Reset Password
Reset Link Sent
| Blogs > wickedeasy > wicked and that ain't so easy |
they shoot horses, don't they?
|
they shoot horses, don't they? started to post about waiting....which i am not good at nor do i want to be good at it. but it kind of fell apart. so i'm going to write abut assisted suicide. having worked in the HIV field for many years, this was often an issue before the disease became chronic and more controllable. there were times when we surrounded a friend with large numbers of us, so that no one person could be arrested or prosecuted. my bf was asked by a friend two years ago for such help but found it impossible to do. her love for her friend simply overrode her ability to go there. ethically, i have some concerns because of how chronic pain or disability can impact someone mentally/emotionally and may preclude them from making this very final decision compis menti. but i also do believe that there are times and situations that make this decision not only viable but merciful and just. the hemlock society was the first group that offered concrete help in this arena....before and during Dr. Kevorkian's numerous trials and imprisonments. Oregon has passed a death with dignity law but finds itself in the midst of legal chaos in defining how and when one can make this choice. people from final exit are being arrested. but, it is a choice. is it one that you can take away from someone who is suffering badly? i guess the biggest issue for me is when you involve someone else in this choice and make them also have to choose... both legally and morally. when my nick was at the end...his eyes were so sad and so hurt....where had his people gone...why were they allowing him to feel such pain. his euthanasia was a simple shot administered by a vet and within seconds, his eyes cleared and his body lengthened and he was at peace. it was sad to see him go...but it would have been cruel to not help him. do we treat our animals with more dignity that our friends? or is it just that the value of a human life is so HUGE, that choosing to assist in terminating one, seems wrong....and why is it wrong if it's done with the same love, good judgement and care that led nick and me to that moment? ideas? comments? You cannot conceive the many without the one. |
||||
10/23/2009 3:26 pm |
Goodness I popped in thinking I would quickly criticize another Jane Fonda movie... Well since I Consider it immeasurably rude to read and leave without comment, here's my (very weary and in much need of a drink) 2-cents. We should all be so lucky to come to our earthly demise instantly, surly. But since the only control of such a fate is mere happenstance... OR suicide, most all of us are left to face the inevitable and relentless slow deterioration of our bodies. It's part of the gig, and depending one ones beliefs, it may have already been realized before birth... in other words, some believe that we already knew full well what this life was about before signing up. And yet, here we are. So would taking the life of another, mercifully or not, be considered heresy? God-like? Or, as in the case of our beloved animal friends, thought of as an act of a higher brain-functioning living being? (I mean, it seems after all, we do have a God-like relationship with our beasts.) Hmmm, it seems I don't have a clear answer. I have been faced to make the life-ending decision twice before. Pets of course. But each time... each instance when I though no more, I must end this... mercifully. Fate (God?) decided for me. No less sad, but relieved at least from the weight of that final decision. Very thoughtful post Now I KNOW I need a drink (cheers) Alexi
| |||
|
WE, just as we know when it is time to let go for a beloved pet, I think we know when it is time to let a beloved friend go too. BUT with the pet, we get the choice; with the friend we only can watch and support. And I specifically use 'friend' as the relationship does not matter if there is blood or marriage licenses involved. What counts is that you truly do love that other person. So how do we go about helping / letting someone end on their terms? In a hospice setting, the whole focus is on a peaceful and painless end. Even in a nursing home, hospice can function and aid not only the person who is ending, but all of those who are surrounding. The physician can order ever increasing doses of pain relief such that the end is less a struggle. Recently a good friend's Grandfather died; he simply decided it was time to go (he was 92, his wife had died 18 months ago). He stopped eating and taking his normal course of meds. Was his ending painless? I don't know, but I do know he exercised his choice, to the disagreement of his two daughters. He did the right thing, I think, and the hospital honored his expressed wishes. We do need to treat death with just as much dignity as we treat any other life transition (birth, graduations, weddings etc). Hugs to you Chas
| |||
|
I think people need to be able to make that choice...even if someone isn't technically "terminal", if they are aged and have had a good life and they don't feel that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical intervention should be thrown at them...they should have the choice to refuse treatment. Of course, giving someone a lethal injection is far different from allowing them them to refuse treatment - as you say, then they are bringing someone else into culpability and maybe that isn't fair.   
| |||
|
I wrote about this once in a roundabout way: A Letter To A Young Friend. Yet when it comes to helping someone end their life, I am still so very unsure (despite my years of medical training and working with a wide array of mental and terminal patients). Despite this, I have a very specific Living Will, which (I believe) EVERYONE needs to have in order for their loved ones NOT to have to deal with certain life and death decisions. I will say this ... A person can have a very definitive opinion on the matter UNTIL they are placed in the position, itself. Then you never know how you truly will react. Regardless of anyone's viewpoint, this was a wonderful post. Thanks so much for sharing. *hugs* /  This is my blog - [blog _Safira]. There are many like it, but this one is mine. RECOMMENDED READING: A F F The Only Site For Me
| |||
|
Its a religious double standard that seems to rule this country. Living in Europe certainly opens ones eye's.
