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Paula Westoby, I Salute You!

The Atheist said:
Agree or disagree with euthanasia, it's pretty hard not to admire Paula Westoby of Dunedin.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10547569

Go you good thing!

:bigclap
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From the article:
She also said for many years doctors had been helping very sick and terminally ill people to die but none would admit to it.
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There is evidence that that has been true for decades (at least). I remember seeing a TV show about 50 years ago about euthanasia -- it was the first time I had ever thought about it -- in which this claim was made.

In my mother's case, she had given up hope and refused to eat or have intravenous feeding. The morning she died the nurse told me that the doctor "had increased her morphine dose last night".
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
From the article:


There is evidence that that has been true for decades (at least). I remember seeing a TV show about 50 years ago about euthanasia -- it was the first time I had ever thought about it -- in which this claim was made.

In my mother's case, she had given up hope and refused to eat or have intravenous feeding. The morning she died the nurse told me that the doctor "had increased her morphine dose last night".
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There is evidence of that in medieval times and later also - especially where intense pain was a consideration.
 
Redtail said:
Hooooooah! Is it wrong that I have a tat that says "Dear coroner, please try CPR once more before embalming."?
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Only if you're 79!

Gord_in_Toronto said:
From the article:


There is evidence that that has been true for decades (at least). I remember seeing a TV show about 50 years ago about euthanasia -- it was the first time I had ever thought about it -- in which this claim was made.

In my mother's case, she had given up hope and refused to eat or have intravenous feeding. The morning she died the nurse told me that the doctor "had increased her morphine dose last night".
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Yep, this is true.

Fortunately, it's kept pretty quiet officially, but it might be interesting to know how many terminall-ill patients have died from a morphine OD.
 
Same here. My mother was dying of cancer when she was placed on a heavy morphine drip, which depressed her respiratory system. She eventually got pneumonia, which was the "official" cause of death. Comments from staff about the progression of events we could expect led me to believe that this is a fairly common way of doing things, and that it could really be considered a form of euthanasia. Not that that bothers me much. At the very end, if there's no hope at all, only pain and suffering, what's the issue? I have the option of euthanasia for my dogs; I view it as a final gift when there's nothing more anybody can do for them and the end is coming painfully slow. If a more obtrusive option was available for my mother, would we have chosen it? I don't really know. As an atheist, I know there's nothing at all after death, so removing the only thing we really have seems wasteful and terrible to me. On the other hand, we've all got to die. Why make the inevitable painful and drawn out?
 
Tiktaalik said:
I have the option of euthanasia for my dogs; I view it as a final gift when there's nothing more anybody can do for them and the end is coming painfully slow.
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That's always the supreme irony in euthanasia debates, for me.
 
The major two arguments against it are that 1st, the euthanasied person isn't around to acknowledge or deny the claim they wanted to die, so there is little evidence short of a witnessed statement right before the action that it was actually their will, and 2nd that even with such a thing how do we know that they actually really wanted it and didn't just bow to either direct pressure or perceived pressure from their family and/or doctors.

If it was legal how would you distingush the cases where hospitals used subtle pressures to get long term patients to euthanasie rather then having them taking up a bed, or families that directly pressure or make the person feel they are such a burden that being euthanasied is the only acceptable thing to do.

How do you distingush between those that geniunely deserving and wanting it, from those that are merely requesting it because they are depressed and frustrated or under pressure to do the noble thing?

Or course there is the slippery slope argument, but we won't go there just yet.
 
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