Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, and the state

[Bikewer]

Why do states tend to be so reactionary regarding "right to die" issues? We all watched with disgust the posturing of our social critics and legislators over the Terri Schaivo episode, and earlier but similar cases as well.
They are going through much the same sort of thing in Italy; they just wrestled with a very similar (17 years in a vegetative state) case where fortunately the individual expired as the thing was being fought over in Parliament.
In England, the state is threatening to prosecute any family members who assist a paraplegic young woman to travel to Switzerland, where she can legally terminate her life.

It was only until fairly recently that attempting suicide here in the US would get you arrested as well as tossed into the mental-health ward; it was illegal to take your own life.

Why do states fight so strongly against the notion that people may take their own lives?

Admittedly, most suicides are the result of transitory depression and are harmful not only to the individual but the family and friends as well. However, we're talking about someone at the end of life, or a life so debilitating as to be without "quality". Why should a rational person not have the right to terminate their life if they wish?

Is it the "slippery slope" fear? You hear that sort of argument; "if we allow euthanasia then they'll just start killing anyone with difficult and expensive-to-treat conditions."

Or that we'll get to the point of doing the "here's the ice floe, Gramps" bit with our senior citizens?
Is it just the religious aspect of the whole thing, the "sanctity" of human life? (though those who are most vociferous about euthanasia seem quite happy with capital punishment...)
I admit it somewhat mystifies me.

 

[Mark6]

A bit of everything you listed. All these factors play a role.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I view it as coming from the school of thought that suicide is by nature irrational. And the law is to ultimately keep the peace and preserve life, and suicide is still a forced death of a human.

 

[Texas]

Why do states tend to be so reactionary regarding "right to die" issues? We all watched with disgust the posturing of our social critics and legislators over the Terri Schaivo episode, and earlier but similar cases as well.
They are going through much the same sort of thing in Italy; they just wrestled with a very similar (17 years in a vegetative state) case where fortunately the individual expired as the thing was being fought over in Parliament.
In England, the state is threatening to prosecute any family members who assist a paraplegic young woman to travel to Switzerland, where she can legally terminate her life.

It was only until fairly recently that attempting suicide here in the US would get you arrested as well as tossed into the mental-health ward; it was illegal to take your own life.

Why do states fight so strongly against the notion that people may take their own lives?

Admittedly, most suicides are the result of transitory depression and are harmful not only to the individual but the family and friends as well. However, we're talking about someone at the end of life, or a life so debilitating as to be without "quality". Why should a rational person not have the right to terminate their life if they wish?

Is it the "slippery slope" fear? You hear that sort of argument; "if we allow euthanasia then they'll just start killing anyone with difficult and expensive-to-treat conditions."

Or that we'll get to the point of doing the "here's the ice floe, Gramps" bit with our senior citizens?
Is it just the religious aspect of the whole thing, the "sanctity" of human life? (though those who are most vociferous about euthanasia seem quite happy with capital punishment...)
I admit it somewhat mystifies me.

The best argument I saw about "the right to die" came out of the UK from a group opposing the Hemlock Society's support of euthanasia. To paraphrase "At what point does the right to die become the obligation to die"?

 

[tyr_13]

Also, some 'right to die' policies in regard to terminal or painful illness are just covering up bad medical care. I'll have to find the study, but it showed that people who had requested suicide almost all recanted when given proper treatment and levels of pain medication.

It is one of those things that sounds good in theory, but the practice has some pitfalls that need to be overcome.

 

[Texas]

Also, some 'right to die' policies in regard to terminal or painful illness are just covering up bad medical care. I'll have to find the study, but it showed that people who had requested suicide almost all recanted when given proper treatment and levels of pain medication.

It is one of those things that sounds good in theory, but the practice has some pitfalls that need to be overcome.

Once you make doctor assisted suicide an acceptable "medical procedure" guess what Insurance companies are going to push for when it comes to treating terminal but lingering patients?

 

[quixotecoyote]

Once you make doctor assisted suicide an acceptable "medical procedure" guess what Insurance companies are going to push for when it comes to treating terminal but lingering patients?

Universal health care thread is thataway....

 

[Texas]

Universal health care thread is thataway....

LOL. I am even more terrified of government making those decisions. The government can stop insurance companies from doing bad things but no one can stop the government.

 

[quixotecoyote]

LOL. I am even more terrified of government making those decisions. The government can stop insurance companies from doing bad things but no one can stop the government.

It's a derail, but I would like to point out that my experience has been the exact opposite. The government of the US has not stopped my insurance company from weaseling out of thousands of dollars of coverage, but the citizens of Canada compelled the government of Canada to provide full and robust care for my friend's Grandmother with no tricks or shady dealings during a most difficult period of her life.

