Euthanasia

Iridescence

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Apr 1, 2011
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A book by M. Scott Peck titled Denial of the Soul has become one of the most thought provoking books I have read to date. It is regarding spiritual and medical perspectives on euthanasia and mortality.

I agree with his stance that euthanasia is not being given the consideration it deserves. He says it is as though it is being lost among the myriad of other issues that have come out of the closet or been on the table for some time. The issue of euthanasia may be more critical than all the others. He further states that we may need to reach a national consensus about it before all the other issues can be more satisfactorily resolved. I sincerely and passionately agree with him.

There is a profound wisdom in the way he addresses the good and the bad of euthanasia. "He is a physician, psychiatrist, and a theologian so he is uniquely suited to address the complex issues and paradoxes that have come from medicine's technical ability to perpetuate the mechanisms of life..."

Should we prolong life? Should we war against the natural process of dying? What would you, as an individual, prefer? To be kept alive... or to be allowed to die? At what point is enough? It is a very important subject and though life can be a marvelous gift, it seems it is also a curse. Bodies rotting from the inside out while being kept alive is not the way most any one would want to pass on.

This kind of thing... it's potential very well does represent a type of heaven vs. hell. The body rotting, the mind missing... Doctors and family members need to know what an individual's desire is, and it must be written in writing to be taken seriously in most every case. To give specific detailed instructions about such one needs to be up-to-date as possible on the medical procedures. Keeping a Medical Power of Attorney even if it seems that one is perfectly healthy in the later part of life is not a bad suggestion.

In this book he even brings up (perhaps predictably) assisted suicide and such. Is there ever a point or a case in life that such is more humane than attempted treatment? All too often, I am personally reminded of what has been shown to us about how the Priests had to torture and prosecute the mentally ill, the demonic, the possessed, claiming to know best. To drive the beasts out of the psyche. Sometimes the cures are far more harsh than the illness, the disease.

So what of it? Is euthanasia not given the attention it deserves? Should we focus on better defining what death truly is? Should we have 'blanket rules and guidelines' regarding such or should we determine such on an individual basis?

I hope others will find this as provoking as I have... as I have yet to return the overdue book to the library, I plan to renew it a third time. There is so much to absorb. *hearts*
 
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In the book, his thoughts are almost mine. He describes personal experiences and situations that I have also experienced... on a different level, of course.

When my grandmother passed on with cancer, it was very difficult. We kept her home, in the very home she spent most of her childhood. Upon approaching the last few days of her life, her mind seemed to become sharper. She no longer stumbled over my name... she spoke directly to me. I thought that with us keeping her where she wanted to be most and feeding her a particularly special diet that it would help her to get through the down time and come back as stubborn and difficult as ever. However, I was mistaken. She came to not be able to eat much at all and could only manage certain liquids. The hospital made it clear that it was out of their hands... and obviously we didn't have more than medicaid and medicare to pay for her health care.
She passed peacefully and quietly. She didn't seem to struggle and she didn't seem afraid at all. She did seem very tired and almost ready to be done with the fight. We just wanted her to be over the struggle. Death delivered her.

Anyways... Then there are other circumstances, like an accident or sudden illness that to stabilize the body and provide the life force until independence of one, the other, or even both recovers enough to become self-sustaining only makes the best sense.

One thing is certain, good, bane, or outright bad... There is so much more to 'us' than meets the eye.
 
Humane euthanasia will never have any, much less full support of the medical industrial complex in this country.
Spending on average 125K for the last 30 months of everyone's life, doctors not complying with valid in place DNR orders because they can not over charge Medicare if they do, 89 year old folks receiving heart operations with little or no chance of survival and retirees taking 10 pills a day so they can stay alive in a coma fills hospital beds and increases their sector 15% on average a year, every year.
Go to any town in south Florida and almost all of the professional jobs are in the medical field.
Disease care, NOT health care is a lucrative business.
 
If anyone at any time for any reason wishes to end his own life then he should be able to do so in a painless dignified manner.

To deny one the means to choose the manner and timing of his own death is a violation of the most basic of all rights.
 
my mother wants to die...her body is healthy she has really bounced back with the rehab......but her mind is so gone.....on her lucid days she expresses a great wish to die...her life has been taken from her so forth and so on....

do what do i do? do i withdraw all meds? some do that....i just cant....i did the dnr order...that was bad enough...her diabetes is being ignored ....she eats what she wants i just cant really get energetic about taking food from her....she is 81...but then again do you let kids make their own medical decisions....i know she is not a child but she has the mental judgement of one.
 
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Humane euthanasia will never have any, much less full support of the medical industrial complex in this country.
Spending on average 125K for the last 30 months of everyone's life, doctors not complying with valid in place DNR orders because they can not over charge Medicare if they do, 89 year old folks receiving heart operations with little or no chance of survival and retirees taking 10 pills a day so they can stay alive in a coma fills hospital beds and increases their sector 15% on average a year, every year.
Go to any town in south Florida and almost all of the professional jobs are in the medical field.
Disease care, NOT health care is a lucrative business.


