A looming battle in Washington state over efforts to create a right-to-die law for the terminally ill is a personal one for two men leading it, both of whom are ill. Fighting for the measure is a former governor who wants the freedom to exercise such a right; fighting against it is a former press secretary who can’t imagine anyone wanting to.
Proponents are wrapping up a petition drive to put Initiative 1000, the proposed Washington Death With Dignity Act, on the November ballot.
The initiative would let a doctor prescribe lethal drugs to patients given less than six months to live. Oregon is the only state with such a law, which the Supreme Court upheld in 2006.
Booth Gardner, 71, who served two terms as a Democratic governor in Washington, has Parkinson’s disease and has declared this his “final campaign.”“There are people like me everywhere who are coping with pain — they know that their next step is death,” Gardner said in an e-mail interview. “When death is inevitable, we shouldn’t force people to endure agonizing suffering if we don’t have to…”
“We have all made tough decisions throughout our lives, and we should be trusted to make tough decisions about the end of life,” he said. “It’s about autonomy, personal choice and respect. I was in control of my life. I should be allowed to be in control of my death.”
As usual, those who confuse ethics with morality, counter science with superstition – march in lockstep with their culture of divine death versus an individual’s right to choose to order their own life. Or death.
Let me guess. The coalition opposing the right to die for the terminally ill include the same names responsible for murdering millions of HEALTHY people – the Roman Catholic Church.
Who else? Conservative Christians?
I seriously hope this passes. What good does it do anyone to sit and suffer for months? It’s the “moral right-wingers” who are forcing people to lay in agony.
>>Oregon is the only state with such a law,
>>which the Supreme Court upheld in 2006.
Just another great reason to move to Oregon.
That we don’t allow Americans the option to die with dignity, without draining their finances, bankrupt their families, and force their loved ones to watch them wither away and die a lingering, painful (not to mention breath-takingly expensive) death is one of the great shames of this country.
>>Who else? Conservative Christians?
I think dvorak dot org slash blog should set up some kind of a macro that automatically populates the first comment field with something like “Christians are all assholes”, so we can get this Dvorak’s Law thing out of the way right from the get-go.
“When death is inevitable, we shouldn’t force people to endure agonizing suffering if we don’t have to…”
Is death ever not inevitable? Should the docs then be able to prescribe lethal doses to anybody who wants them?
Nobody is stopping anyone from killing themselves. Why do you need to involve the government and the medical field? Who determines when someone has the right to die and someone does not? Do you think it will stop at 6 months? What about 1 year? How about children who can’t live on their own? Right wing, gun carrying, religion-clinging individuals are not the problem. It is retards who think they are keeping you from putting a gun to your head.
It is not only “moral-right-wingers” who are concerned about this issue. Another rational view is that it opens another slippery slope for society. Now it is, to quote #3: “…die a lingering, painful (not to mention breath-takingly expensive) death…”. But, give us Govt. sponsored medicine and in the future doctors may be forced to kill patients who have not much left because bureaucracy have decided that it is worth only to spend so much to prolong life for so long… Another possible (and likely) abuse would be potential benefactors of persons death forging, coaxing or deceiving infirm ones into the death for all the wrong reasons. Only way to prevent this slippery slope is positive restraint on medical profession: you can’t intentionally take a life.
#5 Unbelievable. Somehow you can’t separate the condition of suffering through an assured death to your broad generalization of the law granting the vending machine death pill.
Let me guess what denomination your from.
What is interesting here is that this would mostly be a non-issue if modern healthcare did not exist. Life expectancy for my generation (I’m 28 right now) is into the 80’s for an average! Is there some “moral” reason to keep people alive through vaccination, antibiotics, and proper diet? Or is it simply an ethical choice we’ve made? What says ethics regarding allowing someone to die? The oath a doctor takes swears them to do everything within their power to help an individual, but even that recognizes that sometimes the only possible choice is death.
On a personal level, I feel conflicted. The standard needs to be pretty high for allowing death at one’s own hand. There are many people that fall ill and slip into depression…obviously it’s not appropriate to allow this person to make a life or death decision. But on the other hand, who am I to tell anybody what they can or can not do?
Having watched people die of severe illness, and enduring agony every day of it, I can see the value. And I hope to never have to make that decision for myself…but I would want it available to myself and my family.
#5- There is a HUGE difference between someone that is dying of a terminal illness that is wreaking havoc on their body, and a person dying of life. Don’t make such a light issue of the matter.
>>It is retards who think they are keeping you
>>from putting a gun to your head.
If and when the time comes, I don’t want to put a gun to my head. I don’t want to jump in front of a subway train, and I don’t want to throw myself off of the Empire State Building. I want my medical care provider to be able to, at my request, prolong or end my life as I deem fit.
>>Only way to prevent this slippery slope is
>>positive restraint on medical profession: you
>>can’t intentionally take a life.
No, another way would be to prevent medical professionals from intentionally taking a life unless the person whose life it is requests that his or her life be taken.
Simple enough?
