have put it better myself!


You alway here the term "Playing God", but it works both ways not just in death but in saving, administering drugs/treatments its all invasive and is it right to interfere with nature by ending or even preserving life?

This is an area i have researched a great deal on, I have read many ethics books & wrote many an essay on Euthanasia, its a huge interest of mine.

Do i aggree with it..........still not sure it could be open to abuse by the medical profession, ie a person with not much hope in one bed and a young girl needing a heart transplant in the next bed???? how much hope would they really have for the first patient? or would it seem more easier or ethical to help the youg girl??

How scary is that scenario?

I'm in agreement with Mik on this one. It's an emotive subject with no absolute right or wrong answer. In '97, I watched my dad suffer in agony from lung cancer, the suffering being prolonged by an intravenous morphine pump. He had a heart attack and the doctors kept him alive for one more week of intolerable agony. I have a verbal agreement with my mum that if the same occurs with her, there will be no artificial extension of life. But this may just be rhetoric, who knows what will happen if this circumstance arises?

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I think if a person decides that life is not as it should be, or once was then it should be down to the person in alot of cases it has been discussed within the family when they are of sound mind to the point where this kind of decission cannot be made lightly and with alot of thought, surly if the person can make the decission for themselves as an adult then who is anyone to stand in their way?
At the end of the day whos life is it ours no theirs.
For the people who are not of sound mind and body then it should be the decission of the loved ones at the end of the day it will be a great loss to them and again not a decission that would be taken lightly if you see someone in pain you feel the pain and instinct is to ease that pain if your child falls you automatically do what you can to ease them, well the same goes if you know someone in pain and you know it is long suffering and the only way to ease that pain is to let them go if they are going to go anyway then that is what should be right surely. If you prolong life by artificial aid when the outcome would still be the same then that should be wrong because then you are only doing it to hold off your pain not theirs.

Maybe none of this makes sence but i know what im trying to say.

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I agree that the right to die at a time of ones own choosing and in a manner of ones own choosing should be as much a part of human rights legislation as the right to life.

I reject utterly that another person should have the legal right decide what is best for me over my own wishes in the matter. I certainly do not agree that such an important decision should be placed solely in the hands of a Doctor.

As far as I am concerned it is my life, my body, and it should be my decision what I choose to do with it.

However, I do recognise that we live in a less than perfect world and any situation is open to abuse by the unscrupulous. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the old and frail might feel pressurised into taking that final decision by relatives acting from less than perfect motives. But surely some system of living will could be put in place to reduce such unpleasantness to the absolute minimum. After all they seem to be able to manage it in Switzerland and Holland.

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It's too emotive a subject to reach any decisions. We all have our own viewpoint, and they are right to each and every one of us.

I know what I would do...never mind the consequences..........................

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Dont know if this case was ever reported in the UK but its been an on going saga here in Florida with a woman in a vegative state having her family keeping her alive and her husband wanting to let her die. Many reasons abound about what should be done and it brought about a lot of people making living wills, myself included, so you dont get interferance from outside.
http://reports.tbo.com/reports/schiavo/
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGAGC7TE1MD.html
http://reason.com/links/links102303.shtml


http://cbs11tv.com/health/healhttp://news.
some of these may give an insight in to the case but it does open up discusion on euthinasia, living wills etc should politions be involved? who has the right to terminate? how do you know the wishes of the person?

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It's a very complicated issue and I don't think there is any one simple straight forward answer, but I don't think people should be kept artificially alive only to prolong their agony when death is inevitable.

As many have already said, we are far kinder to animals.

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There are some who will call me harsh and unfeeling when I say this, but here goes.
I really do not see the point of expending time and resources trying to keep people alive who are in a persistent vegetative state. 'Just because we can' does not seem like a really sound ethical reason for maintaining the life of someone for whom that concept has ceased to have any effective meaning. What purpose is served by keeping someone alive who is, to all intents and purposes, dead and who could not survive without constant intervention. It has always seemed to me to be an abuse rather than compassion. Far better to let the person involved die with dignity and encourage the relatives to accept the unfortunate fact and get on with their lives, rather than have them tear themselves apart in this unseemly and desperate attempt to hold onto a person that is lost.

