Assisted suicide not real answer
(Last updated: 05/31/09 7:43pm)If you could choose the day you die, would you? A woman in Washington did just that, becoming the first person to take advantage of Washington’s assisted suicide law last week.
Gabrielle Moore
The victim of stage four pancreatic cancer chose to die surrounded by her family, her doctor and her dog after being told she was “actively dying,” according to CNN.
Washington’s law was approved in November, and a Death with Dignity Act was passed in Oregon in 1994. Since then, 401 people have died this way.
I want to live my life out as long as I can, and I can’t imagine choosing to end it, by legal or illegal suicide. Even if I was sick, I don’t think I would want to put my trust in a doctor that would agree to kill me. After all, aren’t doctors supposed to be saving lives, not taking them?
If a doctor can simply administer a drug that will end a life, with much less effort and money than attempting to cure the illness, what is to stop them from implying to their patient that there is no hope for recovery? If a physician is OK with taking a life, I don’t know if I could trust that particular doctor.
I’m not sure if any one person should be granted that kind of power. Though advocates of legalizing assisted suicide claim it is humane and the choice of the patient, there is the potential through legalization that this power will be abused. It’s scary to think that the very person who is supposed to be helping you recover could be responsible for your death.
This issue is a little like abortion. People can argue forever about whether assisted suicide is morally right or wrong, but when it comes to an actual law, that debate must be put aside in favor of practicality and safety. In the case of abortion, even if it became illegal, abortions would happen anyway. They would be unsafe, and would be in unsafe circumstances, where the woman making the decision didn’t have the chance to discuss it with a professional first.
It’s the same way with assisted suicide. Many people kill themselves for a variety of reasons, but in the case of medical issues, being aided by a doctor is a better way to go. If someone is sick and dying and wants to die, they can kill themselves in any variety of ways, but going painlessly in a controlled setting is probably the best of those.
However, I believe that assisted suicide is taking the easy way out, on the part of both the patient and the doctors. Instead of putting in the effort to find new ways to solve medical issues, doctors can simply let their patient die when things get too difficult. I fear that if assisted suicide were legalized nationwide, medical innovation would grow stagnant. No one would like to believe it, but there is too high a risk that the power to legally end someone’s life would be abused.
Jack Kevorkian, a longtime advocate of legalizing assisted suicide, claims to have assisted at least 130 patients to their deaths in this way. He claims to desire only to end suffering, but was he actually helping his patients or just giving up on them?
To me, someone who was truly concerned with ending suffering would put all of their effort into solving the problems that caused the suffering in the first place. Yes, legalizing suicide would allow people to legally end their lives if they were suffering, but the consequences of legalizing assisted suicide are greater than the benefit of allowing someone an early and peaceful death.
That woman in Washington was able to die at a time she chose, in a desirable situation, and avoid the suffering caused by her disease. However, I think that doctors’ efforts should have gone into finding a cure for her disease, or a way to ease the suffering without resorting to death. These solutions are not going to come quickly, and they will take time, but doctors and patients need the motivation to fight medical problems without an easy button.
Doctors should be channeling their efforts into saving lives, not advocating the right to take them.
Gabrielle Moore is a State News guest columnist and journalism freshman. Reach her at mooregab@msu.edu.
Originally Published: 05/31/09 7:18pm
05/31/09 9:10pmYou know, I really doubt a doctor would ever recommend suicide to someone. Even if the state and medical establishment allowed physician assisted suicide, I’m sure there would be miles and miles of red tape and regulations to prevent exactly the kind of abuse you are talking about.
Yes, while it would be better if we could cure illnesses instead so people didn’t have to suffer from chronic, unbearably painful conditions, there are people suffering right NOW from those conditions, and the science/medical technology is nowhere near being able to alleviate their suffering.
Not all of us believe that longevity is defining factor of a good life.
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several issues
05/31/09 11:39pm1. You said, “Iâm not sure if any one person should be granted that kind of power”. Actually two different doctors must agree the patient is terminal before allowing it. So you are wrong on that.
