07-03-2003 22:18									#1
	Assisted Suicide in Oregon...what do you think? Suffering from ads?

I believe we are the only state in the union that allows a doctor to medically assist (usually by prescribing lethal doses of drugs) in the termination of adult life for those suffering a verifiable terminal illness.
A recent article placed the number of these deaths slightly higher this year than last (@40 I think), but nowhere near the flood that the feds assumed would occur.
What do you think about euthanasia? I assume it is practiced more widely in Europe than in the US. I wonder if someday we'll have "suicide centers" a la Soylent Green?
I think it is a good idea. Relieves a financial and emotional burden and allows the dying individual a small measure of control and dignity in their final moments. I personally would rather choose the time of my passing, especially if I was gravely ill.

	07-03-2003 22:24									#2
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Assisted suicide should be legal and available to people suffering. This self-righteous attitude by people who think life should be extended and such is stupid and ignorant. Making people suffer is much more evil than allowing someone the dignity to die in peace.

	07-03-2003 22:25									#3
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Personally, I think the act is cowardly, but in a nation where personal freedoms are supposidly highly coveted there should be a freedom to be a fool. I personally don't follow their reason, but I do think they have right to die how they want.

	07-03-2003 22:28									#4
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I wonder how much lobbying health and medical groups did against this law? I know Bush's stance is very anti-assisted suicide.
But hey, we also have medical marijuana here too! God, I love this state!

	07-03-2003 22:29									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Sava Assisted suicide should be legal and available to people suffering. This self-righteous attitude by people who think life should be extended and such is stupid and ignorant. Making people suffer is much more evil than allowing someone the dignity to die in peace.

What if you're just a nutbag and want to strap yourself with dynamites just for sh**s and giggles?

	07-03-2003 22:32									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Calc II What if you're just a nutbag and want to strap yourself with dynamites just for sh**s and giggles?

Read my post more carefully...

quote: available to people suffering

Nobody could walk off the street and say, yeah I want to die.

	07-03-2003 22:32									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Japher Personally, I think the act is cowardly, but in a nation where personal freedoms are supposidly highly coveted there should be a freedom to be a fool. I personally don't follow their reason, but I do think they have right to die how they want.

You'd change your tune if you were suffering from terminal cancer.

	07-03-2003 22:37									#8
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I knew a man that ended up shooting himself because of his pain and suffering and the complete loss of any sort of quality life. He committed suicide because there was no other option for him. The unfortunate side-effect was that his wife (a friend of my wife) had to find him with his brains all over the floor.

If assisted suicide had been an option, maybe she could have participated in a more constructive way rather than being left with the bloody mess.

	07-03-2003 22:42									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Calc II What if you're just a nutbag and want to strap yourself with dynamites just for sh**s and giggles?

AFAIK, assisted suicide involves the death of one person, as opposed to, say, the leveling of a city block.

	07-03-2003 22:47									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Sava Read my post more carefully... Nobody could walk off the street and say, yeah I want to die.

why not? ur gonna dictate how I should live my life?

	07-03-2003 22:48									#11
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quote: Originally posted by loinburger AFAIK, assisted suicide involves the death of one person, as opposed to, say, the leveling of a city block.

Loin, if there's someone I can trust to come up with witty and funny comment. It's you.

I think we should put a steeper punsihment for attempted suicide. I am leaning toward the death penalty.

	07-03-2003 22:52									#12
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I remember watching a standup comedian who read an article to the audience about how a man was shot by police in order to prevent him from committing suicide.

"I'll jump!"
[BANG]
"No, you'll fall."

	07-03-2003 22:53									#13
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ya know, if yo wanna die, all you have to do is buy a gun and shoot someone in cold blood.

You'll get everyone's approval.

	07-03-2003 22:55									#14
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Cop assisted suicide is the best!

	07-03-2003 23:00									#15
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If people constantly demand to be able to kill themselves, they should be allowed
to do so. However, we should check very carefully that this emotion isn't just
temporary desperation and bitterness.

