Against Assisted Suicide

Junebugfairy · Mar 29, 2009

nurses are patient advocates.

if the patient chooses assisted suicide, they have the right to get that care.

now, you do not have to do it, you have the right to refuse, but you must find someone else who will do it.

just like jehovas witnesses who refuse to hang or spike blood products. they have the right to be against it, like you for assisted suicide, but you cannot refuse to find someone to offer the care.

SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN · Mar 29, 2009

nurses are patient advocates.
if the patient chooses assisted suicide, they have the right to get that care.
now, you do not have to do it, you have the right to refuse, but you must find someone else who will do it.
just like jehovas witnesses who refuse to hang or spike blood products. they have the right to be against it, like you for assisted suicide, but you cannot refuse to find someone to offer the care.

huh? nurses are not permitted to participate in illegal activities and with a couple of exceptions assisted suicide is illegal in the united states.

i support it. but i can not, under the law, assist with it.

Junebugfairy · Mar 29, 2009

correct, it is not currently legal, but there is a lot of talk about the possibility of legality.

Music in My Heart · Mar 29, 2009

IMO, the only folks who are against physician-assisted suicide are those who either (a) have a religiously derived viewpoint, or (b) have never watched someone die of metastatic cancer while begging for somebody to end their suffering.

allnurses Guide · Mar 29, 2009

The op asked a specific question - didn't ask for a debate.

Here is a website that has information on euthanasia and other issues.

This is a great website - I'm a member of this organization.

http://www.cbc-network.org/

truern · Mar 29, 2009

nurses are patient advocates.
if the patient chooses assisted suicide, they have the right to get that care.
now, you do not have to do it, you have the right to refuse, but you must find someone else who will do it.
just like jehovas witnesses who refuse to hang or spike blood products. they have the right to be against it, like you for assisted suicide, but you cannot refuse to find someone to offer the care.

ummmm, no i don't. i kinda like my nursing license, tyvm. :)

for the record, i'm not against a person choosing to end their own life when they're terminally ill. it's not legal, however, so no..i can't participate.

truern · Mar 30, 2009

The op asked a specific question - didn't ask for a debate.
Here is a website that has information on euthanasia and other issues.
Here is a great website - I'm a member of this organization.
http://www.cbc-network.org/

Thanks for the link.

In the Physician-Assisted Suicide blog I was interested in the following thoughts:

"Due to medical advances, suicide is no longer necessary to avoid a death that is considered embarrassing or even painful."

"the decision to die would not be a decision made of careful thought, but rather a simple primal desire to escape all pain. "

"Yet with all the knowledge gained over years of modern medicine, doctors can remove all pain and suffering in the patient's last hours. "

Not sure how they came up with some of these. Obviously somebody has never witnessed a patient dying in pain regardless of interventions.

allnurses Guide · Mar 30, 2009

Thanks for the link.
In the Physician-Assisted Suicide blog I was interested in the following thoughts:
"Due to medical advances, suicide is no longer necessary to avoid a death that is considered embarrassing or even painful."
"the decision to die would not be a decision made of careful thought, but rather a simple primal desire to escape all pain. "
"Yet with all the knowledge gained over years of modern medicine, doctors can remove all pain and suffering in the patient's last hours. "
Not sure how they came up with some of these. Obviously somebody has never witnessed a patient dying in pain regardless of interventions.

I've seen some docs who don't know much about pain meds - our hospice doc is specially trained in pain relief for dying patients whereas many of the other docs here are not. So, education is greatly needed.

I think we do have the interventions to help - there is even palliative sedation. There is a way to remove pain from dying patients without resorting to killing them ahead of their time.

Since becoming a hospice nurse, I've seen many doctors who just don't have the education necessary to help patients. There have even been threads about how hard it is for cancer docs to give up trying to cure . . . .instead of focusing on palliation and hospice.

steph