Euthanasia is always an emotive issue, which has been discussed, not only by the medical and nursing professions, but also by the legal profession and government departments. Many of these debates took place in the late 80's when I was RGN training.
The general consensus was that it would be impossible to legislate, families may want to bump off elderly relatives for money or convenience and it would add to the stress of a terminally ill person coming into hospital, for fear that they may be euthanised against their wishes when their disease became end stage. There were many mixed opinions at the time, pretty much the same as this site.
My own opinion is that if it could be legalised, I would support it. Not only have I held many a dying person's hand and comforted relatives, but my Nan went through a painful death which lasted a few days. I do not consider Simon to be at all selfish for wanting to hang on to his father, I would have given anything to have a bit of extra quality time with my Nan, but it was never going to be that way, and I hated to see her suffer....
We have to remember that when a terminally ill person makes a decision to have their life ended, the decision is borne of desperation and pain. To make that decision, the person knows that they have no hope and no quality.
Consider this......... When we lose a relative or friend (as so many of us have done). We would like to have extra time with them, we miss them like mad and we go through a process of grief which can last a lifetime, but we only lose one person. A dying person loses everyone they ever knew, all of their family and friends, neighbours, pets, posessions..... In other words they lose everything, all in one go........
When you make a decision to lose everyone you've ever loved, that decision is not made lightly.......... Should we not be supportive of that?????