As long as the invididual owns it's body, it should be allowed to do it whatever
it wants. OTOH, we should, as in other cases, inform them properly
if we do think that the action what it is going to do is stupid, to be really
sure that it's really what it want's.

Small OT-quiz: Count the grammar and spelling errors in this post.

	07-03-2003 23:05									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Tuomerehu If people constantly demand to be able to kill themselves, they should be allowed to do so. However, we should check very carefully that this emotion isn't just temporary desperation and bitterness. As long as the invididual owns it's body, it should be allowed to do it whatever it wants. OTOH, we should, as in other cases, inform them properly if we do think that the action what it is going to do is stupid, to be really sure that it's really what it want's. Small OT-quiz: Count the grammar and spelling errors in this post.

I agree. We should make every effort to advise people agst suicide, because most of the time its really a bad choice. But to take away the freedom from an individual that owns the right to their own life by forcing them to live on is ridiculous.

	07-03-2003 23:47									#17
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Suicide is mostly cowardly; however, in a case of terminal cancer, for instance, where the patient is in agonizing pain, I'm for it.
Besides, the sawbones have gotten there share, time to let the ghoul morticians feed their families.

	07-03-2003 23:50									#18
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i don't see how you can be against this unless you have some wacky religious perspective. most of the costs of health care come in the last months of life, and the pain and suffering is usually very bad for all involved. from personal experience one of my grand parents was literally kept alive for ~1 yr or so as just former shadow of who he was. he couldn't bath himself, his mental capacity had vanished yet they probably spent a small fortune keeping him alive for no point whatsoever except to prolong his suffering, and ours. it was obvious he was not going to get better and did not want to live. i can't understand why this happens so much.

	07-03-2003 23:53									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Stuie I knew a man that ended up shooting himself because of his pain and suffering and the complete loss of any sort of quality life. He committed suicide because there was no other option for him. The unfortunate side-effect was that his wife (a friend of my wife) had to find him with his brains all over the floor. If assisted suicide had been an option, maybe she could have participated in a more constructive way rather than being left with the bloody mess.

someone people are just condemned. i think i'm one of them.

	08-03-2003 00:52									#20
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quote: Originally posted by pg someone people are just condemned. i think i'm one of them.

Not sure what you're saying there....

But I'll take the opportunity (since you quoted my post) to say that by saying "If assisted suicide had been an option, maybe she could have participated in a more constructive way rather than being left with the bloody mess..." I'm not saying it was right for the guy to kill himself. I think it was wrong not to seek some counseling and involve his family in the decision. Maybe suicide was ultimately the only option, but since it's "illegal", he couldn't involve others in making that decision or seek sound medical/psychological advice in making the determination. It was really rough going to the funeral wondering if something else could have been done.

	08-03-2003 02:36									#21
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I voted for the personal affront to God.
Way to skew the poll.

quote: Suicide is mostly cowardly; however, in a case of terminal cancer, for instance, where the patient is in agonizing pain, I'm for it.

Ever hear about palliative care, Slowwhand? There are ways to reduce the pain and suffering of terminally ill patients.

One problem with assisted suicide is the conflict for doctor's ethics. If one believes that the doctors must first do no harm, then how does one justify giving even a terminally ill patient drugs to kill himself?

Secondly, how can one justify ranking pain with the value of one life? All life consists of pain in one form or another, unless we can objectively measure pain, why limit assisted suicide to the terminally ill?

	08-03-2003 02:44									#22
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My grandmother is a good example of why assisted suicide is a decent idea (although being a devout Catholic, she probably would have passed). In the last couple of years of her life, she had a stroke and was reduced to a very child-like state of mind. She didn't recognize my father and alternated between calm and chaos. Due to diabetes, she had to have both of her legs amputated at the knees. Some life, eh?
I tell you...if that was me, I'd want someone to put a pillow over my face and finish me off.

	08-03-2003 02:59									#23
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My brother and I have a pact.
No worries for me in that regard.

