What's the difference between assisted suicide and end-of-life sedation?
Please don't be offended by this question!
Why is one illegal and the other legal?
I have nothing but respect for most hospice nurses & personnel. I've worked in healthcare for 30 years & have seen unbearable suffering.
Once a person is in the end stage of the dying process or unable to tolerate their suffering, I think it would be kinder to offer them a quicker option than the sedation. This way it is clear: you are going to die very soon. Not we are keeping you comfortable & let's see how long this can go on. No food, no water, we will sponge your lips & you go back to sleep. How do we know the patient isn't suffering through this? That their pain is alleviated? That they're not scared or riddled with anxiety?
Why is hospice considered to be superior to assisted suicide?
Any opinion is welcome!
Thanks in advance.
i dont mean to sound bitter but ive worked for the public for 25 years and i will turn and run from most professing christians . everything that comes out of their lips has some kind of self serving spin to it .
I think it shifts the focus from what is happening with the patient to what, exactly, the people caring for the patient are doing. Are they, or are they not, killing the person? To be guilty of murder, you have to act with intent, knowing that your action will kill. If you do so to relieve suffering, the intent may have a merciful motivation but it is still intent to kill, therefore still murder.
Where it gets really interesting is the question of whether sedation, by suppressing respiration and other functions, hastens the death of the patient. If you relieve somebody's symptoms using a technique which you know will shorten your patient's life, how do you justify that?
We justify these things on pragmatic grounds, on grounds of expediency, on grounds of what we expect suffering human beings to tolerate. So do I! - so would I! - I'm not accusing anyone of anything.
At the moment in the UK we've got growing momentum behind legislation to protect people from prosecution in cases of assisted suicide. It hasn't happened yet, I don't suppose it will any time soon. For what it's worth, I'm against changing the law. I feel that if people act under duress, and out of humane pity, to help another to end his life, then let them tell a jury so, and let a jury acquit them; but they must still be held to account by the criminal law. Once the law permits assisted suicide, people will stop examining what exactly has gone on and euthanasia will slowly cease to be voluntary.
There is a case for that too, of course; only far fewer people are willing to make it!
The line gets blurred by giving high dose opioids and sedatives around the clock, which probably is going to accumulate in someone ill and/or elderly and poorly metabolizing, which is the default for some hospice protocols. I think you have to pick a hospice that lets you stay in charge. I did not let them do that to my mom, but I was glad there was morphine available at the very end when she was having a really bad angina attack and was really in distress...
I also am on the side of NotDeadYet.org and others who fear, rightfully, that legal euthanasia would become a recommendation for people that healthcare economists if not doctors and nurses find bothersome or burdensome, or just think have a poor QOL evenb though the person themself might rate their QOL as pretty good - lets face it, funerals are way cheaper than critical care stays or cancer care and there will be pressure on people to just get it over with. There was a horrible case in Oregon not too many years ago where a young woman was denied an "experimental' cancer drug (it wasn't - good literature indicated it had a strong chance of working) but received a note in the mail that assisted suicide would be covered due to the new law.
Oh. My. God.
Did they also send her contact details for recommended undertakers?
You have to wonder who is thinking these things through.
re: NotDeadYet and similar organizations, I don't really consider myelf to be supportive because I've always thought :'Nobody is trying to kill YOU people~ This is for patients that are requesting it for themselves"
I do give them credit for their strength and voice though, and think they should continue the fight.
I always thought I'd vote yes or for assisted suicide if we had an opportunity to vote. I hate to see people suffer and think they should have the choice. However, I'm slowly changing my mind. I do think the slippery slope arguement has some value. Greedy family or insurance companies are sure to take advantage. They already do through hospice.
Assisted suicide is what it is. The person knows they will be dead. Hospice should be renamed "Comfort Care With the Possibility of Euthanasia." That way everyone who signs up knows that oversedation is a possibility, and can clearly refuse while they're still able to think clearly.
Euthanasia was once more practiced than historical records will admit to . Nurses would just take a long long time to attempt resuscitation. Midwives would smother defective newborns, and report them as stillborn. Socrates was given a cup of poison hemlock in 399BC. By the standards of ancient Greece, it was extremely humane. It is nothing new.
For instance, my mom takes insulin along with a pill for diabetes, a cholesterol drug, a BP drug, and anti psychotics, along with stuff to make her sleep. She's also on a strict diet, no potassium, no fat, no carbohydrates, etc., etc. All that keeps her body alive. However, her brain is not functioning.
I've been told by the psychiatrists that I should start thinking about quality of life versus quantity, which to me, sounds a lot like assisting in her death. But the reality is it means just allowing her to die as she normally would without the drugs.
At least, that's what it means to me. Am I withholding drugs?
No. I don't feel it's my place to do so.
That's just me. She's not in pain either physically or mentally (at least she says absolutely nothing about it, although I see she can't see, hear, or get into bed by herself). I'm starting to allow the sweets she wants because I'm beginning to think that at her age, 91, she should be able to have something half way decent to eat that would make her happy.
Am I happy?
Nope. But it's the trade-off for taking her into my home.
The thought that the nurse who administers the injection has committed murder may be true but I think they have to deal with that themselves and see if it presents a moral issue to them much like those who perform abortions have to. I've been through both scenarios and all I can say is I have been thankful for those people being there when they were needed.
Also, explain Hospice very nicely.
http://hospicefoundation.org/End-of-Life-Support-and-Resources/Coping-with-Terminal-Illness/Hospice-Services
I was wrong in some of my answers in my post. Sorry :(
They have to respect scientific knowledge and share it
They are obliged to treat the sick not over treat them or stop treating them.
They must recognise that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh surgery or drugs.
They must recognise their limits and refer where necessary
They must keep a patients information private
They have to take special care in matters of life and death.
To quote: If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humility and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
They must treat the person not the data about the person
They must act to precent disease
and a couple of others
So theoretically they do have the right knowingly to give medication which will result in a speedier death BUT only if they deem it necessary or appropriate for that individual person and as long as it conforms to the knowledge they have about that person.... I THINK
If a treatment definitely would shorten life, as in kill someone, you can't do that: no matter what the suffering it would prevent nor how effectively that treatment (e.g. brick, plastic bag, pillow over the face, massive overdose) would do the job. Which is why they spend all that time calculating precise dosages and restricting patients' control of the dosage instead of just whacking in a heap of morphine.
I still have high hopes that the Brompton Cocktail will make a comeback in my lifetime. If you're going to go anyway, high as a kite on morphine, heroin and cocaine - Champagne optional? - sounds good to me.
The person who wrote this would obviously likely to believe it's true, but then how would she know if history doesn't record it? Here-say?
And Socrates' death by hemlock? He was sentenced to death by the government of Athens. It's not like he chose to commit suicide. If someone were choosing suicide it seems they would choose a less painful method than one causing emesis (vomiting), salivation (drooling), mydriasis (excessive dilation of the pupils), tachycardia (heart palpitations), bradycardia (abnormally slow heartbeat), fasciculations (muscle twitches all over the body), tremor, and seizures.