Physician assisted suicide

[FA_Q2]

Why not? I have always found that laws against committing suicide are asinine. If you don’t want to be here, so be it. I have no problem with you finishing yourself off if that is truly what you want. Such a process needs to be well thought out, we don’t want errors in such a situation but you have dominion over your body. Why not dominion in ending it.

A guy gets married and has 6 kids with his wife. When the youngest is ten, the wife gets dirt under her nails cleaning up after all of them.

He decides she is not attractive, but his office assistant, who has immaculate fingernails is hot. He knows he could die for her.

He gets a no-contest divorce from his wife of 20 years to marry his office assistant. Miss No-dirt-under-her-nails is caught by him in bed with his best friend at the wedding reception. He is shocked and commits suicide because he cannot tell what few friends he has left after leaving 7 people of his family out in the cold.

His new wife, who prearranged to have her name written on all his property sues for his estate and wins, no one the wiser of her wedding dalliances.

The 6 children and newly ex-wife cannot afford their mortgaged home and are forced into lives of poverty, while Miss Priss gets lifetime manicures.

I'll take the asinine "it's against the law to commit suicide" law, thank you very much. At least the wife who helped inspire her husband through thin times could keep her house if he broke the law with his less-than-lawful act of self-destruction.

All right, this is so far off and completely off the subject it really does not apply to what we are talking about but here is a simple question. In your example:

WHAT EXACTLY did the ‘illegal’ part of the suicide change anything in the given example?

If this was about what we are talking about, depression would be ruled out first AND it would require that he be terminal in the first place. If he was terminal, what, EXACTLY, would be different if the man in this situation dies 3 months later instead of committing suicide?

The story is emotional. It is wrong what happened. It has NOTHING to do with the discussion. If you have to resort to emotional stories then you have no real ground to debate on.

 

[FA_Q2]

Ever here of the Hippocratic Oath?

I wouldn't trust anyone who violates an oath to take care of a hangnail, even if it is legal.

So...

Do I have to be into Greek Polytheism too?

Or do we get to pick and choose what we want to follow. Like the bible?

The health and life of my patient will be my first consideration.

Explain how killing people fits into that, and then explain why I should trust a person that swears an oath and then decides that it doesn't apply because he got bitter.

It does not but then again, what you are stating is false. The doctor is not ‘that it doesn't apply because he got bitter.’ That is not what is happening at all.

What is happening is that the INDIVIDUAL is making the conscious decision to end their life before whatever affliction they are facing does naturally. In such a case, the doctor can watch the person die a horrible and ugly death in a few months or they can assist in the persons individual choice to end their life early.

If you really believe ion individual liberty and free choice, why are you against the doctor making a decision to assist in what someone else wants. It is between the person and their doctor without involving any other people (except perhaps some basic safeguards like a psychiatrist and a second opinion). What right do you have to question the decision or how it impacts the oath they take. Who are you to say that it even violates their oath?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

So...

Do I have to be into Greek Polytheism too?

Or do we get to pick and choose what we want to follow. Like the bible?

The health and life of my patient will be my first consideration.

Explain how killing people fits into that, and then explain why I should trust a person that swears an oath and then decides that it doesn't apply because he got bitter.

It does not but then again, what you are stating is false. The doctor is not ‘that it doesn't apply because he got bitter.’ That is not what is happening at all.

What is happening is that the INDIVIDUAL is making the conscious decision to end their life before whatever affliction they are facing does naturally. In such a case, the doctor can watch the person die a horrible and ugly death in a few months or they can assist in the persons individual choice to end their life early.

If you really believe ion individual liberty and free choice, why are you against the doctor making a decision to assist in what someone else wants. It is between the person and their doctor without involving any other people (except perhaps some basic safeguards like a psychiatrist and a second opinion). What right do you have to question the decision or how it impacts the oath they take. Who are you to say that it even violates their oath?

Any doctor who decides that the oath he swore does not apply to him for whatever reason is wrong.

Period.

 

[Montrovant]

The health and life of my patient will be my first consideration.

Explain how killing people fits into that, and then explain why I should trust a person that swears an oath and then decides that it doesn't apply because he got bitter.

It does not but then again, what you are stating is false. The doctor is not ‘that it doesn't apply because he got bitter.’ That is not what is happening at all.

What is happening is that the INDIVIDUAL is making the conscious decision to end their life before whatever affliction they are facing does naturally. In such a case, the doctor can watch the person die a horrible and ugly death in a few months or they can assist in the persons individual choice to end their life early.