I do sympathise with relatives who find themselves in this awful position, and I hope that I never have to face a similar dilemma. But if I were to have to face it, my response would be; let them go, give me a little space to grieve and then let me carry on. I would rather have the memory of a loved one as being happy and active, than hooked up to a bank of machines slowly wasting away.

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Sounds like common sense to me A-Bob, but it's your own opinion. Whatever anybody says..it will displease somebody. So I don't for one minute think we will ever reach any sort of conclusion. And for any conclusion there will be a dozen or more additions, amendments, extras etc.

I think it's fair to say...EACH UNTO THEIR OWN...

But anybody who preaches right or wrong on this subject....is just that .....Wrong!!

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Absolutely - to each their own. The problem is at the moment that each has not their own as we do not have options. If it were legal then the choice would be there - choice not compulsion. As it is illegal we have no choice.

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Quite right Willow, but there are always choices...illegal or legal. The law (as everyone knows) is an Ass!!

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Then the answer is to move to Holland.

If I was going to be a vegetable for the rest of my life I would want to die. At the time I probably wouldn't realise that, but while I am of 'sound mind' I would not want to put my family in the position of financial hardship looking after me, and when I did finally die, remembering me as an incoherent lump of uselessness for a number of years, and being relieved when I have gone.

There are policies you can take out to pay for critical illnesses, but they don't really cover the full costs of caring for someone who is completely incapable.

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An opinion from another side of the debate. I found this in the blog of a medical student.

"I work in a place where the mortality rate is extremely high. It gets hard, especially when the time comes to tell the fmailies of the passing of their loved ones, but by far the worst moment was, when, i ndesperation, a mother asked my consultant and I who were studying her son's case notes to relieve his sufferring. It came as a shock at first, but for something I've always thought would be a straightaway 'no', I found it very hard to deny her anything in that state. Her only son was dying of a disease which I am bound by oath not to divulge. He was in great pain, contrary to popular belief, pain is very dectable to the naked and even untrained eye. To see a mother have to watch her son die, its heartbreaking, and its very hard to say no.

For that simple reason, I am not against euthanasia. I may have left out the religious aspect of it, but only because I believe the practice of medicine should be as independent of religion as possible, to the patients concern. I am a Roman Catholic by birth, and I believe in one God, but if a patient does not, it is not the duty of the doctor to force it upon him/her as a choice of whether to continue sufferring or not. True, it is similar to playing God, and I would not do it if given the chance, my point is that euthanasia, for all the media portrays it to be, is more often than not, an act of extreme mercy rather than a murderous one.

In all its belittling of the medical profession when we go wrong, the media conveniently forgets that doctors are human, with the enhanced ability to empathize with patients, so much so that most would give up their family time, sleep and other activites to help save the lives of strangers they are morally bound to help. We are not gods, we're not perfect, and we cannot always make the right decisions. Performing euthanasia may be socially frowned upon, but many like to forget the fact that the doctor is in a very difficult situation when approached. The guilt of performing an act is always there, and it doesn't matter how good you are, you make on wrong move, and a life is either gone, or another person has to live with the consequences of your actions for the rest of his/her life. Its not easy to make decisions, and the ones on euthanasia are right up there with the most difficult ones.

My response to the mother?

"We can never give up hope."

No one who has not experienced the situation will ever know how insincere and empty that answer sounds."

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Another fine perspective....It's so difficult...nay impossible to answer!!

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That doctor refers to the fact that he is Roman Catholic by birth and believes in God but also that he is not against euthanasia. I find that quite interesting because I've heard the "religious viewpoint" that euthanasia = murder = sin from people not in the medical profession. Obviously the legal aspect must play a part in it also where a doctor is concerned because if he were to break the law he would risk everything.

From my point of view, my religious beliefs put a different perspective on the situation because I don't believe that this life is the be all and end all so I would see euthanasia as a means of allowing the person to move on and in contrast keeping them artificially alive could be interpreted as being against God's will. But that's only a personal viewpoint.

