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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'Like Stephen Hawking, I'm past my sell-by date but this law to help people die is wrong'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2915030/Like-Stephen-Hawking-m-past-sell-date-law-help-people-die-wrong-moving-speech-severely-disabled-peer-against-Assisted-Dying-Bill.htmlDisabled and terminally people are rightly frightened that it puts them at risk.
One of the most important reasons why I oppose the Bill is the definition of terminal illness and how many months, weeks or years we have to live. Believe me, I know about terminal illness, personally and professionally.
I am fearful not least because the Bill defines terminal illness as an ‘inevitably progressive condition which cannot be reversed by treatment’. That could apply to many disabilities, my own included. Not a single organisation of disabled or terminally ill people is actively campaigning for this legislation.
Wow. A baroness with a disability.
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n2doc
(47,953 posts)Nice.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)Her argument seems to be though that the law could be used to justify ending the suffering of people who do not wish to end their suffering. I don't know enough about the law to know if this is a valid concern or not.
Bryant
woodsprite
(11,923 posts)off at the least little evidence they have an incurable medical condition that can get progressively worse over time. I have arthritis - it's incurable and will get progressively worse over time. I certainly don't want anyone to off me for their convenience or gain. If I had brain cancer and could no longer function or communicate, that may be a different story.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)I'm in Oregon and there are lots of safe guards for these types of bills.
No one would force you to die because you have arthritis.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)decision? I am in MN and when there is no one else to write a living will - the clients social worker gathers a committee of people who work with the client and know him/her well. Together they write a living will which often includes a DNR if terminal. This is what we have come up with to safeguard this group.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,354 posts)See links in #31.
Padiddle
(58 posts)The whole issue of "competency" raises a catch-22. Someone who is suffering from incurable mental illness decides they want to end their suffering permanently, but is told that they are not competent enough to make the decision, because the wish for suicide is itself symptomatic of a mental handicap?
This is how it's done in, AFAIK, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. It's more of an issue of bodily autonomy than "degree" of illness. What doesn't kill you doesn't necessarily make you stronger, and I fully support the right of anyone with any mental disorder to end their lives on their own terms rather than be forced to "manage it" with toxic pharmaceutical cocktails and endure the shame and stigma of being branded as "crazy." I myself deal with moodiness and PTSD and would give anything to travel to Belgium and do what I feel I should do on my own terms. It would be even better if it was legal in the U.S. and I could travel to Vermont to have myself "put down" despite not being terminal.
I liken this to abortion. Women seeking abortions will have abortions anyway; it's better that they be performed in safe, legal environments rather than DIY mutilations with coat hangers, bleach, knitting needles, etc. The same with suicide: People who want to die will find a way to kill themselves anyway; the problem is that the only available methods are risky and don't always lead to death, but permanent disability and mutilation. Better that suicides be performed under safe and legal conditions rather than "back-alley" DIY procedures with guns, knives, jumping from high points, etc.
A right is not necessarily an obligation. It's an option. The right to vote is not a requirement or duty. Just the same, the "right to life" is not an obligation to live, and neither does the right to die involve, well, someone holding a gun to anyone's head.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,354 posts)Someone may, at some time, try to introduce other laws that would apply to people with conditions other than "terminal within 6 months". But since there is a whole set of different arguments over that, it makes sense to have this law where the situation and wishes of the person are clear. As it is, people like Baroness Campbell are still trying to block this.
Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)If it didn't have such a real-world casualty list.
I can absolutely guarantee that if they pass the bill, thousands of disabled people will be coerced into making that "choice". This is the route the Germans went down with their T-4 program.
Have a look. You might be surprised just how precise the match is between that program and what the UK is discussing today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Sorry -- don't buy the death panel stuff.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)There are two sides in this debate.
One side believes that if you choose to go on living, you should be allowed to, and if you choose not to, you should also be allowed to.
The other believes that if you choose to go on living, you should be allowed to, but if you choose not to, you should be compelled to against your will.
People being compelled to end their lives against their will is not part of the debate. But the anti-choicers know they don't have a leg to stand on if they argue against what's actually being proposed, and so they introduce the straw man of forced "euthanasia" and argue against that, instead of against what's actually being proposed.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)+1000. 
Hekate
(90,773 posts)I hope you understand that. Under the various laws as I understand them, only a mentally competent person could make that decision for themselves and for no other. In addition, iirc in Oregon the patient has to be able to administer the medication themselves.
