Euthanasia/Spirituality

[BBelle]

I am a member of this board, but rarely post. I have a few questions that I would like to ask.

How many of you believe in Physician Assisted Suicide? I believe that a patient should have that right if there prognosis is terminal and there is no hope of recovery.

Secondly, how many of you believe in the Other Side? You know, if a patient says that they see a bright light with there loved ones waiting for them. And if you do believe, do you talk about it with your terminal patients if they ask you about it.

I firmly believe in the Other Side, I believe that when we pass away it is just our body that is gone, our spirit moves on to the Other Side, where we are happy and care free. Belle

[ohbet]

Doctors make agreement among themselves as colleagues to help one another actively in dying if it comes to the point.

Doctors can give themselves an overdose of morphine. But why is this possible only for doctors?

[Jamesdotter]

http://www.ohd.hr.state.or.us/chs/pas/ar-intro.htm#act

The above is a link to Oregon's "Death With Dignity" act. I am (mostly) in support of it.

[ohbet]

Isnt human dignity about self-dermination? Doesnt a man who all his life has worked honestly and for others,yet at the end-after a clear medical diagnosis- is threatened by a tumour or perhaps years of senile dementia,total senility in old age,have the right to die. We are given the self determination to live our lives, shouldnt we be given the same control over our own dying?

[micro, RN]

Self-determination. Respect and dignity. I so agree. And with proper guidelines, of course(JDotter, thanks for posting the site)

This is such a complex ethical, spiritual, legal, and $$$$ issue. Where did it get so skewed? Or has it always been.

My feelings as limited as they may be is that as we are becoming more advanced technologically, that the issues are becoming more clouded and that technology/science/medicine can keep someone(their body) alive to an indefinite time.....longer than the natural course of things..........

but then you start on a slippery slope.....

and also do not interpret anything I am saying here against ever

increasing science, technology,medicine, research.............because I am not.......

I am a walking talking example of continuing medical advancements.......and that by now was back a few years........

But, where I see an issue(actually I see many potential issues) is in the use and where the research is being done. Do we(we=medicine) perform hip surgery on a 99 year old debilitated patient just so they can return to a bedridden life being fed by PEG tubes.......? Do you keep somebody(a body) alive on mechanical ventilation just because we can? And I guess what has as a nurse infuriated me the most, is when I know for a fact what the patient has stated and wants in regards to medical treatment either in cessation or continuation.................but the patient is ignored and the wishes of others(within the scope of the patient's life) is heeded.....against the patients will.

Sorry, all if I am a bit off thread date here..........

just micro thoughts..........

hope this thread keeps seriously going on for a while.....

good thoughts, posts.......

micro

[ohbet]

What slippery slope?

It a question not of a healthy person, but to someone who is seriously ill and even doomed to die. Its not about the person who is suffering,often only for a time,simply from weariness of life,of a young person,whose first love affair has gone to pieces and who now despairs of life. Its about a person at the end of life, inescapably approaching death ,caused by incurable disease. What gives any one the arrogance, and the permission to play God, to say this person does not have the right to dispose of his life?

Doctors should do everything possible to cure,but not everything to postpone death artificially and technically for hours,days or even years often in the midst of intolerable torment.

Therapy is meaningful only as long as it leads,not merely to a continual vegetating,but to the rehabilitation and restoration of the whole person.

Im reluctant to speculate,but I am, does this reluctance in our society to let people go in piece and dignity connected to religious right and the pro-life movement? Its not unreligious or un christian to allow humans the right to die.I dont get it.

god help us

[micro, RN]

And I apologize, as I use a cliche' too readily.......

because my feelings here are not so easily for even myself to put into words........

and I am in no way presenting my comments as religious or of any christian bias.....no offense to any religion or christian here.....

just that that is where I am not speaking from.........

guess i have just read too much science fiction in my life and have already seen so much of the past science fiction turn to fact.........

if this makes sense.....this is the slippery slope.....that I speak of.........

or not, because my feeling and thoughts go much deeper than that.............

due respect to all threaders here, micro will step out until no cliche's she uses..........

[teeituptom, BSN, RN]

Howdy yall

from deep in the heat of texas

After as rough a nite as I had last night, Can I sign up?????????????????????????????????????????????

doo wah ditty

[Jenny P]

Good discussion here after MY tough weekend; I will reply AFTER I sleep because I'm not making any sence right now.

[ohbet]

micro,stop reading science fiction.

1.There is no dispute over the moral reprehensibility of any form of compulsory euthanasia.Since the mass murder of Jews ,gypsies and slaves who were alleged to be "unfit to live",since the forcible killing of physically or mentally ill men and women[it is estimated that on the basis of a secret decree of Hitler,form sept. 1939 to august 1941 between 60,000 and 80,000; people were killed in speceal killing instituitions],since all these atrocities against human dignity,there is no disputing the fact that this form of compulsory euthanasia on state orderes is notheng shord of cold blooded murder.And tahe major internationsl declarations by doctores since the second world war make it clear that compulsory euthanasia is unthinkable and an offence against basic human rights.

In Germany ,the world euthanasia is avoided,understandabe since the Hitler period. But in Greco Roman antiquity this word originally meant "good dying", a beautiful,good,quick easy, painless death . And medical eithanasia was first recognized as a task of doctors by Francis Bacon at the beginning of the sixteenth century: the relief of pain in dying. Is that to much to ask from society? God help us.

[micro, RN]

ohbet.......

will continue to read science fact and fiction........I will believe what i believe.........or not..........

the above points you make very well............

I 95% agree.........what is hindering us from proceeding more readily than we are now.

Is it religious ideals, $$$$, fear of legal retribution? Is it a change in the hippocratic oath.

I do believe that in the right circumstances that it is being done now.....and not on the sly..........

but in a correct and measured comfort care measures that physicians order.............by alleviating pain, by only comfort care measures.....without life-sustaining measures.............it is allowed to happen.........

but you still deal much with the present issues of advance directives......

and I have seen too much......

where the patient has specifically stated what they want done and it is down on all the papers and orders..........but yet it is not followed......

WHY?

Dignity of death. Dignity of choice? I would certainly hope so......

But there are many barriers in our present system.

And just to throw back out.........if it is ethical barriers.........maybe change should come, but slowly.........

the risk of misuse is great.........

I will restate

micro is not the great debater...........

but debates anyway........

[semstr]

Ohbet, it is true that the word euthanasia is still hooked to the Hitler regime over here in Germany and Austria.

But I am very glad to report that in the last few years, this word has been spoken out loud very often, because our generation is standing up for themself.

Also because more and more palliative wards and -houses are being opened.

And a third, the discussion on euthanasia here in Europe is very loud, because of other countries legalizing it.

Take care, Renee

[mario_ragucci]

What Nazi Germany did, in as far as killing off peoples, is wrong. During the Nazi years, I heard Eugenics was practiced as well. I'd like to go further and say the Nazi's were advanced in the knowledge of genetics for that time. I could be wrong.

Not only did Nazi law influence the deaths of sick and ill non-arian, but I understand certain genetic diseases were recognised within their own race, and those germans were forbidden to have children.

That wasn't a bad idea. If I fall in love and want to have children with a woman who has a terrible geneticly transfered disease like me, should I be condoned to take such as risk, which in this case would be preventable based on our knowledge and history?

The whole idea of a superior race is wrong, but they did recognize genetic imperfections in their own race, and tried to prevent it from re-occuring.

This is a tough one, but I figured I'd throw it out here, and see if anyone is for the prevention of terrible diseases by forbidding children of known carriers of the same genetically marked killer diseases, say, if the chance was greater than 50/50? Any chance?