I wonder how a Hindu would feel about it? Or anyone else for that matter who believes in re-incarnation - would they see it as preventing the person from moving on to their next life?

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The main problem is where the beliefs of the doctor conflict with those of the patient - the fact that someone is Roman Catholic is irrelevant as far as the patient is concerned.

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As a complete non beliver in imaginary people up in the sky I still think it should be the wishes of the Person and not those of the carer,staff,doctors, polititions or any other 3rd party.

How about the Jehovah witnesses would they be treated differently "religious viewpoint" that euthanasia = murder = sin. Another talking point.

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im doing this subject in my re class at school i cant decide weather to agree or disagree but if i came to the state that some people have been through id deffinately agreed with it i watched this video were it showed you some of the states people were in and you couldnt help but feel sorry for them one woman didnt have any feeling in her body at all. And the people that went through it all had incurable diseases.:mellow8:

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The beliefs of the medical staff are completely irrelevant at this moment in time. Their practices have to comply with the law of the land. We all know that euthanasia occurs one way or another either by a relative, carer or abroad. I believe that if I was in a position of total dependence and pain which I knew to be terminal, I would want some kindly soul to help me out. Many doctors and nurses feel the same way, but it is really not worth trying to end it for someone as you would lose everything if you did. The only thing that medical staff can do is impose a not for resuscitation order or switch off ventilators (like they did recently with the baby with Edwards syndrome) This means that if someone who is terminally ill and in hospital dies, no measures are taken to resuscitate them. If you are in decent health and have, for example, had an operation and your heart stops measures will be taken to resuscitate you because you have the chance of complete recovery and a decent quality of life.
It is the 'not for resus' orders that cause problems for some families who cannot accept that their loved ones have no chance. That's why these cases end up in court..:)

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I think the doctor was pointing out that although he is Roman Catholic his personal opinion was in favour of putting the person out of their misery even though his church would tell him that is a sin. However, despite his personal feelings he had medical guidelines to follow which is why he ended up giving advice contrary to his own personal beliefs.

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I'm happy to have seen on the news today that Mr. Blackburn has only been given a suspended sentence for assisting his wife to end her life. It was equally relieving to hear about the support he is getting from his two step-sons.

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From what I saw, this support was taken into account by the judge, and that was a contributing factor to him not receiving a custodial sentence

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I agree. The Judge was pushing the boundary of the law as far as he could, but Mr Blackburn will now live the rest of his life with a criminal record.

Is it fair and just and equitable to criminalise a person for acting out of the highest and most honourable motives of compassion and love? And how terrible it is for them both to have had to resort to this dreadful, clandestine performance, on top of the grief, pain and heartache caused by the illness itself.

An acquaintance of mine is currently too-ing a fro-ing between BRI and home waiting for his father to die. This has been going on now for a fortnight. Slowly, painfully, the old chap is sinking into insensibility, his vital organs are beginning to fail. There is absolutely no chance whatever of recovery. But despite the patient's repeated requests, there is no one who can help him end the pain and distress that he is in.

His son said to me the other day "If he was an animal, I would be sent to prison for allowing him to suffer like this." It makes it all the more difficult to witness his father's decline when he remembers how his father did everything that love demands to spare his son pain and distress.

What do you say? How do you make the unbearable, bearable?

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Following the heart attack a couple of years ago, all my kin have been instructed that should the necessity arise I do not wish to be resuscitated. I am so concerned about this I am even considering having the instruction tattooed on my chest.