That is why that young woman and her family moved to Oregon when she turned out to have a fast-growing and incurable brain cancer. She still had control of her own mental faculties, but that was going to end soon. The outcome was painful, degrading, and inevitable, and she was already experiencing the final symptoms.
If she had waited until she could no longer function or communicate, as you postulate, no one would have been able to help her out of this life even if she had put it in writing beforehand.
When the Compassion and Choices law comes up for a vote in California, you can bet I will vote in favor of it.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)and is still living. Dr. says she will outlive all of us. Should she have been cut off at the very beginning of her life because she is less able than the rest of us? Where are we going to draw the line? I am talking about making decisions for those who cannot and who are living without life supports.
Hekate
(90,773 posts)...a proposed law, rather than simply using it as a scare tactic for the disabled community and their families.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)threatened to turn into something worse. The Doctor interpreted the living will as meaning withhold all life saving methods. We had to get the courts to tell the doctor to give her an antibiotic. This is what we are afraid of. Not the bill but those who will interpret it. All we want is clearly defined protections for people who cannot speak for themselves. And I understand that this bill we are talking about does makes it clear that is the case in this bill.
Hekate
(90,773 posts)My parents were quite specific, and when my dad was admitted to the hospital from the nursing home with advanced viral pneumonia, he was given comfort measures such as oxygen, and not put on a respirator.
i agree that protections need to be clearly defined; I'm glad you are satisfied that the bill we are discussing is solid in that regard. Just beware of scare-mongers spreading disinformation.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)I don't understand why so many refuse to see that.
NutmegYankee
(16,201 posts)It should be up to an individual to make the choice. No one anywhere, is calling for forcing anyone to die. The campaigns against death w/ dignity are asinine and evil.
I say this as someone who watched loved ones die of brutal cancers. My father specifically wished (stated to me) that assisted suicide had been an option.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)I, for one, support giving doctors a free hand with the pain meds, without fear of running afoul of the Litigious Society. If the dose proves lethal, so be it.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)That used to be the informal arrangement, but over the last 30 years or so the informal arrangement has broken down and doctors and nurses are frequently afraid to "do the right thing" for fear of loss of employment, lawsuits, and even prison. Legislation to shield health care workers and empower patients is what this is about, and none of the proposed legislation empowers the state to force you to die.
Padiddle
(58 posts)I support the right of people to end their lives on their own terms for any reason. It's like the marijuana laws: there's medicinal marijuana and "recreational marijuana." Medicinal marijuana is prescribed for an illness. Recreational marijuana is weed you buy just because you want to chill out. Both should be legal, and the same is true for suicide. I wouldn't necessarily call it "recreational," but maybe "elective"?
The law should not be in the business of regulating people's personal choices. A cancer patient should have the same rights as a bipolar-disorder patient, and both should have the same rights as a depressed Seahawks fan. One might think that the Seahawks fan seeking euthanasia because his team lost last night is a total idiot, but he's not hurting anyone else with his decision and it's nobody else's right to dictate whether other people have the right to be "stupid."
NutmegYankee
(16,201 posts)Right now, if you give too many meds, you could be charged with murder. And the purpose of these bills is to allow the individual themselves to make the choice to get powerful barbiturates that can end them peacefully. They have to sign paperwork themselves and get two doctors opinions that they are terminal.
The fear that disabled people will be forced to die is baseless and wrong. Given how obviously wrong it is and that no reasonable person could hold such an opinion, one is only left with the fact that they must enjoy watching people suffer.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)I support "hold harmless" legislation that would take that possibility away.
NutmegYankee
(16,201 posts)Even when my dad was never going to wake up again from the final major hemorrhage of brain tissue from Glioblastoma, the doctors hooked him up to life support because that's what they do - try to keep life going no matter what.
People need to be able to get a drug if they are terminal and decide on their own time and own place. Dieing in a hospital sucks. There is a specific reason I used the word "evil" to label all opponents of death w/ dignity. I have ZERO respect for their baseless fears.
liberalhistorian
(20,819 posts)for my stepdad who just died (see my post below on it, don't feel like typing it all up again). Never made any sense to me (or to my stepdad, for that matter, who never would have wanted to have gone on that long with his illness) and I resent it like hell.
Maybe I'm too emotionally raw right now to be dealing with this thread and all the nuanced issues being presented.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)"We have been told time and again that disabled people with life-limiting conditions have nothing to fear from the Assisted Dying Bill. We are told it is necessary only to help a few desperate individuals to end their lives when they have weeks or months to live, and that, if enacted, it will not touch anyone who does not want it."
