Massachusetts May Soon Change How the Nation Dies 439
Hugh Pickens writes "Lewis M. Cohen reports that this Election Day, Massachusetts is poised to approve the Death With Dignity Act, a modernized, sanitized, politically palatable term that replaces the now-antiquated expression 'physician-assisted suicide.' Oregon's Death With Dignity Act has been in effect for the past 14 years, and the state of Washington followed suit with a similar law in 2008. But the Massachusetts ballot question has the potential to turn death with dignity from a legislative experiment into the new national norm, because the state is the home of America's leading medical publication (the New England Journal of Medicine), hospital (Massachusetts General), and four medical schools (Harvard, Boston University, University of Massachusetts, and Tufts). If the act passes in Massachusetts, other states that have previously had unsuccessful campaigns will certainly be emboldened to revisit this subject. The initiative would allow terminally ill patients with six months or less to live to request from their doctor a prescription for a lethal dose of a drug. Doctors do not have to offer the option at all, and patients must make three requests, two verbal and one written. They must self-administer the drug, which would be ingested. The patients must be deemed capable of making an informed decision. 'It's all about choice,' says George Eighmey, a key player in instituting the Oregon law, defending it against repeal and shepherding it into reality. 'You decide. No one else can decide for you. No can can force you into it, coerce you into it or even suggest it to you unless you make a statement: "I don't want to live like this any more" or "I'm interested in that law out there, doctor, can you give me something to alleviate this pain and suffering."'"
Re:Death with Dignity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Question: (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, he said yes.
I am taking a stab at the dark here, but I'm assuming they meant a prescription drug approach that is guaranteed and quick, as opposed to "might not work and leave you crippled". Not that I would want to do that, but I can surely guess that terminally ill folks would rather like to be able to choose when they die of their own volition.
Re:Death with Dignity. (Score:5, Insightful)
No dude, sorry. Imagine that I'm paralyzed down half my body, can't breath without oxygen, can't take a piss without someone helping me, and knowing that there is no chance at all that I will ever get better, that in fact I will most likely get worse every day until the day I die. Sorry, there's no dignity in that. Let me go. Painlessly, cleanly, and by my own decision, but let me go. Freedom over your own body should be the ultimate freedom, telling someone in that position that you won't let them die isn't just insensitive, it's downright cruel and selfish.
Re:Death with Dignity. (Score:2, Insightful)
its about giving the individual CONTROL OVER THEIR OWN BODIES.
you know, like women have been fighting for and fighting to maintain.
and certain religious groups want to pull that control back.
really, the only groups yelling against this are the religious based ones. their god says that killing yourself is wrong, and so they go to great lengths to outlaw it FOR EVERYONE. even those that don't subscribe to their belief system.
a person's life and body is their own. they are free to do with it as they wish.
Re:Death with Dignity. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason why the elderly who are in medical care don't have dignity is because we as a civilization have setup a structure where such people are considered a drain on society.
Ever watched someone die of cancer? No matter how well cared-for they are, there is absolutely nothing dignified about it.
The "drain on society" has nothing to do with people dying a slow, painful and drawn-out death that can't be averted with modern medicine. Nice attempt to confuse the issue though.
Re:Question: (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think a country that executes prisoners humanely (as much as I'm opposed to death penalty, atleast they're not tortured) would want the atleast the same humane treatment for it's citizens that actually choose to die.
Re:Question: (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and no. Most people are not medical experts and, shouldn't have to become so just to die with some dignity.
The thing is, what kills one person may not kill another and most things that you can eaisly get your hands on, and even most prescriptions, are within dosage ranges that are quite safe. Yes, you can kill yourself many ways, but, many of those ways are less effective than you might think.
I personally knew a guy who tried to off himself with barbituates. He failed, woke up several days later. This is actually fairly common with that route.
Also many terminally ill patients are in no condition to do that research and administer the drugs without help.
Which is why, I think we really need the second... Doctors able to help.
I plan to vote for this one. I have worked among the medical community (at MGH no less), I have been there when my family had to have stern words with doctors who somehow interpreted our grandfather's DNR order as "Recessitate and put on a ventilator".
This is such an important issue for so many reasons. So many people in ongoing pain that don't need to be, so many families that need to move on. I hate to bring it to money but.... 50% of health care costs are spent in the last 5 years of life.....and for what? The fact that so many doctors opt to not have chemo and opt to die rather than hang on like so many of their patients are made to should say something.
Don't get me wrong, if someone wants to fight to the biter end, and get as many waking moments as possible, regardless of their quality, more power to them. However, what compassion is there in forcing people to go on living who have nothing to look forward to except deterioration in a bed?
I honestly think Bill Hicks described the situation best in his comical suggestion that we use terminally ill people as stunt doubles in action films. "Do you want your grandmother to die in a sterile hospital bed, he translucent skin so thin you can see the last beat of her heart, or do you want her to meet Chuck Norris?.... wow Chuck just kicked her head clear off, my grandma is no longer in pain...this is the best movie ever!"