| |||
|
i think it should be every ones right to die with dignity and i am all for it as you said we treat our pets with more love !!!love enough to see them not suffer so why not with human life as well!!! a touchy issue my friend!!!..hugs hope your weekend is going well for you!!!!   []   Seduce my mind and my body
| |||
|
Pr 31:6 Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. 7 Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. Ain't much dignity in death. Ain't a whole lot more of it in life, apparently. There are millions upon millions starvin' to death--not much dignity there. Maybe we oughta just pour 'em some whiskey--you know, put 'em out of their misery--and call it good. Actually, we could feed 'em some rat poison and assist in their demise--hurry it along, so-to-speak. I remember back in the '60s (details are fuzzy, now, of course) reading about a situation in which too much staple grain was available (a bumper crop) and the prices were dropping... like flies onto a bloated baby's not-quite-yet corpse. So... the solution? Load 14 million metric tons onto barges, haul it out into the Atlantic... and set it all on fire! Of course, the Dept. of Agriculture purchased it from the likes of Continental Grain, at taxpayer expense. Seems the US taxpayer is too busy politickin' to know that with 14M tonnes headed off to feed "starvin' Armenians" (flagged by a destroyer group and a few divisions of gung-ho Marines... to prevent the likes of dictators from Uganda, Rwanda, et al, from gettin' their hands on it), rather than merely providing a beacon for passing oil tankers... we might have put a crimp in a lot more assisted suicides. (Oh; I meant genocide.) Now, I ain't no genius... but it seems likely that had we shipped that surplus grain to those "starvin' Armenians", as my mother used to call them (they've even found a few in the US since then), we'd have "killed two birds with one stone": the "starvin' Armenians" would not have, at least for some period of time, continued on starvin'... and the price of grain would still have been propped up. Funny how dignity flies in the face of practicality; eh? After all... ya can't just give 'em food--no profit in that. How much dignity is actually lost in suffering the inevitabilities of life... after having lived it? And just exactly how much dignity would be gained in death when one has no concept of dignity throughout their entire life? If we worried even as much about the living as we do the dying... who knows how much more dignity might be available to us all... when it does come time to blow this juke-joint? Solar...
| |||
10/26/2009 12:56 am |
I held our dog Top Bunch while the vet gave him the shot and felt the life go out of him. I also saw my son's birth, held him and looked into his eyes before they could focus and welcomed him into the world. In both cases, for me, the stark, immediate reality was overwhelming to my carefully constructed life. Tore the cover right off. (I'd like to meet someone who works in a hospice.) I think there are two situations in death. One where the person is lucid and another where they're not. There are cases where people know they're on the way out and losing abilities. A friend takes them out to a beautiful place, and they do up drugs that take him/her out. On the other hand cases like my mother, who always said she never wanted to be kept alive if she lost her ability to function. She had a stroke and lost her ability to communicate along with a few other serious problems, but being a strong willed woman, fought to survive and did for several years. I wasn't there when she had another stroke and was in intensive care, couldn't communicate other than by eye contact. She was being kept alive artificially. Insurance was to run out in a few days. Decisions were going to have to be made. Take her off support? Sell the condo? My sister was with her when she struggled against death/for life. She didn't want to go. My sister helped her accept it and she went out. But if she hadn't and they asked me what should be done, I'd like to think I could make a decision. I do know that I couldn't do so in advance. I guess all I can really say is for myself, if I couldn't communicate and loved ones decided to take me off life support, at this time of writing in good health, I say I wouldn't hold it against them. But in Reality? I think everyone has written from the heart here. A living/dying will is important with the proviso that it only holds if the person is in a state they can't make a decision. In Oregon it took a hearing, a judge, family members etc etc etc to allow assisted suicide. This was done to curb the fear of doing someone in in order to profit from it. But even that doesn't deal with the human responsibility of taking another life even when it is known that is what's wanted.
| |||
10/27/2009 11:51 am |
We have health care proxies and living wills....We should be allowed to use them as a basis for our final wishes....I find it interesting that we treat our pets in a more humane manner than our people.... From one who has been doing a lot of thinking about quality of life, I can say that if the time came and there was little or no quality of life, I want someone to pull that plug and do it with as little pain as possible..... One of my biggest fears has been dying of cancer....and, that was before I came down with cancer.....So, now i really get to worry about dying from cancer with a long painful end.....it's not something I would look forward to....so, I'm hoping that my cancer is gone and I'll get to die in some other manner....of, course when the time comes. Great questions
| |||
|
As many have said including yourself, this is a difficult question. As for dogs, I've had to euthanize a few. It was hard for me to know when to let go. A vet told me to think of the three things that my dog enjoyed the most. When the dog was no longer capable of enjoying two of those three things, then it's probably time. That helped a little. Then there are times that you just know, when it's obvious there is no quality of life. John Lee Hooker Recommended: [blog lucyjane78]
| |||
|
Here in Washington, a Death with Dignity law passed last year. No doctor or other health care professional is required to participate. Whole hospitals can refuse. Some one requesting death has to ask verbally twice and in writing once. He may be required to complete a psychological eval. He must be predicted to die within 6 months. He must be able to administer the drugs himself, which I guess leaves the fully-paralyzed totally out of things. It doesn't affect life insurance policies. In fact, the underlying disease must be listed as cause of death on the death certificate. It's not clear to me what would happen if someone self-administered these drugs in hospital and then got into difficulty but didn't die. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies. For vilest things Become themselves in her, that the holy priests Bless her when she is riggish. ~~ from Antony & Cleopatra
|
Become a member to create a blog