If you really believe ion individual liberty and free choice, why are you against the doctor making a decision to assist in what someone else wants. It is between the person and their doctor without involving any other people (except perhaps some basic safeguards like a psychiatrist and a second opinion). What right do you have to question the decision or how it impacts the oath they take. Who are you to say that it even violates their oath?

Any doctor who decides that the oath he swore does not apply to him for whatever reason is wrong.

Period.

I think the point geaux was making is that doctors do not swear the original oath. It has been revised and may no longer contain that 'will not give a deadly drug' section at all. If that's the case, they may not be breaking the oath by providing lethal drugs.

For that matter, considering how many of the drugs doctors give out can be lethal (I'd imagine nearly all of them!) that section could be argued to put almost all doctors in violation for the simplest of prescriptions.

 

[Saigon]

So you feel people who live in constant pain should be forced to suffer instead of being allowed to ask a physican to help them die?

Ok.

I don't think it will stay there. It will be expanded, step by step, bit by bit. The same way abortion started out as killing the fetus before it's born, to while it was being born and now after it's born.

I couldn't disagree more, however I can understand that fear.

I can understand the fear - but I think it is wildly irrational.

Any sensible laws and sensible system will put checks and balances in place and ensure they stay there, because that is what people want.

No one wants people to be able to kill off an inconveniant cousin, any more than those of us who support abortion want people to be able to kill off an inconveniant toddler.

 

[caela]

Hippocratic Oath: Modern Version

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

—Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.

I got this here: NOVA | The Hippocratic Oath Today

---

The modern version doesn't say that a physician may not give a lethal drug or abortificant.

As for the original question, Yes. A physician should be allowed, though not required to aid a patient in PAS if that patient is diagnosed with a terminal, or mentally crippling illness and a psychiatrist determines the patient is competent to make that decision.

Yes this means I would allow patients diagnosed with something like Alzheimer's or ALS, to request this from their physicians in the early stages when they are still competent to make their own decisions.

I would also write into the law, however, that no family member, especially a family member in line to inherit anything would be able to seek this on behalf of a patient. It would have to be strictly patient initiated.

 

[Noomi]

Use your imagination. People kill themselves all the time in circumstances deliberately designed by some very smart people to make suicide impossible.

Stop tap-dancing.

Please explain, in detail, EXACTLY how a quadriplegic incapable ov movement below the neck can end his own life. Be specific.

While you're at it, please explain, in detail, how someone with advanced ALS can do so. Be specific.

Stop dodging and ANSWER THE QUESTION.

I oppose physician assisted suicide because I do not think doctors should do anything other than heal. Until you can explain to me why only doctors are qualified to help people take pills I don't have to explain anything.

Would you prefer someone to live out their final days in pain?

 

[Aristotle]

The issue of euthanasia is a slippery slope because it blurs the line of morality between compassion and murder. Patients suffering from advance forms of Pick's Disease (Alzheimer's/Frontotemporal dementia) also suffer from cases of depression, suicidal ideation, and other horrible symptoms of neurodegeneration. This is why bioethics who do not support due to the "pain of emppending death" opt for palliative care (pain managment to make the patient comfortable upon death) compared to immediately ending the life.

If we are to end the life I think the following questions should be raised:

1) If there is no hope for the patient for recovery should euthanasia be acceptable on this reason alone?

2) If the patient requests to die yet is not in pain, how do we determine that the request of death is not symptomatic of their condition (e.g delirium or depression).

3) If we do allow euthanasia would this lead to a gateway of other bioethical issues such as people suffering from severe mental disorders?

4) If Euthanasia is allowed are loved ones able to see the doctor to perform? If they are allowed then what about the psychological trauma that may occur by watching the doctor perform the life ending procedure? After all, the last image would be the doctor ending their loved one's life versus the natural cause.

In my humble opinion on the issue I believe proponents of euthanasia are more worried about the psychological effect of both the patient, and loved ones and the image of that loved one suffering to annihilation. I would be inclined to agree that it would be better to "put him/her out of their misery" but case by case, it is hard for some families to let their loved one go.

 

[Aristotle]

Stop tap-dancing.

Please explain, in detail, EXACTLY how a quadriplegic incapable ov movement below the neck can end his own life. Be specific.

While you're at it, please explain, in detail, how someone with advanced ALS can do so. Be specific.

