On Nov. 6, Massachusetts voters will decide whether physicians may provide a dying patient, whose suffering has become unbearable, with medication to bring about an earlier, more peaceful death if the patient chooses and the physician agrees. On the ballot will be a Death with Dignity Act — Question 2 — that is virtually identical to the law that has been in effect in Oregon for nearly 15 years.
Good palliative care is adequate for the great majority of dying patients, but not all. Most pain can be eased, but other symptoms are harder to deal with — weakness, loss of control of bodily functions, shortness of breath, and nausea — and the drugs to treat these symptoms often produce unacceptable side effects. Even worse for many dying patients is the existential suffering. They know their condition is inexorably downhill, and they find it meaningless to soldier on.
Comments
Agreed.
First, there is nothing to stop a patient now from committing suicide. If its a concern, make your plans. This is about normalizing suicide as a medical choice. Once it becomes just a " lifestyle" choice, it breaks down the barriers to abuses. The idea that this is a minor adjustment to end of life issues, couched in terms of humanitarian concern, flies in the face of our daily dose of news across this country of government and institutional abuses of power. The recent crime lab disasters, previous histories of abuses of minorities and the poor, negligence in blood transfusions, are stark examples of well intentioned ideas that wind up being societal horrors. The supposed intention of alleviating pain for a minority of patients, does not warrant the potential negative effect on society as a whole and for large groups of the dying, disabled and sick, who would be the recipients of the almost guaranteed abuse.
"Almost guaranteed abuse" being a supposed occurrence based not in fact (because the facts show that nothing of the kind occurs where this law is already in place and functioning quite well and as intended), but in political fear mongering.
There is no "supposed intention" ov alleviating pain - there's the actual intention as well as the ability to do so. To promote suffering in the name of stopping abuse is just absurd. To prolong suffering IS abuse.
Obviously You did not read my post, just cherry picked what you want. Suicide is available all by yourself.
You want to alleviate your pain? go right ahead.
Your claims of it " functioning" quite well is a subjective " opinion" that I can dispute with voluminous articles and studies of euthansia here and in Europe. Somehow I dont think it will be of use.
I note that you believe prolonging suffering is " abuse". That's an interesting twist. Who gets to make that decision? You?
As one whose wife died of ALS, I guess I don't understand why she was forced to live longer than she wanted to, in order to placate the Commonwealth's medical lobby. The doctors -- the ones with the healing oath described by Dr. Angell -- were no help. One proposed at one point to insert a feeding tube directly into her stomach, so that she could live a few extra weeks. Though she couldn't speak, she nonetheless was able to communicate that she did not want that. (I can only imagine the needless suffering imposed by the "healers" on ALS patients who couldn't communicate.) They shouldn't have even offered it given her advance directive. And if the doctor(s) had really wanted to be helpful, one of them could have advised us that ALS patients lose the ability to blink at the end, meaning that my wife's eyes dried out and she went blind, totally unnecessarily. I posted this story on my website. I don't think I am allowed to list links in comments and so as not to prevent this comment from posting, I'll put the website link in another posting.
It appears, contrary to my posting below, that I am allowed to direct people to a site that does not involve asking for money. why the heck dot com, the December 27 2010 posting, describes the story of a death that didn't have to be so agonizing, and would not have been, with this law in place. As a result of this posting, The Why The Heck site morphed from a policy idea generation site (now the basis for a forthcoming show on the Washington DC public radio station called The Big Fix) that almost no one read other than policy wonks, to an ALS support site that has 6300 "friends". The site is dedicated to trying to get Major League Baseball to market Lou Gehrig jerseys (at a premium to current pricing) and donate a little bit to ALS research. Buyers, for an additional premium, could have the name of their ALS relative stiched right into the shirt, to show their support.
When will doctors remember that they work for US, the patients, and not for themselves. To be opposed to something that patients - dying patients - request when the doctors cannot change the outcome nor effectively manage the suffering of their patients is unconscionable.