2. You said, “I believe that assisted suicide is taking the easy way out”. Tell that to your self when you are 90 years old, have a foley in, crapping your pants, and drifting in/out of conciousness while a large tube is down your throat in the ICU and you are just waiting for a heart attack to do you in.
3.
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AFM
05/31/09 11:51pmYou are a moron Gabrielle. Until you have a mother or father dying painfully shut your mouth. You don’t know what you are talking about. Like most people at the state news.
06/01/09 3:32am1: See everyone else above
2: Why shouldn’t people be allowed to take the “easy way out”?
3: Well actually pretty much everything else I was going to say was already mentioned in some form.
Try thinking about ALS
06/01/09 6:35amThe “Oregonian” did a great series about suicide, assisted or otherwise in the early 1990s.
Case 1: ALS victim. Those with brains the size of Fat Mike Moore — ALS weaken the muscles. So, in essence, the patients suffocates to death. Painful and ugly. In story, patient was surrounded at death by family, friends, and minister — sad and happy, at same time.
Case 2: young man who used a shotgun but failed. Permanently disfigured so badly, a new face would be needed. Grim.
Read “How We Die” by Sherwin Nuland, MD, a national best-seller. His brain much larger than Fat Mike’s. Death can be less painful.
Zeke
06/01/09 9:45amI’ve read hundred of opinion pieces from the State news over the years. I have to say that this is the most inane, poorly-thought, and downright inhumane one I have ever read.
Your apathy is amazing, Gabrielle. Your lack of medical knowledge is astounding. You talk about the woman dying from pancreatic cancer as though she didn’t fight enough, and criticize her doctors for not trying to cure her – never mind that pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers with a microscopic remission rate.
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Ew Some Strong Opions here
06/01/09 10:29amHey lighten up guys, give the girl a break. There is no reason to call her a Moron, I hate that word, now be nice. I hate being mean. I was recently mean to someone and when I got home I cried. I guess I am a pretty nice person, how about you?
Hope
06/01/09 10:36amHonestly I can understand some of the arguments here, eventhough I am on the other side of the fence on this issue. Suprised? I didn’t think so. I think that we should be with the dying until their last breath. Giving our love and support and helping them in their transition to eternal life. I believe that it is a purification, a time to have our soul ready to meet the Lord. A time for forgiveness, a time for love, a time for the unsaid to finally be spoken, a time to help to begin to mourn, a time for healing, a time for confort, a time for the Lord and much much more.
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06/01/09 11:08amWhile I understand her concerns that some doctors may abuse their power if given the ability to take a life, I feel that some of her comments were very insentive.
...take for example when she says, “these solutions are not going to come quickly, and they will take time, but doctors and patients need the motication to fight medical problems without an easy button.” She speaks as if she know what it is like to suffer from a disease like Stage four pancreatic cancer, as if she knows what it is like to go through chemotherapy, or to live knowing that your body is “actively dying.” Choosing to end your life while your family is watching, knowing that your will cause them heartache is not at all like pushing an easy button.
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Helping a person to Die?
06/01/09 11:13amHow about helping them to live until they have been given their last breath. The Medical community can help control pain and help the person to ease their way into their fianl moments. I think that we are a disposable community. That we don’t want our life inconvienced.
What if you chose to treasure someone until their final breath and were with them as they die, and they saw you loving them, tell me what do you think. Rather than trying to find a way to rid them from your life, wouldn’t you suffer more to know that those that love you give up hope? I would much prefer to be loved onto my last dieing breath, than to feel I have become an inconvience.
clara forester
06/01/09 11:15amshoot the editor who let her publish this thing. complete nonsense
In countires where it is legal
06/01/09 11:26amAssited Suicide I mean, people are afraid to get medical care if they become seriously ill. They are afraid that their doctor may chose to end their life. I apologize for not backing this up, I forgot the country, but I read an article about it some time ago. Google it and compare it to what you really think.