Excellent point... which is exactly the reason I continue.... Home Healthcare providers, though are not RNs or doctors necessarily by college degree, should be the focal point of the industry. Educating families on the basics and expecting them to further educate themselves and to do whatever is necessary considering whatever forces they may face. Doctors ARE NOT responsible for preserving life, they SHOULD not be prosecuted for their patients' mishandling of medications and they SHOULD not be put through trial for malpractice if there was any potential for the individual patients to do better for themselves than what said doctor did, within reason and logic of patients' conditions and/or financial situations. Doctors are NOT at our expense. I've said this before and I'll say it again... The doctors' offices are a business just as they are a healthcare facility. I do not understand, nor do I want to, any one who runs to the doctor well into their life at a time that they should be most independent and educated enough to maneuver and manipulate their own health concerns. MANAGING as best as they can by the things freely given to them. OUR society freely educates our people in such a way WHY do the 'go no wheres' in life need a college education? It's only paper that needs a paperweight in the end, it seems.

I am not belittling our doctors. To the contrary, I am hoping that the focus of our mainstream will be to take care of 'their own'. There would be so much less for the fringe then to worry about passing laws to preserve for.

Anyways... Done ranting. It just really matters that lineage lines step up and NOT pass this BUCK. *hearts*
 
A book by M. Scott Peck titled Denial of the Soul has become one of the most thought provoking books I have read to date. It is regarding spiritual and medical perspectives on euthanasia and mortality.

I agree with his stance that euthanasia is not being given the consideration it deserves. He says it is as though it is being lost among the myriad of other issues that have come out of the closet or been on the table for some time. The issue of euthanasia may be more critical than all the others. He further states that we may need to reach a national consensus about it before all the other issues can be more satisfactorily resolved. I sincerely and passionately agree with him.

There is a profound wisdom in the way he addresses the good and the bad of euthanasia. "He is a physician, psychiatrist, and a theologian so he is uniquely suited to address the complex issues and paradoxes that have come from medicine's technical ability to perpetuate the mechanisms of life..."

Should we prolong life? Should we war against the natural process of dying? What would you, as an individual, prefer? To be kept alive... or to be allowed to die? At what point is enough? It is a very important subject and though life can be a marvelous gift, it seems it is also a curse. Bodies rotting from the inside out while being kept alive is not the way most any one would want to pass on.

This kind of thing... it's potential very well does represent a type of heaven vs. hell. The body rotting, the mind missing... Doctors and family members need to know what an individual's desire is, and it must be written in writing to be taken seriously in most every case. To give specific detailed instructions about such one needs to be up-to-date as possible on the medical procedures. Keeping a Medical Power of Attorney even if it seems that one is perfectly healthy in the later part of life is not a bad suggestion.

In this book he even brings up (perhaps predictably) assisted suicide and such. Is there ever a point or a case in life that such is more humane than attempted treatment? All too often, I am personally reminded of what has been shown to us about how the Priests had to torture and prosecute the mentally ill, the demonic, the possessed, claiming to know best. To drive the beasts out of the psyche. Sometimes the cures are far more harsh than the illness, the disease.

So what of it? Is euthanasia not given the attention it deserves? Should we focus on better defining what death truly is? Should we have 'blanket rules and guidelines' regarding such or should we determine such on an individual basis?

I hope others will find this as provoking as I have... as I have yet to return the overdue book to the library, I plan to renew it a third time. There is so much to absorb. *hearts*

I am for it, but only if the patient asks for it.
 
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I am all for it. I always have been.

I think it is very sad that i can treat my pets better then the people i love.
 
If I ever get to the point where the prognosis is that I'll live, but I won't be able to wipe my own ass, please... somebody... help a brother out and pull the plug!
 
I once went to the library for information on euthanasia.

But the librarian had graduated with a masters from an ivy-league university and all she could find was a book on Korean childhood.

I didn't have the heart......
 
I am all for it. I always have been.

I think it is very sad that i can treat my pets better then the people i love.

Why is that? Deciding to put a dog down is usually easy, albeit heartbreaking.


I could do the same for you too. What makes you think euthanizing a human would be any different for me? I would have no problem of putting anyone down.

And generally when you ask someone to help you put a brother down... hopefully you ask someone who can do it,
 
I am all for it. I always have been.

I think it is very sad that i can treat my pets better then the people i love.

Why is that? Deciding to put a dog down is usually easy, albeit heartbreaking.


I could do the same for you too. What makes you think euthanizing a human would be any different for me? I would have no problem of putting anyone down.

And generally when you ask someone to help you put a brother down... hopefully you ask someone who can do it,

If at my request no one would do it for me I would do it my self.
 
Euthanasia isn't allowing people who are dying a peaceful option. It's legalizing murder for convenience sake. That's the long and short of it.
 
Euthanasia isn't allowing people who are dying a peaceful option. It's legalizing murder for convenience sake. That's the long and short of it.

so why contradict yourself.

You are VERY correct that not allowing euthanasia is NOT allowing people the option to dies a peaceful death.
 
Euthanasia isn't allowing people who are dying a peaceful option. It's legalizing murder for convenience sake. That's the long and short of it.

7 days in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling, not being able to eat, or take fluids by mouth convinced me that I would rather die swiftly then lay there with a tube in my cock pissing in a can, and having a nurse wipe shit off my legs while days of our lives plays in the background is not how I want to spend my last days, hours of life. Get it done, or I will spend every ounce of strength I have to do it my self.
 

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