Stop dodging and ANSWER THE QUESTION.

I oppose physician assisted suicide because I do not think doctors should do anything other than heal. Until you can explain to me why only doctors are qualified to help people take pills I don't have to explain anything.

Would you prefer someone to live out their final days in pain?[/QUOTE]

(This is in response to the bold)

This is why they have hospice and palliative care.

 

[Noomi]

I oppose physician assisted suicide because I do not think doctors should do anything other than heal. Until you can explain to me why only doctors are qualified to help people take pills I don't have to explain anything.

Would you prefer someone to live out their final days in pain?[/QUOTE]

(This is in response to the bold)

This is why they have hospice and palliative care.

Sometimes that doesn't relieve the pain. My grandpa died of lung cancer and not even morphine could take his pain away.

 

[koshergrl]

I don't think it will stay there. It will be expanded, step by step, bit by bit. The same way abortion started out as killing the fetus before it's born, to while it was being born and now after it's born.

I couldn't disagree more, however I can understand that fear.

I can understand the fear - but I think it is wildly irrational.

Any sensible laws and sensible system will put checks and balances in place and ensure they stay there, because that is what people want.

No one wants people to be able to kill off an inconveniant cousin, any more than those of us who support abortion want people to be able to kill off an inconveniant toddler.

Bullshit.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

It does not but then again, what you are stating is false. The doctor is not ‘that it doesn't apply because he got bitter.’ That is not what is happening at all.

What is happening is that the INDIVIDUAL is making the conscious decision to end their life before whatever affliction they are facing does naturally. In such a case, the doctor can watch the person die a horrible and ugly death in a few months or they can assist in the persons individual choice to end their life early.

If you really believe ion individual liberty and free choice, why are you against the doctor making a decision to assist in what someone else wants. It is between the person and their doctor without involving any other people (except perhaps some basic safeguards like a psychiatrist and a second opinion). What right do you have to question the decision or how it impacts the oath they take. Who are you to say that it even violates their oath?

Any doctor who decides that the oath he swore does not apply to him for whatever reason is wrong.

Period.

I think the point geaux was making is that doctors do not swear the original oath. It has been revised and may no longer contain that 'will not give a deadly drug' section at all. If that's the case, they may not be breaking the oath by providing lethal drugs.

For that matter, considering how many of the drugs doctors give out can be lethal (I'd imagine nearly all of them!) that section could be argued to put almost all doctors in violation for the simplest of prescriptions.

I quoted from the revised Geneva version of the oath, which is the most common version. It clearly states that a doctor puts his patients life and health first, even above his own thoughts that people should not have to live paralyzed. There are plenty of options for committing suicide that do not involve a doctor.

Doctors should not kill.

Period.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I don't think it will stay there. It will be expanded, step by step, bit by bit. The same way abortion started out as killing the fetus before it's born, to while it was being born and now after it's born.

I couldn't disagree more, however I can understand that fear.

I can understand the fear - but I think it is wildly irrational.

Any sensible laws and sensible system will put checks and balances in place and ensure they stay there, because that is what people want.

No one wants people to be able to kill off an inconveniant cousin, any more than those of us who support abortion want people to be able to kill off an inconveniant toddler.

Yep, slippery slope arguments are always false, unless we live in a world where people always want to push the boundaries and continually try to make things that are illegal legal. Good thing we live in a world where that is impossible.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Stop tap-dancing.

Please explain, in detail, EXACTLY how a quadriplegic incapable ov movement below the neck can end his own life. Be specific.

While you're at it, please explain, in detail, how someone with advanced ALS can do so. Be specific.

Stop dodging and ANSWER THE QUESTION.

I oppose physician assisted suicide because I do not think doctors should do anything other than heal. Until you can explain to me why only doctors are qualified to help people take pills I don't have to explain anything.

Would you prefer someone to live out their final days in pain?

I would prefer that doctors not kill people. What about that is so hard to understand? Doctors are healers, not killers.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Would you prefer someone to live out their final days in pain?

(This is in response to the bold)

This is why they have hospice and palliative care.

Sometimes that doesn't relieve the pain. My grandpa died of lung cancer and not even morphine could take his pain away.

My solution to your problem, get the government out of telling doctors what they can prescribe to treat patients. I remember arguing along side you in another thread that the governments attempt to regulate pain prescriptions makes it worse for those who actually need them, did you forget that I was there with you?