Gosh someone is being pretty nice
06/01/09 11:28amA little bit of sarcasm is kinda cute. You caught me eye. Lots here today, take a look around.
Hi Alex
06/01/09 11:32amI know you, I really do. Does Farrand sound familar? I HOPE it does.I think that I have spoken with you recently if you know what I mean. Take Care, good to see you here.
Mandy Smith
Zeke
06/01/09 11:34am“I believe that it is a purification, a time to have our soul ready to meet the Lord.”
If your Lord purifies people by slowly strangulating them as cancer spreads into their lungs, or by forcing intense pain into them as their ograns are consumed by cancer cells and pushed into unnatural places, then I want absolutely nothing to do with him.
“I would much prefer to be loved onto my last dieing breath, than to feel I have become an inconvience.”
You heartless lunatic.
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Hope
06/01/09 11:42amWhy such intense anger Zeke? Where does it come from? The answer to your question is yes, I saw my cousin die a slow painful death from ovarian cancer, I saw my father in law so the same, he also died from cancer. It isn’t easy, and no I am not a lunataic. I struggle with it too. But neither one of them wanted to die before their dieing breath. And it brought healing to my Father in law, because he was able to ask for forgiveness, for the pain he had cause his family and he died in peace.
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Forgive my spelling mistakes
06/01/09 11:44amI had to type fast!
Embarassed
06/01/09 11:47am“That woman in Washington was able to die at a time she chose, in a desirable situation, and avoid the suffering caused by her disease. However, I think that doctorsâ efforts should have gone into finding a cure for her disease, or a way to ease the suffering without resorting to death.”
This is absolutely ignorant, ludicrous, and offensive. Ignorant, because it seems to be based on the assumption that a personal care doctor fills the same role as a researcher, which is completely incorrect.
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To Zeke from Me
06/01/09 11:51amYou know how much I care about you. We are completely opposite in our moral values. It doesn’t mean that all the other good things I see in you don’t exist they do. I love your humor, your brillant mind, your creativeness of all kinds, you know exactly how to be the perfect gentleman when you chose to do so. I find you facinating, and I wish I didn’t caz it isn’t my place to feel this way…I look for you and never know if it is you. I am sorry for the anger I bring out in you, I think I know why. Hey you are a great guy that about sums you up in my eyes. I know I said hi to someone else, but I was trying to find you.
Hmmm...
06/01/09 11:52amGabrielle,
I think you’re right to fear that assisted suicide will be abused. While your arguments about medical ethics and apathetic doctors are specious for many reasons, and your suggestion that people need to try harder simply shows that you’ve never seen someone die, it’s quite possible to imagine a time in which there may be a social stigma to lingering past one’s prime, to live to an age where one would be in a nursing home and be dependent on the care of others. (This isn’t the issue here; assisted suicide laws only cover terminal illness, but it’s a step down that road, right?)
Ummm...
06/01/09 11:54amSuicide isn’t illegal. ASSISTED suicide is. Get it straight.
Hope to Embarrased
06/01/09 11:56amBeautifully argued you stated your arguments without calling anyone names. I truely repsect you for that. You truely are an awesome guy.
Thanks J.S.
Go to another site cool off a bit
06/01/09 12:00pmCome one, relax a lttle all this stress isn’t good for you. Go take a laugh at your favorite place to laugh. I left a funny for you. I left alot of other things too. Now take a break cool off and then come back, and no I am not your mother or your brother or….just smile okay.
Hope to you
06/01/09 12:12pmI must go my time here today is done, so sad. But know that I read even when I am not able to be here. I love the blogs and the stories. They mean so much to me. A time is coming soon when I won’t be able to be here the way I want to, but I will treasure the time I have. Life has lots of responsibiltites for me. My best to you my dear friend. PS. Thanks for always overlooking my spelling errors, even if that is how you first caught my eye.
PS.
06/01/09 12:23pmTo be completely honest I would be lieing if I didn’t say I myself struggle with this topic too. I myself understand much of what you say. But in the end I see the unseen, and I know you hate me for it, but it is my Faith. Bless you.