Euthanasia! your opinions needed please

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  1. Euthanasia/assisted suicide

    • 13
      Are you against it?
    • 59
      Are you for it?
    • 4
      Or are you undecided?

76 members have participated

Hi there I am a 3rd year nursing student. Our class at university have been asked to compile a debate for and against euthanasia/assisted suicide, our class has been divided into two groups and I have been placed in the group for. I have been appointed as one of the main speakers to argue our case and this is where I ask for your help. I would be very grateful if anyone can post their opinions on this matter and their reasons why? It can be for or against but because I am on the for team I would love to see if anyone agrees with it. I personally agree with some aspects of it but I am on the fence due to it being such a sensitive issue. The results from this post will be used in the debate but just the numbers of people not details etc... So opinions are very welcome thank you for reading, much appreciated.

My opinion is, it shouldn't be illegal but should have requirements. Ex: if you're terminal and quality of life is no longer intact.

We give people opiates to alleviate their pain, knowing it will kill them faster.. It's not euthanasia but it's the closest legal thing I can think of.

I'm a firm believer in comfort care and quality of life. If the pt can no longer be effectively relived of pain and discomfort and they are hanging on by a thread.. Why not put them out of their misery?

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Assisted suicide necessarily leads to euthanasia eventually. The two are not mutually exclusive.

But it's not just these two things. When a mindset becomes one of seeing the death of a human being as a solution to a perceived problem, there is no end to which one will not go.

I'm not sure what you mean by "perceived problem". Is there any other way to define misery other than how it's perceived?

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

Last year the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that Canadians should have the right to physician-assisted suicide. I support this decision and firmly believe that under the right circumstances individuals with chronic, progressive and debilitating illness/disease should have the ability to make their own end of life choices.

If an individual, following a thorough physical and psychological assessment, decides that assisted-suicide is how they would like to end their life, I support their decision. On the other hand, if someone decides that they would like to live out their remaining time as comfortably as possible in hospice care, I support that decision as well. Isn't nursing all about patient-centered care and promoting patient autonomy when it comes to health care decisions? I think everyone should be able to make their own choices about end of life, and the health care system should support that.

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Specializes in allergy and asthma, urgent care.
Assisted suicide necessarily leads to euthanasia eventually. The two are not mutually exclusive.

But it's not just these two things. When a mindset becomes one of seeing the death of a human being as a solution to a perceived problem, there is no end to which one will not go.

Can you please explain what you mean by "assisted suicide leads to euthanasia eventually"?

I don't believe in euthanasia, which to me means taking the choice away from the patient. Assisted suicide, to me, means allowing the patient autonomy, and giving them the right to decide if and how they want to die. Hospice is wonderful and vastly underutilized, but is not what every patient wants. Some patients cannot have their pain relieved by medications and I feel it is every person's right to decide when they've had enough. The patient's needs and wishes come first-not the family, the nurses, the doctors, or the government.

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I didn't know that assists suicide was not the same thing. I believe that patients should make the decision

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Specializes in ICU.

The line is just getting grayer and grayer with how good our technologies and medicines are these days. I'm not sure there's a difference between euthanasia and allowing natural death anymore. We can keep dying people alive indefinitely at this point. Your body can even be most of the way dead but you're still technically alive - we might just have to amputate your extremities as those die off so the rest of your body doesn't die with them. So, if the person has the potential to for his body to be alive just about indefinitely with the assistance of medications and machinery, at what point is it euthanasia to stop those interventions?

I think that's the real question people need to be looking at. It's getting downright Frankenstein in healthcare these days with how long we're forcing people to stay "alive."

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Specializes in Emergency Medicine.

Watch the movie How to die in Oregon on Netflix- very eye opening.

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Personally, I think that it is someone's right to decide if they have suffered enough with a terminal illness and don't want to have to go through living life that way anymore. I think that there should be guidelines in place, counseling provided, and informed consent. A wait period after making the decision would be reasonable (as to not make a snap decision and provide time to think it over). I think that the health care worker should have the option to participate in such service or not. No one should be required to administer it if they do not feel comfortable. While I believe that someone should be able to end their life if they are terminal and want to end their life now rather than suffer further, I personally would not feel comfortable administering the medication to do so. However, I'm sure that there are others who would be okay with it and they would be able to provide the service to the patient.

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Specializes in retired from healthcare.

I remember being in conversations at work about "facilitating the dying process," way back before I dared to call it "euthanasia." People have already talked about the problem of patients being guilted into dying by their families. They have already talked about the problem of forcing patients to live who were supposed to die. A patient dying a slow agonizing death has as much right to euthanasia as an animal. Some patients do not understand why they're in pain any better than a pet that needs to die.

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I am for having the right to choose someone/s that I trust with my death, that under certain specified criteria but ultimately is given the tie breaking decision, will mercifully end my suffering under the supervision of a healthcare provider/s also of my choosing wrapped up in a legal document. And suffering being subjective and outlined by my personal definitions.

People are free to poison themselves with food and substance, let me decide and plan my own ending.

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Oh, and hospice has changed. Just ask the FTT'ers.

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As a student nurse, my 6 weeks stay at PCU has enlightened me about death and dying. I almost gave up due to intense pressure I've experienced in my unit. On my first week alone, I had 6 patients who passed away. I think I become an expert in administering opiates and barbiturates subq. Opiates are not even effective at this point. Where's the quality of life of your patient when she's NPO for 6 weeks, has been asking for doctor assisted suicide 3 months prior, and the family can't do anything except watch their mother, wife suffering/screaming from extreme pain and agony? Have you seen a person in tremendous pain? I am glad that the Supreme Court rules Canadians have right to doctor-assisted suicide.

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