Yes, you have been told all that, repeatedly, because it's true.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)The situation of Elizabeth Bouvia is evidence to the contrary. She checked herself into a psych ward and begged them to allow her to starve to death. She had a disability and even though she was also showing signs of depression, when she contacted the ACLU to represent her, they did. It went to court and the position of the hospital to force feed her was upheld.
The fact that there were attorneys who would see her case as valid (despite the depression) and even represent her says a lot about how disabled people are viewed in this country and exactly why that quote is true.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)I don't know how non compos she was, I haven't studied the case.
But you can't use the fact that people supported someone who was desperate enough to die that she actually hired lawyers to defend her right to starve herself (and at least functional enough to do so) as evidence that this bill (which, incidentally, sounds like it would exclude her if she wasn't terminally ill) would be used to kill people against their wills.
This is blatant, dishonest, hysterical fear-mongering from people who can't attack the actual proposal, so have to pretend it's something it isn't, I'm afraid.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)It is a glaring example of how people with disabilities are assumed to be tragically unhappy- if they're rational. It is a cliche for people to say they would kill themselves if they had a disability.
People who are paralyzed from spinal cord injuries are very often asked if they considered suicide. It is a cultural issue in which the concerns of people who are often asked why they didn't kill themselves are dismissed. The fact that people who do not share that experience dismiss it and pretend that they are being "respectful" is another piece.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)I would like to have the option available. Assisted suicide unlike suicide provides for consultation. It also provides a safety factor for the individual and others in the vicinity.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)I will do so.
2banon
(7,321 posts)for you to dismiss the issue of pain as if it's handled by enough meds is remarkably devoid of facts.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Downwinder
(12,869 posts)chooses to not cover my prescription or when I stagger down the sidewalk and a LEO drives by.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)A prescription for barbiturates is a hell of a lot cheaper than treating a chronic illness.
http://dredf.org/public-policy/assisted-suicide/why-assisted-suicide-must-not-be-legalized/#deadly
Longmore and other disability rights activists have long made the point that Oregon’s adoption of assisted suicide must be critically examined in relation to its curtailment of Medicaid spending. As Longmore explained, Oregon instituted “health care rationing for the poor” in the same year that the State’s assisted suicide initiative became law in 1994. That year, the Oregon Medical Assistance Program (OMAP) ranked over 700 health services and terminated funding for 167 of these services. Four years later, when the assisted suicide law went into effect, OMAP directors put lethal prescriptions on the list of “treatments,” categorized as “comfort care.” At the same time, OMAP slashed Medicaid funding for more than 150 services crucial for people with disabilities, people with terminal illnesses, and older adults, while further trimming already limited funding for in-home support. In the same year, OMAP attempted, but failed, to limit the funded doses of a powerful pain medication and successfully put barriers in the way of funding for a path-breaking anti-depressant....
The impact of the Oregon Health Plan’s drastic limitations became very real to Oregon Medicaid recipients Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup. Wagner, a 64-year-old great-grandmother, had recurring lung cancer. Her physician prescribed Tarceva to extend her life. Studies show the drug provides a 30 percent increased survival rate for patients with advanced lung cancer, and patients’ one-year survival rate increased by more than 45 percent. But the Oregon Health Plan sent Wagner a letter saying the Plan would not cover the beneficial chemotherapy treatment “but … it would cover … doctor-assisted suicide.” Stroup was prescribed mitoxantrone as chemotherapy for his prostate cancer. His oncologist said the medication’s benefit has been shown to be “not huge, but measurable”; while the drug may not extend a patient’s life by very long, it helps make those last months more bearable by decreasing pain. Yet Stroup also received a letter saying that the state would not cover his treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.
These treatment denials were based on an Oregon Medicaid rule that denies surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy for patients with a less than a five-percent expectation of five-year survival. H. Rex Greene, M.D., former Medical Director of the Dorothy E. Schneider Cancer Center at Mills Health Center and currently a member of the AMA Ethics Council, called this rule “an extreme measure that would exclude most treatments for cancers such as lung, stomach, esophagus, and pancreas. Many important non-curative treatments would fail the five-percent/five-year criteria.”
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)An 18 wheeler coming down the street is free. Let someone else worry about the clean up. The prescription is certain.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)to keep treating it? They shouldn't be allowed the option of a more peaceful end to their life on a day of their own choosing?
liberalhistorian
(20,819 posts)thinking. Sad.
