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I’m fully on board with assisted suicide. My mom fought pancreatic cancer for 4 years, and the last two weeks of her life were literal hell. We had family come from all over the country to stay at our house while we tried to keep her comfortable and surrounded by loved ones.
The dying process is not fun. It was ten days of her falling in and out of consciousness, losing her memory, not recognizing faces, not being able to tell what was real and what was a dream. The look of confusion on her face haunts me still, and the sound of her labored breathing in the bedroom next to mine won’t ever go away.
I remember thinking to myself and having conversations with my aunt and brother that went, “It’s gotta be tomorrow. I don’t see her lasting another 24 hours like this. I just want her to go as quickly and smoothly as possible, I want her misery to end.” Only to have her struggle and fight for another 6 days beyond that. Fuck, it was so rough.
I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to go through what my family went through, and assisted suicide could have made the whole ordeal much less traumatic.
Edit: Thanks for your condolences.
I appreciate answering questions about this. I haven’t been able to see a therapist yet, and it feels good to talk about it and answer any questions people have about death and cancer. I lived with my mom for the last 14 months of her life, and saw first hand the ups and downs and eventual end.
To answer your question, she was put on hospice 13 days before she died. It was in-home care, and it was pretty accommodating. I would’ve preferred the nurses stayed in longer shifts instead of just popping in for 15 minutes a couple times a day, but their care and help was appreciated.
They gave her a lot of drugs to keep her out of pain and sleepy, but it wasn’t full-proof and she still had plenty of time where she was semi-lucid and still in pain. So it wasn’t perfect. And it especially wasn’t quick. It was basically letting her go from starvation and her lungs going out, over the course of two weeks.
I think we all would have preferred she got a lethal dose of something several days sooner, and I wish that option was available to anybody in my position.
Surely someone could consent in advance for this type of situation? I imagine it would be difficult to categorize at what point someone is far gone enough that their prior directive would take effect.
I’d imagine that in a country where euthanasia is legal it would then be a part of advance directives paperwork: do you want CPR if your heart stops? Do you want to be intubated if you stop breathing? Would you prefer to be euthanized if your mental status deteriorates? Etc.
Like perhaps patients could be given a mental status exam if they appear to be losing their grip on reality, and if you fail them X number of times in a row across a period of 2 months or so then that will fulfill the requirements you previously signed?
I’d imagine that in a country where euthanasia is legal it would then be a part of advance directives paperwork: do you want CPR if your heart stops? Do you want to be intubated if you stop breathing? Would you prefer to be euthanized if your mental status deteriorates? Etc.
This is possible in my country, but only for passive assisted suicide. You can arrange ahead of time that under certain conditions you’ve laid out and spoken through with your relatives, life support can be turned off, reanimation or intubation will not be carried out etc. Actively assisting suicide (by giving you a toxin etc.) is fully illegal, though, people have to (and do) drive to the Netherlands or Switzerland for that.
The reason why it’s illegal? Not public opinion. A vast majority of the population supports active assisted suicide, i think somewhere around 70%. Super fucking solid majority, right? Would be easy to get political clout by passing legislation for that.
Well, yes, but the church says no.
This isn’t a struggle session, it’s just a session. Pro assisted suicide. against for people whose issue is mental illness that effects their decision making.
Yes
What’s passive v active?
Who? I think a good starting point would be people that qualify for hospice care (projected <6 months to live), and the requirements could be scaled from there. I do think people with a diminished quality of life should also qualify, but I have no idea where to start ruling who qualifies and who doesn’t. Mental illnesses is also incredibly murky too.
Thank you.
In that case I think it should really come down to what the patient wants. I can’t imagine there would be a whole lot of providers that are okay with placing the drugs on the table but would draw the line at injecting the drugs themselves.
I think it would also be a good idea to have all euthanasia requests be required to be reviewed by at least two providers from separate practices, or something like that. I’m just trying to imagine ways to prevent people like political dissidents or minorities or the homeless from being euthanized by providers that are well connected to politicians.
There’s probably better words to describe that difference but english is my 3rd language.
Also I love seeing phrases like this cause they always come from people whom I never would have guessed didn’t speak English as a first language.