 

[Miss_Kitt]

I recognize a difference in what is meant by "right to die" meaning a patient can decide to take their own life by using a legally prescribed overdose of drugs, and "assisted suicide"; and it's another thing entirely to talk about "euthanasia".

Washington state just passed a law, modeled on Oregon's statute (which has survived a Supreme Court challenge) which allows a doctor, under very specific conditions, to legally prescribe a lethal dosage of drug(s). The person has to have been determined by several doctors to be within 6 months of their death; they have to have requested the prescription in writing and in person, with a mandatory delay of 10 days (IIRC); if they give any indication of depression, they have to be examined by a psychologist or psychiatrist; the witnesses to the request cannot be family members, the attending physician, or anyone who stands to gain financial benefit from the patient's death. Etc. etc. This is allowing a doctor whose principles permit it to grant a person who wants to have the option of painlessly ending their life to do so. The patient must, however, be able to take the drugs themselves.

"Assisted suicide" means that some party--doctor, friend, relative--has to take an active role in administering the lethal dose. That kind of scenario has more opportunity for an unwilling party to be momentarily swayed to agree to passing on, and then have action taken before they regain their composure. So far as I know, no state allows this.

"Euthanasia" is inducing death in someone that, in the doctor's opinion, has no prospect of living and/or is in untreatable suffering and is going to die anyway. This varies from both of the above in that the patient is not necessarily the decision-maker. That's basically manslaughter by the doctor, even if motivated by a variant of kindness, and it is illegal in all states (and I believe, all countries).

The Schiavo case is none of the above. Removing "life support" from a no-higher-brain- function body is allowed in all states, if the next of kin agrees. The issue in the Schiavo case is that her parents and her husband--by the end of the prolonged legal wrangling, her ex-husband--did not agree on the decision. Just as you have the right to request a 'No Code' status--no extreme life-saving measures to be used--when you are in the hospital, and the right to decide Against Medical Advice to refuse treatment, your family may decide that for your still-maintained-by-equipment body. "You" are gone, it's just the plumbing still working, and for those rules to kick in, you have to be flat-lined and determined to be so by multiple doctors.

I see no issue with a carefully-worded legal opportunity for people with a terminal, disabling and painful illness to use an effective and painless means of ending their lives. I have no problem with a doctor, after due diligence to be sure that it is not a matter of pain management, depression, etc, to make that means available. Since the Oregon law went into effect, there has been a noticable percentage of people who get that lethal prescription filled but don't actually use it. It may be that just knowing that they don't have to keep suffering takes some of the fear out of the equation.

If I may draw a less-lethal comparison, I suffer from migraine. My doctor has given me a prescription for a pain-killer that does indeed nail the headache, but also gets me so stoned I'm useless for about 6 hours. Just knowing that, if it gets worse, I have the option of taking a drug that will knock out the pain allows me to face down the more minor headaches, because I know I have an "out". I think I average taking 6 to 8 tabs a year, and have about twice that many migraines...but I don't go through the panic of, "What if it gets worse?" I surmise the same might be true for people who have a more severe version of the same question in their lives.

I think assisted suicide and euthanasia are too open to possible abuse to be legal options. I think permitting a doctor to write, and a pharmacist to fill, a lethal-dosage prescription--under the kinds of restrictions in the OR/WA laws--is a good compromise between compassion, and protecting the vulnerable.

I realize that there are people who, by nature of their illness, cannot take their meds; for them, the law has no answer. But the difference between a person actually acting to end their life, and just telling someone "I want to die" is so gigantic that I don't see a way around it.

Just my thoughts, as usual, Miss Kitt

 

[Texas]

It's a derail, but I would like to point out that my experience has been the exact opposite. The government of the US has not stopped my insurance company from weaseling out of thousands of dollars of coverage, but the citizens of Canada compelled the government of Canada to provide full and robust care for my friend's Grandmother with no tricks or shady dealings during a most difficult period of her life.

But you darned Canadians are so damned nice any comparison with us is like the Brady Bunch vs the Manson Family.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

In England, the state is threatening to prosecute any family members who assist a paraplegic young woman to travel to Switzerland, where she can legally terminate her life.

Not really...

