Right to die?

Terminally ill patients with less than six months to live will soon be able to ask their doctors to prescribe them lethal medication in Washington state. My interview with Roland Halpern, director of Compassion and Choices.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Suicide
• right
• to
• die
• medical
• Washington
• State

[buckie92]

i personally find this kind of sad...

but i can kind of see the good in it.... for people who really are in a lot of pain...

[ramzpaul]

I fear that it is a slippery slope. Better to error on the side of life.

[buckie92]

for me, well... im a christian, so to me, any type of suicide, assisted or not, leads you to hell...

so... you can see my point of view on this...

[ramzpaul]

I am also opposed to this,

[fashionhistorylover]

@xxmonickkkkaxx It is upsetting but what about someone who doesn't want to live with pain and who who will die in six months anyway.

[aweiss]

Very good interview.

[IthacaSkinhead]

4) There are medications and chemicals which alleviate pain and discomfort and minimize the nastiness of dying. So the whole "right to die with dignity" is a fallacy - dignity is a person's personal responsibility. You choose to have dignity or not to have dignity. I choose to have dignity and opt out of assisted suicide in the event of a massive injury or disease to my body. I would never give up hope and stop hanging on.

[IthacaSkinhead]

3) Sure, if an entire family is in agreement, if they all vote that it's in the best interest... go for it. But even if this law is passed, I assure you the people who practice the "right to die" will be very few. And it is the same as suicide - a person, no matter how terminally ill, can recover at any point in time. It has happened before. If someone is dying, even of AIDS, they can still hang on long enough and who knows, maybe it will be cured while they are still alive. Suicide is suicide.

[IthacaSkinhead]

2) Had we all "opted out" of the hard part of life (like so many Americans do these days!) we would have never heard her tell us she loved us. It was the first, last, and only time I ever heard my grandmother speak. You say "imagine the pain of the patient and family". True, but imagine the pain of the family when they go to visit and learn their loved one has committed suicide. Never being able to say goodbye, never having closure...

[IthacaSkinhead]

1) regresseur: My grandmother had Multiple Sclerosis. My entire life, she was unable to walk, and I never heard her speak - until her last week of life. She contracted cancer (a terminal illness) and we all had to watch her waste away. However, instead of putting her down like a dog, we stayed by her side, and during the week before her life she miraculously regained the ability to talk and speak 3 words: "I love you."

[xxmonickkkkaxx]

Wow this is very upsetting. Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath, "I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion." We are living in a cultural of death.

[regresseur]

2.

The fact that such people can sweep together the endless list of diverse illnesses and imply that none of them are worth dying over again shows great arrogance and a deep lack of thought on the matter. I cannot stress enough the level of ignorance here... one thing I cannot stand is comfortable people giving retarded opinions on issues like this... it's ludicrous and completely unacceptable.

[regresseur]

1.

People who are against this simply do not understand what it is like to have a terminal illness or to have an illness that is so bad that you are forced to watch yourself degrade day by day. I find it very sad how people in positions of such ignorance have the audacity to say, and lack so much humility, as to even feel "okay" about saying they are against this. It is a clear case of people speaking out from intense ignorance. You are comfortable - you do not understand. Period.

[timbosforporn]

I think that people that argue for the right to die really might feel sympathetic to someone else's suffering and think the right thing is to put them down like you would a dog. This is the problem I have. Human life is more valuable than gold and even in pain it is still has worth. We don't know what lies beyond so we shouldn't just toss life away casually.