Re:Question: (Score:5, Insightful)
Doctor: "They died in their sleep last night". Family: "Ah, well their suffering is over at least". Pretty much never: "I bet you turned their morphine up you bastard!"
Pretty much never isn't good enough. If you're a doctor, are you really going to risk your career on the off chance that you get a family who is so overcome with rage that they demand a toxicology screen on their dead loved one? How about twice? How about 100 times over the course of your career? (sounds like a lot, but if you only practice for 20 years that would be less than one patient every two months). How about we have it nice and legal; so the decision is documented and acknowledged by the family and no one has to risk getting their life destroyed for doing what more and more people are of the opinion is the right thing to do.
Re:Death with Dignity. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or in other words, we don't like seeing sick old people. So we try to kill them off.
It's not for your sake, it's for their sake. Have you ever seen someone die of cancer? I'll tell you, it isn't pretty. I can't imagine a more hellish way to die. And what do you consider "old"? My friend Linda was only 49 when she died of cancer, even children get cancer.
You're thinking wrong. It's not for your sake unless it's you who is dying in the most horrible way a person can die. It has nothing to do with "dignity" but everything to do with not making someone die by torture. After seeing the hel Linda went through, I'm al for this.
Re:Death with Dignity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or in other words, we don't like seeing sick old people. So we try to kill them off.
The reason why the elderly who are in medical care don't have dignity is because we as a civilization have setup a structure where such people are considered a drain on society.
We don't think they are a drain on society. We think they are cash-cows. We can take their (and/or possibly their family's) life-time accumulated wealth, all the money their health insurance (or Medicaid) will allow, and pour it into high cost healthcare.
They aren't a drain on a society, only to the people that love them. For everyone else, they are an opportunity.
Re:Question: (Score:5, Insightful)
The major need for a doctor and prescription drugs is to make sure the job is done right the first time, and in a way that will not traumatize your relatives (beyond the fact you're going to be a corpse at the end of the process). A failed suicide will leave a very real chance of you being even worse off, and under the current system, kept alive in that state and possibly in a padded room to boot.
For the same reason, that doctors are there to supervise lethal injection executions, a doctor will need to be there to make sure that the method and means are sound and also to ensure that there are no conditions that might complicate the process.
Additionally, the law ensures that you have assistance without that assistant being charged with a crime afterward. Suicides using perfectly effective methods can easily fail, and when they are done by disabled people, are much more likely to fail without assistance.
I don't know how I feel about legal suicide myself. In theory, they aren't impinging on my rights simply by doing so, so it's not my business.
On the other hand, I don't condone it, and if it became subsidized by government money (at some point in the future), then I would then be forced to have an opinion on it because then I become responsible for paying for it.
Hopefully, someone does the smart thing and leaves the funding for the actual actions to a nice, private charity organization made up of people who agree with it.
Good For Them (Score:3, Insightful)
I take offense to the start of the summary. It is called death with dignity for a reason. There are people out there with very terrible diseases they didn't ask for. For example ALS that robs the victim of the use of their muscles. Over time the diaphragm goes out, and if pneumonia doesn't get the poor soul they eventual die from lack of oxygen, much like drowning. The sick and twisted part is while the person can feel the pain they can't even express their discomfort. My father has ALS. I may have it some day. I live in Oregon and I'm proud that this law gives me and my father a chance to end things on our own terms without saddling our loved ones with even more medical bills.
To this point my father hasn't asked for this; however, when the time comes he can. There's no reason we shouldn't allow that. It is far less dangerous than eating a bullet and gives family time to prepare. Fuck the submitter. It is about dignity.
Re:Off topic, sort of... (Score:5, Insightful)
He rejected it immediately, on the grounds that it was inhumane... to the victims. How is it justice, he asked, for a murderer to die peacefully if his victim did not?
There we have the problem of execution. The death penalty has many purposes. It is a deterrent. It is a way to dispose of those too dangerous to ever free. But it is also a way to satisfy people's base desire for revenge, to see the guilty made to suffer slowly and painfully. Nitrogen could have been introduced a century ago with ease - but it isn't politically viable: It's just *too* painless to satisfy that desire to inflict punishment. If the death doesn't hurt, people feel that the scales of karma remain unbalanced.
Re:Question: (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point.
The point is to die openly and with dignity. You can tell people you're going to do it. You can arrange things legally. You can say goodbye. They might even want to hold your hand or be in the next room when you do it.
It's completely different than letting somebody come home to a dead body or get a phone call from the police because the neighbors are complaining about a bad smell...
Re:Question: (Score:4, Insightful)
You think that because you can ultimately kill yourself with carbon monoxide that terminally ill patients actually want to go that way?
They might as well put a bullet in their temple.
The whole point is for a peaceful, clean death with as little pain as possible.