A woman with multiple sclerosis who is fighting to clarify the law on assisted suicide lost her case in the appeal court yesterday although campaigners said the ruling gave the clearest indication yet that anyone who helps a relative take their own life will not face criminal sanctions.
Judges said the law, which makes it a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years' prison to assist the death of a loved one, left Debbie Purdy, 45, from Bradford, in a dreadful predicament. Expressing sympathy for the "impossible dilemma" facing Purdy and her husband, Cuban violinist Omar Puente, the court refused to clarify whether Puente would face prosecution for accompanying Purdy to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland - where assisted suicide is not illegal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/feb/20/assisted-suicide-law

 

[Fengirl]

To expand a little on Professor Yaffle’s response, the “threat to prosecute” is in the legislation (the Suicide Act 1961) which makes it a criminal offence to assist suicide. However, section 2 (4) of the Act gives discretion to the Director of Public Prosecutions as regards the decision to instigate criminal proceedings for aiding and abetting suicide. As I understand it, this case (and indeed the Diane Pretty case some years back) sought to elicit some clarification as to the circumstances under which the discretion not to prosecute would be exercised. Clearly, anyone contemplating suicide but unable to act without assistance would want to know in advance whether their loved ones would be likely to face prosecution. To date, the DPP has declined to make an unambiguous statement of the guidelines that would be applied. To be fair to the judges dealing with this case, in the absence of such a statement from the DPP, it’s not so much that they “refuse” to clarify whether prosecution would take place as that they are completely unable to clarify!

For Section 2(4) of the Act to even exist suggests that the drafters could foresee that there would be some circumstances under which it would be unjust and against the public interest for a prosecution to occur. I can’t help but wonder what was imagined if not exactly these sorts of cases? It seems highly unsatisfactory that the legislation provides a potential “out” from prosecution… and yet no one will clearly state the criteria which will be applied.

 

[Tricky]

It was only until fairly recently that attempting suicide here in the US would get you arrested as well as tossed into the mental-health ward; it was illegal to take your own life.

I know it's a serious subject, but I cannot help being reminded of one of my favorite shows.

Hero: I can't live without her. I'll just kill myself.
Pseudolus: You can't kill yourself. It's illegal. The punishment's death.
Hero: Well, well then I'll go fight a gladiator.
Psudolus: You might win.
Hero: Oh yeah.

 

[rsaavedra]

I realize that there are people who, by nature of their illness, cannot take their meds; for them, the law has no answer. But the difference between a person actually acting to end their life, and just telling someone "I want to die" is so gigantic that I don't see a way around it.

Very clear and wise post Miss Kitt.

 

[Delvo]

Admittedly, most suicides are the result of transitory depression and are harmful not only to the individual but the family and friends as well.

To keep the current way of handling those cases, and legalize suicide in other cases, a government would need to get into the business of deciding which suicides are good and which aren't, which lives are to be preserved and which aren't. I don't know many people who want a government to have a policy of declaring such differences between its citizens (at least between those who have not committed rather serious crimes).

 

[Drudgewire]

Why do states tend to be so reactionary regarding "right to die" issues? We all watched with disgust the posturing of our social critics and legislators over the Terri Schaivo episode, and earlier but similar cases as well.

No mention of Schiavo is complete without this pic:

 

[casebro]

To expand a little on Professor Yaffle’s response, the “threat to prosecute” is in the legislation (the Suicide Act 1961) which makes it a criminal offence to assist suicide. However, section 2 (4) of the Act gives discretion to the Director of Public Prosecutions as regards the decision to instigate criminal proceedings for aiding and abetting suicide. As I understand it, this case (and indeed the Diane Pretty case some years back) sought to elicit some clarification as to the circumstances under which the discretion not to prosecute would be exercised. Clearly, anyone contemplating suicide but unable to act without assistance would want to know in advance whether their loved ones would be likely to face prosecution. To date, the DPP has declined to make an unambiguous statement of the guidelines that would be applied. To be fair to the judges dealing with this case, in the absence of such a statement from the DPP, it’s not so much that they “refuse” to clarify whether prosecution would take place as that they are completely unable to clarify!

For Section 2(4) of the Act to even exist suggests that the drafters could foresee that there would be some circumstances under which it would be unjust and against the public interest for a prosecution to occur. I can’t help but wonder what was imagined if not exactly these sorts of cases? It seems highly unsatisfactory that the legislation provides a potential “out” from prosecution… and yet no one will clearly state the criteria which will be applied.

In America, a law like that would be called "unconstitutionally vague" and be unenforceable. So no prosecution.

Oh well.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I view it as coming from the school of thought that suicide is by nature irrational. And the law is to ultimately keep the peace and preserve life, and suicide is still a forced death of a human.

It's nice to see that such faith in the benign rationality of lawmakers still exists in the world.

Pardon my cynicism.

I propose adoption of Rational Democratic GeorgeBushido. Our elected leaders get our total loyalty so long as they don't screw up. Whereupon they are required to politely and with all ceremony, disembowel themselves.

 

[DC]

No mention of Schiavo is complete without this pic:

[qimg]http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/idiots.jpg[/qimg]

LOL