 

[AmyNation]

I oppose physician assisted suicide because I do not think doctors should do anything other than heal. Until you can explain to me why only doctors are qualified to help people take pills I don't have to explain anything.

Would you prefer someone to live out their final days in pain?

I would prefer that doctors not kill people. What about that is so hard to understand? Doctors are healers, not killers.

It's not hard to understand, I simply disagree.

 

[Katzndogz]

The problem is sensible laws and sensible systems become corrupted when people just change their minds as to what is sensible.

A doctor who is treating a patient in constant pain with an untreatable terminal illness who nevertheless does not want to die is not sensible. Any sensible person would choose to die. So it is up to someone else to attribute sensibility to this ignoramus who won't take his pill, and do the right thing as they see it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Would you prefer someone to live out their final days in pain?

I would prefer that doctors not kill people. What about that is so hard to understand? Doctors are healers, not killers.

It's not hard to understand, I simply disagree.

Simple answer.

I can live with that. At least we don't have to argue about it anymore.

 

[Montrovant]

Any doctor who decides that the oath he swore does not apply to him for whatever reason is wrong.

Period.

I think the point geaux was making is that doctors do not swear the original oath. It has been revised and may no longer contain that 'will not give a deadly drug' section at all. If that's the case, they may not be breaking the oath by providing lethal drugs.

For that matter, considering how many of the drugs doctors give out can be lethal (I'd imagine nearly all of them!) that section could be argued to put almost all doctors in violation for the simplest of prescriptions.

I quoted from the revised Geneva version of the oath, which is the most common version. It clearly states that a doctor puts his patients life and health first, even above his own thoughts that people should not have to live paralyzed. There are plenty of options for committing suicide that do not involve a doctor.

Doctors should not kill.

Period.

You quoted, so far as I have been able to determine, the original Hippocratic Oath in your early post in this thread. Certainly, any oath swearing by Apollo is unlikely to be even vaguely modern!

The Declaration of Geneva Physician's Oath goes like this :
Physician's Oath

At the time of being admitted as a member of the medical profession:

I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;
I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due;
I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity; the health of my patient will be my first consideration;
I will maintain by all the means in my power, the honor and the noble traditions of the medical profession; my colleagues will be my brothers;
I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient;
I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception, even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity;
I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honor.

Which you can see here : Declaration of Geneva: Physician's Oath

So, I'm not sure why you think you've used modern oaths to bolster your point. Of course, oaths are unnecessary for that, you're obviously free to believe whatever you wish, but talking about doctors not violating oaths in providing lethal doses of prescription meds to terminal patients would seem to be a false argument. The Geneva oath and the modern Hippocratic oath both seem to leave the option open.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I think the point geaux was making is that doctors do not swear the original oath. It has been revised and may no longer contain that 'will not give a deadly drug' section at all. If that's the case, they may not be breaking the oath by providing lethal drugs.

For that matter, considering how many of the drugs doctors give out can be lethal (I'd imagine nearly all of them!) that section could be argued to put almost all doctors in violation for the simplest of prescriptions.

I quoted from the revised Geneva version of the oath, which is the most common version. It clearly states that a doctor puts his patients life and health first, even above his own thoughts that people should not have to live paralyzed. There are plenty of options for committing suicide that do not involve a doctor.

Doctors should not kill.

Period.

You quoted, so far as I have been able to determine, the original Hippocratic Oath in your early post in this thread. Certainly, any oath swearing by Apollo is unlikely to be even vaguely modern!

The Declaration of Geneva Physician's Oath goes like this :
Physician's Oath

At the time of being admitted as a member of the medical profession:

I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;
I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due;
I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity; the health of my patient will be my first consideration;
I will maintain by all the means in my power, the honor and the noble traditions of the medical profession; my colleagues will be my brothers;
I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient;
I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception, even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity;
I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honor.

Which you can see here : Declaration of Geneva: Physician's Oath

So, I'm not sure why you think you've used modern oaths to bolster your point. Of course, oaths are unnecessary for that, you're obviously free to believe whatever you wish, but talking about doctors not violating oaths in providing lethal doses of prescription meds to terminal patients would seem to be a false argument. The Geneva oath and the modern Hippocratic oath both seem to leave the option open.

I said I also quoted from it, specifically a slightly different version of the third line of what you just quoted which says that the health and life of the patient is the first concern. Even if we stick to the version you used they swear to maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception. Anyone who swears this and then kills people is wrong.