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ooh what a good debate. I had to do this at college. euthanasia is illegal in this country. Doctors have take something called the 'hypocratic oath' 3 rules preserve life, prevent deterioration and promote recovery. I don't believe that people should be made to suffer and should have the right to say what happens to their bodies. However i think if the legalised it would be hard to draw a line with where to stop. Also euthanasia goes against one of the commandments 'Thou shalt not kill'

they say it's god's right to say if you die or not (im not a big religious person so it's all codswallop to me)

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Doctors don't take an oath. There is no getting up in front of classmates in Med school to take the Hypocratic Oath. No swearing the oath on the bible etc. Contrary to popular belief, the Hypocratic oath is merely doing those 3 things mentioned by black flights. No oath is actually taken it is a similar thing to the NMC's Code of professional conduct for nurses, midwives and health visitors. In other words, general rules which we are required to work by.:D

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I too, watched my father die a terrible death from lung cancer......I admitted him to the ward where he was being cared for...... and care was exactly the right word for it..... all the staff looked after him as if he were their Dad, but he knew what the diagnosis was and just gave up...... the last 10 days of his life were pitiful and I wished for him to die every night..... he could not breathe so he could not eat or drink with any degree of comfort ...... he could not walk across the room because he had not enough breath...... he could not lie down. What joy was there in his life during this time????? None at all, and he was afraid to go to sleep in case he didn't wake up. If I were to keep an animal in those conditions you could bet I could be prosecuted, yet it was considered OK to keep my lovely old Dad alive. It would have been far kinder to end his suffering. I hope if ever I am unfortunate enough to be in such a condition that someone in my family will take pity on me.
I am glad that Margaret Blackburn had such a loving husband who put an end to her suffering and I would praise the judge for his compassion towards Mr Blackburn.

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I think everyone has to make up their own mind and the experience of life will vary from person to person....... and I think it is experience which will dictate your own personal attitude to the subject.

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I think that is spot on Margaret. When you have seen somebody suffer and had the experience of caring for those people while they are suffering unfathomable pain you sometimes find that your attitude towards the situation changes. I think somebody would have to be extremely hard hearted not to want to help somebody end that kind of situation. It is extremely upsetting for the carers to be asked for that help, whether it's family or hospital/nursing home staff, because we know there is legally nothing we can do. Anyone who is not upset in that kind of situation shouldn't be caring

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I agree Lettie........you can't help but get involved with your patient and their family.
I know when I trained we were taught that you should not get involved, but the only way that I could care for someone was to see them as almost family. That attitude in my mind ensures the very best care. I would not do to a patient or their relatives something I would not want to be done to me or any member of my family.

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I remember when I was in training, looking after a young man on the Orthpaedic ward who had been in a bad road accident...... I used to call at the chippie on my way into work when I was on nights to get him fish and chips......he was always starving hungry, and despite all he ate he was as thin as a string. He had no family in this country...... was on a visit from South Africa.

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I think the commandment thou shalt not kill means you should never take the life of someone that has a life.
I.E walking,talking,working,laughing, running ,jumping.
Euthinasia means you are helping a person that has a life only in the sense that the heart is beating.
You are helping the person you love into another life with out any pain.

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Taking the point of view regarding the commandment I know what you are saying black_flights and in Mr. Blackburn's case he did actually take a positive action but on the other hand I can fully understand why he did it and sympathise with him. There are also many cases, such as A-b describes, where a person is often kept artificially alive and their suffering prolonged. I cannot believe that this can be right. It is interfering with the natural course of events. In those cases I believe a person should be permitted to die with as much dignity as possible.

I do believe we are kinder to animals.

When my time comes I hope I will be permitted to go.

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I know that if i was terminaly ill and in a lot of pain i would like the choice of ending my own life.If you are of sound mind then you should be given the choice. I had to make that choice when my last dog was dying,it would have been extremly cruel of me to have prolonged his life, so i so fit to put my feelings to one side. I would expect my family to do the same for me.

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Quite right Lettie. Some years ago, my father was terminally ill with a brain tumour. For many weeks he was on a morphine drip but was still in considerable pain.

One afternoon, he was barely conscious but pleaded with me to end his life. this was not the rantings of a deranged man high on drugs, but someone that had been through enough pain and was helpless to do anything about it himself!

That 30 minutes listening to him was absolute agony for me, there was only one thing I could do and that was to go to the hospital chapel and pray for my dad to die....

I was not a religious person but a few minutes after I returned to his bedside, he passed away. Coincidence?? Who knows, but I DO know that I may have looked at ways of helping my father if he had continued to live,

For this reason, I totally approve of Euphanasia in terminal cases and as Lettie says, you have to experience the pain loved ones go through before you truly understand the pro's of euphanasia.