I understand the concerns about coerced suicide and the economic motives of the insurance industry, but these laws have safeguards to prevent that. People make it sound as if all you have to do is cross the border into Oregon and they'll hand you a bottle of pills immediately upon request. That is NOT at ALL the case, it is a tightly restricted law with a ton of requirements serving as safeguards. Which is how it should be. But the options still should be there.
My SIL's husband was diagnosed with the same kind of brain tumor as Brittney Maynard (for some reason, can't seem to spell it right now). He lived for 13 months after his diagnosis, which was made formally terminal three months before his death. They lived in Oregon. He chose to let nature take its course and not to use the death with dignity law. That was just fine, because it was HIS choice. That's what it's all about, the choice and control over your own life. No one tried to coerce him into using the law or even to convince him to do so, including his insurance company.
0rganism
(23,965 posts)(don't get me wrong - i 100% support the assisted suicide option, i do see why others think it might be abused in the long run though)
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)
thucythucy
(8,086 posts)Hekate
(90,773 posts)...is there such a provision. So it's a straw man put up by opponents for various reasons. The reasons range from denial of death, to religion, to a need to control the behavior of others from birth to death.
More than almost anything in this life my late mother feared having to live in agony in a prolonged death. Many of us as we grow older and watch our parents and peers grow ill and die come to understand that point of view very well.
What people all too often ARE forced to do is engage in a prolonged death with zero quality of life. That's THEIR point of view, not "the oligarchs."
No one is going after the disabled -- society at large, which finds it acceptable to cut funding to help the disabled live, finds it unacceptable to make them die outright.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)society at large wouldn't blink an eye. it won't blink an eye as old people are killed either.
Hekate
(90,773 posts)...terminally cynical?
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)Hekate
(90,773 posts)ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)right circumstances.
We're cutting funding for the social safety net already and more cuts are coming. And this is accompanied by propaganda.
What do *you* think the likely outcome will be?
Hekate
(90,773 posts)ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)circumstances?
Here's a doctor phil show about a woman who wanted to kill her disabled children.
“After 25 years of watching them just exist, it’s time that somebody did something," she continues. "I didn’t want to be the one to do it, but I’m here,” she adds.
“If you were going to do it, do you now wish you had done it 25 years ago?” Dr. Phil asks Annette.
She says she would have considered doing it 17 years ago, when Jeffrey first had his feeding tube inserted.
and the audience voted in support of her.
http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/6834/?id=6834&showID=1826
Under the right circumstances, americans would behave no differently than germans. To the disabled, to minority groups, to the poor, to the aged.
What is this 'demonstrably false' idea you're not going to debate, and since you think it's demonstrably false, please demonstrate its falsity.
Hekate
(90,773 posts)....as described by Michelle Bachmann?
You can do better, I'm sure.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)from Dr Phil's website, where 1/3 of everyone who responded voted in favor of euthanasia.
http://drphil.com/polls/result/403/
And that's without any media campaign to 'normalize' it.
vankuria
(904 posts)The developmentally disabled, someone with limited mental capacity who also may (or may not) have a terminal illness. Is this a decision families could make for them if they had guardianship? This is where this law could get sticky. I worked with developmentally disabled for over 30 yrs. and I know the problems we had with families insisting their loved one have a DNR in place without them even having a terminal illness.
The agency I worked for had specific protocols for DNR's but I know families that actually went to court to obtain this when their family member wasn't even terminally ill.
Please don't get me wrong, for people with terminal illnesses of sound mind who make this decision for themselves that's their business. I just worry about those who are vulnerable and there are many, who might have this decisions made for them, without their knowledge or understanding.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)vankuria
(904 posts)but not everyone would benefit from professional counseling as say in the case of someone who is limited intellectually.
Padiddle
(58 posts)The whole idea of requiring counseling is to determine whether the person's ailment is "real" or if they are "only" suffering from depression. The depressed should have the same right to check out as everybody else. Why should anyone be forced to go on feeling miserable for the rest of their life, with their only option being to "keep it in check" with medication if they don't want it?
Legalize it for everyone like they have in Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg.
elleng
(131,073 posts)'This is NOT a terminally ill patient. Case dismissed.' I hope this occurred during your service, for which we all thank you.
vankuria
(904 posts)even when the individual was not terminally ill, but I'm only talking about DNR orders. I knew of one family that had a DNR put in place just because their family member had a feeding tube. In the case of someone who is developmentally disabled, has a terminal illness and their family decides they want them to have an assisted suicide, this to me is very scary and is that slippery slope we talk about.
