Assisted Suicide

[skeptigirl]

The problem with just letting anyone who wants to kill themselves is some of them are simply mentally ill. When they recover, they are glad you didn't let them do it.

But, those folks aside, for the severely ill or the terminally ill who feel so poorly and have no hope of recovery, compassion says let them choose. Absurd religious rationalizations are why we don't let them.

As a side note, when a person is removed from a ventilator to die in a hospital, many many times they are helped on their way with morphine. I've never seen anyone give the same morphine when taking someone off a ventilator wasn't involved, but I have seen a few people who didn't get the morphine live when the ventilator was removed. In other words at least some people are quietly euthanized in hospitals some times. Ask any ICU nurse whose worked long enough and you will hear the same accounts.

[Whitney]

I hope the doctor is kind enough to give me more morphine than technically allowed if I am going to die anyway but my body hasn't quite given out yet.

[tigerlily46514]

Laetus, Docs do that all the time...it's called "snowing the patient" and it is done in all the states I've ever been licensed in. (11)  For eons.  Nothing new.  No ventillator need be involved.  Just someone dying way way too slowly.

I was unaware at the times I've done this whether that particular state had a law forbidding this, as it fairly common practice with terminaly ill/dying pts who are just lingering and suffering.

The docs order this very judiciously, the terminally ill or severely irrevocably brain damaged pt is often mostly  unconcscouis at this stage but hanging on, and the family attitude is assessed and factored in-(big factor)......Not all docs will do this, but many do, but you get orders on a pt that you know are more than they can ever filter out....it is a slow cummulative overdosing...Nurses participate at will, as it is ordered "as needed"....it takes about three days at most...It is a very peaceful death.

I myself have been very generous when it is my shift, giving the morphine as frequently allowed by the order....
     I have never seen this done in a case when the family is stillhopeful or not ready for pt's death.  I have never seen this abused, nor done when there was any hope of recovery.  I had no qualms about what i was doing at all, as each time i participated, it was a kindness in a syringe.

[Will]

I would say that suicide should be allowed for those who are not mentally ill.

[SteveS]

I would say that suicide should be allowed for those who are not mentally ill.

Yup, me too.  If I don't even own my own life, what can I really say I own at all?