	08-03-2003 22:38									#24
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How many of you would want someone to "put you down" if you were no longer living a decent life?

And, more specifically, what constitutes "quality of life" to you? I don't know if I could even deal with life as a paralysis victim myself...what are your limits?

	08-03-2003 23:27									#25
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Personally I would consider such a procedure to be morally wrong, but I don't think the government should be able to ban it.

My only real concern with Assisted Suicide laws is the possibility of cases where the "patient" isn't completely consenting. This happens sometimes is the Netherlands where Euthanasia is legal where Euthanasia is performed without full consent given. I don't if any of you have been around terminally ill people, but often when attacked by debilitating disease they are weak and are extremely reliant on their family. It is also puts an incredible toll on the family taking care of people with terminal diseases that is really hard to understand unless you have had to do it. SOme families might take advantage of this law to place pressure on the would be "patient" to undergo the procedure. ALso, under some advanced stages of the disease, it becomes next to impossible for the person to communicate. In such a case a family could have him euthanized without the person able to get out that he/she doesn't want to undergo the procedure.

	08-03-2003 23:41									#26
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quote: Ever hear about palliative care, Slowwhand? There are ways to reduce the pain and suffering of terminally ill patients.

There are many, many instances where palliative care is just plain cruel in cases where people are in unbelievable amounts of pain.

My mother, in her last stages of cancer, was on the strongest opiates out there, transdermal Fentanyl, and still had constant, excruciating bone pain. Fortunately, she died before she could be moved to a hospice, which would prolong the agony.

I'm for the legalization of it because allows a much better oversight of who's killing themselves and who's doing the killing.

When Jack Kevorkian started out, he was considered a godsend in the movement. But, after a while, he was literally dropping bodies out of the back of his van at various Detroit hospitals. I would like to think there would be a lot less of this it were legal.

	08-03-2003 23:50									#27
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What is morally wrong with suicide, btw?

quote: My only real concern with Assisted Suicide laws is the possibility of cases where the "patient" isn't completely consenting. This happens sometimes is the Netherlands where Euthanasia is legal where Euthanasia is performed without full consent given. I don't if any of you have been around terminally ill people, but often when attacked by debilitating disease they are weak and are extremely reliant on their family. It is also puts an incredible toll on the family taking care of people with terminal diseases that is really hard to understand unless you have had to do it. SOme families might take advantage of this law to place pressure on the would be "patient" to undergo the procedure. ALso, under some advanced stages of the disease, it becomes next to impossible for the person to communicate. In such a case a family could have him euthanized without the person able to get out that he/she doesn't want to undergo the procedure.

to your opinion.

	09-03-2003 04:53									#28
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I wouldn't commit suicide

I would ust go for an extended journey in the andes or cascades or something with inadequent provisions

Jon Miller

	09-03-2003 05:05									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Japher Cop assisted suicide is the best!

Not true. Suicide by cop really f**ks up the cop. They have to go through the rest of their lives knowing that they've killed someone. I've heard from cops of their buddies quitting the force after such shootings.

	09-03-2003 10:21									#30
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quote: How many of you would want someone to "put you down" if you were no longer living a decent life? And, more specifically, what constitutes "quality of life" to you? I don't know if I could even deal with life as a paralysis victim myself...what are your limits?

I take it a day at a time.

Quality of life? I can still breathe.

Detroit Dave:

quote: There are many, many instances where palliative care is just plain cruel in cases where people are in unbelievable amounts of pain. My mother, in her last stages of cancer, was on the strongest opiates out there, transdermal Fentanyl, and still had constant, excruciating bone pain. Fortunately, she died before she could be moved to a hospice, which would prolong the agony.

We need better painkillers? How will assisted suicide help us to make better painkillers that can deal with this type of pain?

quote: I would like to think there would be a lot less of this it were legal.

Rather than dropping in the back of vans, they'll drop in hospitals, tucked away from everyone else.