If any law is passed, I hope it would be heavily regulated so it can only be made by the patient who is of sound mind and understands fully what will take place.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)add a DNR with the regulation that it be only used if she was terminal. So she had a DNR years ago but it was never meant to be used until someday in the future. She is now 50+ and counting. Thank you for working with this group it takes someone very special to do it.
vankuria
(904 posts)For taking such good care of your daughter and advocating so strongly on her behalf. I worked with adults in institutional type settings, many of whom either had no family or family who only came around occasionally, usually to assert power over the individual and staff. When it came to DNR's it was usually coming from a place of ignorance, they had decided this persons life had no value.
I live in New York State and I've never heard of the living will law to get SSI, I'm retired now so may-be it's something new. In any case they are a godsend, giving you control and making sure your wishes are legally documented.
I don't consider myself special, you are too kind. I worked in many capacities over the years, my last 20 as a social worker. I can say with all honesty, some of the sweetest, most sincere relationships I have experienced have been with those our society considers "not normal" (you and I know better). My clients taught me a lot about what's truly important and how valuable every single life is.
My great nephew was born with a disability, he is only 2 but he is now teaching my entire family what I learned long ago. Good luck to you and your daughter.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,354 posts)http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2014-2015/0006/15006.pdf
The person has to sign a form giving their intention, and 2 independent doctors have to confirm they are terminally ill, have the capacity to make the decision, and are doing so voluntarily, on an informed basis, and without coercion or duress.
vankuria
(904 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,354 posts)This is only for the person to make an informed decision themselves.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)asked to make this decision when an adult does not have a living will. My father needed pain meds and I asked the medical staff to see that he get them. My mother was diagnosed with massive hardening of the arteries I gave approval for them to treat her for pain. My brother had a motorcycle accident and was already showing signs of sepsis - I supported his wife in removing the life supports.
My posts here are merely to make sure that those who cannot make their own decisions are not judged on quality of life. My daughter's life sucks if you compare her to most of us but she is still of value. It is her and her friends that I support.
elleng
(131,073 posts)it provides OPTIONS, right?
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)into exercising them.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)is pressuring people to die to cut expense.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)some lousy nursing home, with bedsores.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)afraid that it threatens the disabled. We have a lot of persons who cannot make this decision for themselves and have guardians who are not related to them or even not really familiar with them personally. They deal only with the legal end of things.
But I had to make a living will for my daughter. First I wrote my own at the same time and refused to put anything in it I would not put in my own. For instance I have a DNR in her will but there is a clause that makes it clear at this is only meant for circumstances that are terminal. I also have the same in mine. But in no way would I ever make the decision that her life is not of value because of the severity of her disease. She was born this way and she lived without life supports from the first.
However, what if she had one of those guardians I talked about above. Would they care as much for her life if there was law regarding end of life decisions? That is the fear we have. If people want this law they need to make sure that there is protection for the disabled in the bill - strong protections.
I have no objection of an individual making end of live decisions for themselves or even a loved one who is close to death but not on the basis of how valuable that person is based on a disability.
LeftishBrit
(41,209 posts)The proposed bill would not give people the right to make such decisions for others, only for themselves. Moreover, the 'right to die' legislation would apply only to people with a terminal illness, not just a disability as such.
There are enough real worries for disabled people in Britain - cuts in health and social care; cuts in benefits; cuts in sheltered employment; humiliating requirements for people to repeatedly prove that they are really are too disabled or ill to work; hate campaigns in papers like the Daily Fail, implying that many disabled people are benefit fraudsters; resulting increased hate crime against disabled people - without imaginary fears being whipped up.
The main people who are campaigning against the legislation are not disability activists but the British version of the Christian Right and the related political 'pro-life' movement.
Padiddle
(58 posts)Like I wrote in another thread, what doesn't kill you doesn't necessarily make you stronger. Someone with fibromyalgia, arthritis, or mental illness should have the same right to peaceful death as a cancer, MS, ALS, or AIDS patient. We're all going to die anyway; the question of imminence shouldn't enter into the equation. The important thing is that people have the right to self-determination in all cases as to when and how they want to go.