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>>That 30 minutes listening to him was absolute agony for me, there was only one thing I could do and that was to go to the hospital chapel and pray for my dad to die... <<

What a dreadful situation to be in. Expressions of sympathy seem inadequate.


Interestingly, there were reports in the papers and on BBC News yesterday that an adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury supported assisted dying in terminal cases. though a spokesman for the church of England was anxious to distance the church from the adviser's remarks.

More here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/ne...0116euth.shtml

From reading the article it sounds like the sort of moral mess the C of E usually gets itself into. And then they wonder why so few people take any notice of them any more.

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I sat with my mum only a few weeks ago watching her die from liver cancer, a secondary from breast cancer two years earlier. the last few days were awful and yes i did feel like i wanted to help her along. When she did die though, had i done anything to assist her then i'm afraid that i probably couldn't have lived with the guilt. She was 81 and did not tell anyone about the breast problem until it was far too late in spight of my wife being a retired nursing sister and my sister a staff nurse. I think at that age they dont discuss their bita do they. KIeep up the self examination girls and tell someone the minute you find anything unusual.

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I think Professor Gill is saying that in cases where someone has helped a terminally ill loved one to die peacefully and end their suffering that it should be viewed with compassion and sympathy as such a case is very far removed from that of a murderer.

That must have been an awful experience for you fireman, a terrible situation to be in. I think if it were me I would have wanted to help and yet felt powerless to do so.

It still seems so very wrong that we can end the suffering of a dog but not of a human being.

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lifes a bitch

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Who needs euthenasia with the likes of Harold Shipman around?

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Who can say for certain? It may be that Shipman considered his killings as exactly that. But since he is no longer around to question, we will never know.

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thats why i didn't reply

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its i think an unanswerable topic it would take a very strong person to do it and not doing it puts the mind in torment. nature i think, at the end of the day must or should be left to happen. "UNFORTUNATELY"

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he was an evil murderer and the only decent thing he did was top himself and spare us the expense of keeping him...

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I apologise if I offended anyone with my posting, I was actually implying that if we gave doctors a Carte Blanch to carry out euthenasia, it could open a can of worms.

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I'm afraid i disagree with you, in part, fireman.

Yes, I think he has done us, as tax payers a favour by topping himself. I would have like to see him do the decent thing and give a list of the people that he did kill. This would at least give the relatives of the dead people some form of closure and not be left wondering for evermore if their loved ones did die as a result of Dr Shipmans interference.

Notice that I did not refer to the killings as murder or euthenasia, because maybe in Shipman's deranged mind, he saw his actions as mercy killings.

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I don't think it would give doctors carte blanche, for they have nothing to gain in the euthanasia scenario. I think the Shipman case was different. I think that guy got off on feeling he had the power over old people. The worst thing about it was these people trusted Harold Shipman and he betrayed their trust......and in the most despicable way.

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What was the demographic of the people that he killed. Were they just elderly and infirm?

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His victims were mainly elderly but I believe that they weren't all necessarily infirm or terminal.

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Like lettie says, the majority of them were just old......and from reports some of them were quite fit for their age.

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sorry sparkologist just got in. yes I can see your point of view, and i agree with what you say but i doubt if this chap could remember all his victims.

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I think he would have it all logged down somewhere. Shipman was very methodical about his killings. Who knows, maybe time will tell if he ever kept a record of his macabre past-time.

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probably some relative will sell the records to the papers in years to come

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A pity no one thought of employing Shipman as Medical Officer for HBC.

If anyone wants to organise a whip round, I am quite prepared to buy a Medical Degree from Nigeria and apply for the position myself.

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I am sure that you would do an admirable job of it A-B.

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But if you do get the job will you do it VERY SLOWLY.... and then we can get the maximum pleasure out of it?????

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Oh yes, I'll start with compulsory laxatives all round first. As my aged aunt Gladys used to say, "there's nowt like cascara to sh*t the nowtiness out of folk."