I'm concerned about the possibility that we're going to create a cultural climate in which terminally ill people are pressured by family members and doctors to "avoid being a burden" and commit suicide. In the last few years, I've been a caregiver for home hospice for two family members -- my father and my brother -- and talked at length with friends who've been through it. I've seen first-hand how members of the medical profession, social workers and even other family members with their own agendas can put pressure on people to "put him in a nursing home -- why are you putting yourself through all this?" and "Stop being selfish and let him go" (when the caregiver is carrying out the dying person's wishes by providing antibiotics that will extend life for a few more weeks). A friend believes that her father was cajoled into giving up on dialysis (and therefore dying quickly) by a doctor who painted a lurid picture of how awful it would be to have to rely on family to help with bodily functions if he kept going. The idea of giving dying people a choice sounds great, but I don't believe we can guarantee that dying people and their families won't be subjected to pressure from various quarters -- from what I've seen, people *do* get pressured to "let go" in various ways already. So throwing suicide into the mix as one option opens up the distinct possibility that before too long, at least some dying people will be getting the message that they should "stop being selfish" and "not be a burden on the family" by "choosing" assisted suicide rather than go through natural death.
This is a great comment. Here is the beginning of the letter that was printed in the Hawaii Free Press in 2011:
"Hello from Oregon.
When my husband was seriously ill several years ago, I collapsed in a half-exhausted heap in a chair once I got him into the doctor's office, relieved that we were going to get badly needed help (or so I thought).
To my surprise and horror, during the exam I overheard the doctor giving my husband a sales pitch for assisted suicide. 'Think of what it will spare your wife, we need to think of her' he said, as a clincher."
The woman described how she got another Dr. and her husband lived FIVE MORE YEARS.
Last October, Oregonian Jeanette Hall wrote the Globe that she had voted for the bill out there, and then was diagnosed with six months to a year to live. Luckily, her doctor would not prescribe the lethal dosage:
"I didn’t want to suffer. I wanted to do what our law allowed, and I wanted my doctor to help me. Instead, he encouraged me not to give up, and ultimately I decided to fight the disease. I had both chemotherapy and radiation.
I am so happy to be alive! It is now 11 years later.
If my doctor had believed in assisted suicide, I would be dead. I thank him and all my doctors for helping me to choose “life with dignity.’’
Assisted suicide should not be legal. I hope Massachusetts does not make this terrible mistake."
We are talking about a social policy here that will reate a climate of encouraging suicide in which people with months and years to live will unnecessarily die. It's just too dangerous, please have "Second Thoughts."
For more reasons to vote against this bill, please see the website for Second Thoughts.
The Catholic Church is in opposition, not based on the merits of the issue, but that it would weaken
their opposition to abortion and "the right to life."
Some commenters here don't seem to have read this column, never mind the Legislation. This allows a patient the right to die a tad earlier, with dignity, than is already about to happen, without dignity. Bottom line: who's life is it anyhow?
An illiterate reply never carries much weight.
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I could not agree with Ms. Angell more and could not have written it better myself. Relgion, especially orthodox religions will naturally disagree and probably will put the full force of their money behind a no vote. Relgion has a vested interest in suffering. The hierarchy wants the sufferer to need them and of course contribute money. Yes, I am that cynical of our relgions. Often they are NOT about helping the person who needs it but rather try to inflict as much suffering as possible so you will need them.
I need no one to make that decision. I am NOT into suffering though I have experienced my share. It is perhaps because of that fact I will vote decidedly YES on this question. If you do not want to end your suffering fine but leave that decision up to my doctor and me. We both would know better than anyone else as to what is prudent!
I strongly disagree! Voting yes on this question is a tragic choice: I would rather bear my suffering patiently than to have my life taken by lethal drugs. This bill will open a wormhole of trouble. What if I wanted to get treatment for a serious disease and they prescribed suicide drugs? That's blasphemy! Elderly people, the disabled and the marginalized in society will be forced to choose getting themselves killed as a way of "stopping the suffering." It's a tragedy that Massachusetts can do without! I'm voting No on Question 2 and I urge all of you to do the same.
Here come the bible-thumpers, the tea party, the AMA, the flat-earth society, the anti-global warming society, the anti-evolutionists, and all the rest.