"Not a single organisation of disabled or terminally ill people is actively campaigning for this legislation."
liberalhistorian
(20,819 posts)my stepfather, who suffered from Lewy Body Dementia (the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's) and was institutionalized for the past seven years and who just died last week (finally, is the exact word he would have said) had to suffer terrible physical suffering his last several days because the goddamned dipshit hospice director wouldn't allow any more morphine to be given him despite his terminal illness, his rapidly impending death and his terrible suffering. Why? "An overdose or addiction is too probable". And the problem with that would be???? My God, he's been suffering for ten years with it and has not known anyone or anything and been completely uncommunicative for the past five years, he'd suffered severe pneumonia several times a year, he was also dealing with advanced prostate cancer that had spread throughout his body and was causing pain, pain that he felt even if he didn't have the full awareness of what it was, and he was, by the hospice's own estimate, just a couple of days away from death (mercifully).
And this fucking DOCTOR was worried about a goddamned overdose or addiction? A HOSPICE doctor who should have damn well had full understanding of it? Never mind that he was obviously in agony and quickly dying. Let's let him suffer even more. Let's let his family get to watch him desperately gasping for every breath and gritting his teeth and moaning in pain, on top of the ten years they've had to deal with the illness.
The nursing home staff did tell my mother that her permission would override the dipshit hospice "doctors" orders. So what did she have to do? Get up in the middle of the fucking night and drive forty miles in the snow and ice to the nursing home to sign the fucking permission to allow her husband to have some dignity and at least a somewhat pain-free death. FUCK that doctor and ANYONE who thinks like him, who cause needless and senseless suffering and pain often against the wishes of the family and the very patient him or herself. Because I guarandamntee you that my stepfather would have been the first to demand the drugs and would never, ever have wanted to have suffered such a long-drawn-out illness that completely bankrupted his wife after decades of hard work of both of them and emotionally bankrupted his wife and family.
Excuse me, but as you can see, I've cycled back through the anger stage here after dealing with depression earlier. Jesus H. Christ, I do NOT get why people don't see this! And the last thing I will ever do in my life is put myself and my family through such suffering, I don't give a good fucking goddamn what the medical and legal PTB think or demand.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)which may well have led him to take his own life, without assistance. 
Who was your stepfather's doctor? Rand Paul? 
In that instance, the tools to alleviate the suffering were available, but for whatever reason, Dr. Dunce chose not to use them.
liberalhistorian
(20,819 posts)had not been formally diagnosed yet and may not have actually known he had it. He did know that he had Parkinson's disease, but that often accompanies LBD, or the physical symptoms are similar.
In its early stages, LBD frequently causes vivid visual hallucinations that are as real as life to the person with it. I surmise that it's possible Robin was under the influence of such hallucinations at the time of his death, he may not have even been intending to complete suicide. We'll never really know for sure. It's interesting that he and my stepdad had the same kind of personality, that rapid-fire comic creative improve type. It's one of the things that made him such an effective teacher for such a long time, before his illness started to take hold in only his late fifties. My stepdad often had hallucinations that he was fishing out on the lake in either our longtime vacation spot or the Great Lake we lived near, or that he was surrounded by all the family's animals. They can also get violent in the early stages even without any previous tendency to violence, which is what he did. When he started getting violent with mom is when she finally had to realize that he couldn't stay at home anymore.
I do know that he would never have wanted to have had it go on like that and would have wanted it stopped many years ago.
WDIM
(1,662 posts)I feel a terminally ill patient can make that choice for themselves.
But, the OP has a point. Seems to me so many people support state mandated medical care. IE forcing children to recieve chemo as an example. What would stop the state from mandating the deaths of the terminally ill?
REP
(21,691 posts)They do not. I have more fear of being kept alive in misery in a filthy care home than I do of someone deciding for me that it's my time. I want the option to decide for myself if my disease becomes unbearable.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)The radical disability rights group ADAPT is dedicated to getting the one-quarter of nursing home inmates residents who are under 65 but have disabilities back into the community.
http://www.adapt.org
FREE OUR PEOPLE!
thucythucy
(8,086 posts)why this sort of legislation sounds so many alarm bells for so many people with disabilities.
http://www.notdeadyet.org/
Sadly, most people don't even know there is a disability rights perspective on this issue.
Best wishes.
thucythucy
(8,086 posts)Thanks for posting this.
Diane Coleman, of Not Dead Yet, has written some amazing things on this topic.
Best wishes,
DustyJoe
(849 posts).
Hmmmm, that sentence defines the normal aging process. A progressive condition (alive and aging) that cannot be reversed (no fountain of youth elixor).
Just how long would it take a smarmy lawyer type to state that aging is then a terminal illness under that definition ?
And some people wonder why seniors start getting nervous about 'death panel' suggestions.