“To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.” – Hippocrates
So won’t the suicide drug have to be sold over the counter? A doctor can’t prescribe this.
The Bible thumpers will fight this to the bitter end.
>>The Bible thumpers will fight this to the bitter end.
I thump the Bible proudly, and I fully support the right to die.
So STFU.
#10 what you say is extremely selfish. You don’t want to put a gun to your head but you don’t mind having a doctor kill you. Did you ever stop to think about what that would do to doctors who spend their whole lives training to help people live?
What ever happened to fighting and the will to live? What ever happened to people who are told they have six months and go on to live 14 years? If you want to kill yourself that’s your prerogative but don’t make the government turn doctors into murderers.
As the baby boomer population moves towards their 80’s and 90’s the right to die on your own terms will become a legal sacrament.
>>what you say is extremely selfish.
Hey, in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about? No one can die for me. And no one should have the right to tell me when I can die.
>>Did you ever stop to think about what that
>>would do to doctors who spend their whole
>>lives training to help people live?
If it bothers them, they can always decline to provide the services. There are plenty of doctors who think that helping people to die with dignity has a positive effect on the “quality of life” (and death). Good for them.
>>If you want to kill yourself that’s your
>>prerogative but don’t make the government
>>turn doctors into murderers.
Well then, the government should not criminalize acquisition and possession of the materials one might want to use to die a death of dignity.
Might want to see just how great that assisted suicide law in Oregon is working out by reading this…
Good intentions gone wrong..
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67565
OT–Eideard==you say: “As usual, those who confuse ethics with morality.” //// Ummmmmm—I guess that fits me pretty well. What fine distinction are you making between the two?
In times past, the “Brompton Cocktail” was a mixture of Bourbon and Cocaine delivered intravenously. While they could, people reported it was quite nice.
Gee, thanks, Warden – for a trite and irrelevent comment on the cost of medical care vs. assisted suicide.
I wouldn’t expect anything less. Or more.
Your prerogative said “If you want to kill yourself that’s your prerogative but don’t make the government turn doctors into murderers.”
405 executions in Texas alone over the last 25 years. Bad news, governments are involved in all sorts of life and death issues every day. Governments have to be involved in this one way or another (making assisted suicide illegal or not) and no one is contemplating “forcing” a doctor to do this.
In fact, it is rather common for physicians to assist patient’s suicides when they are facing a long, painful, and inevitable death. You might want to think this through a little more.
>>Might want to see just how great that assisted
>>suicide law in Oregon is working out by reading
>>this…
Oh. Nice. An article from a right-wingnut haterag like World Hate Daily! Kewl!
If you google this issue, every single hit is either from right-wing hate rags or Roman Catholic sources.
It would be interesting to see the other side of this story.
And the patient should be thankful that her health care wasn’t being managed by the denial-of-health-care industry, they wouldn’t have even paid for the fucking hot needle!
The key here is that the patient must REQUEST the assisted suicide. Any system that is in place will be abused, but the number of people who are forced to unwillingly undergo fruitless, expensive, agonizing “life-prolonging” “therapies” is so great, something needs to be done.
#17–Warden==that link gave me a good idea. Instead of wasting money on those born with life long defects of whatever origin, the state should offer all parents a cash bounty to euthanize their kiddies after birth. It could be a flat fee, or a percentage of the estimated cost of governmental provided care?
The government should always provide financial incentives within the context of individual choice.
Who could be against such a win/win decision? Or maybe, who could argue against such a decision?
*Thump* *Thump* *Thump* *Thump* god I love the bible! With this little hole in it.
#10 – But Mustard, isn’t this diametrically in opposition of your religious beliefs? Why the contradiction? I wouldn’t want to be a burden to anyone and just lying there being a shit and piss factory.
I want the overdose of heroin.
#24 – Ketchup
No.
There’s always been quiet euthanasias done in rest homes with consenting doctors. Just give them a down pillow that they can smother themselves with.
But don’t force the doctors to kill; it sounds a little too Nazi. But then again the far left and the far right are pretty much the same.
In the end we all have the right to choose our death.
No one can stop a determined effort.
The problem is that people want someone else to do it because they fear pain or failure more than death.
Cursor_
Much ado about nothing, as usual. No one is stopping these guys from committing suicide. If they had wanted, they would already be pushing up daisies.
Man these oldsters just need to die already. They are costing us too much money, between Social Security, Medicare, pensions, etc.
They were collecting signatures for the petition the other day at the drug store. I stood in line to sign it; it might not pass, but the margin gets a little narrower every time it winds up on the ballot.
Figure it will probably go through by the time I need it.
The religious right doesn’t have a lot of pull, here. Washington is the most secular state in the union.
We’ve greatly extended our lifespan through medicine and technology, and there’s no reason that we should not be able to die comfortably and pleasantly by the same methods. As it stands, those same methods make dying a protracted, miserable process for the individual and their loved ones. This will come to an end. We should die as intelligently as we live. If you don’t want to, that’s your call.