Church ends taboo on mercy killings

[emad]

Jamie Doward, social affairs editor
Sunday January 16, 2005
The Observer

The Church of England took a radical step towards backing 'mercy killing' of terminally ill patients last night after one of its leading authorities said that there was a 'strong compassionate case' for voluntary euthanasia.

Canon Professor Robin Gill, a chief adviser to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said people should not be prosecuted for helping dying relatives who are in pain end their lives. Last week Gill was sent by Williams to give evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating euthanasia.

Gill's stance marks a major shift by the Church of England and was welcomed by groups campaigning for a change in the law to allow for people to be helped to die under strictly limited circumstances.

'There is a very strong compassionate case for voluntary euthanasia,' Gill told The Observer . 'In certain cases, such as that which involved Diane Pretty , there is an overwhelming case for it.'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1391582,00.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Next Week: Reducing Managed Care Costs with Euthanasia

[wuushew]

2. I take it you are against euthanasia?

I for one am glad to see a church be on the other side of this issue.

[struggle4progress]

8. I'm against people taking simple-minded stands on the issue.

The Nazis "euthanized" at least one of my forefathers. The case I know about occurred years before the concentration camp mass murders and was part of a very popular "social hygiene" campaign. The real motive had nothing to do with mercy, all contemporary noisy propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding: young Nazis just didn't like dealing with people who had been seriously disfigured or disabled in the previous great war, so they killed a bunch of them off.

Nor am I joking about healthcare costs. If euthanasia is legalized, you'll see HMOs denying coverage for Aunt Gertie's cancer surgery while offering to cover "mercy killing" costs. Allow nursing homes to euthanize, and you can bet the Solutions-by-Kevorkian van will be pulling up immediately after Jane Doe's life savings are exhausted. When Butch has to work two and a half jobs to pay for Momma's stay-at-home help, many folk will not blame him for having her gassed.

Still pissed at Uncle Ned for backing into your Jaguar when he was drunk early in the morning on New Years Day, 1995? Get even with the bastard by making sure that his next treatment for the DT's earns him a nice lethal needle!

Legal euthanasia also offers a too-good-to-pass-up opportunity for not-so-loving next-of-kin to grab Daddy Warbucks' fortune sooner rather than later. While people do already kill elderly relatives for money, I see no reason to provide a legal avenue for such homicide.

Personally, I think the present situation has some real advantages, although I do not claim that it is perfect. Doctors can prescribe potentially lethal medications to patients with stern warnings about possibly fatal effects of failure to follow instructions. This enables doctors and many patients some ability to negotiate around this issue without requiring medical professionals to act directly as killers.

More direct involvement occurs, sometimes as a clearly criminal act and other times acceptably. There are regular news stories about doctors or nurses who consider themselves as "angels of mercy" who (apparently without ANY request from the patients involved) deliberately administer lethal doses; in such cases, it is probably useful for prosecution purposes to have a clear bright line "no euthanasia" standard when the case goes to trial. But in other cases, I think it is probably best to leave everything in the shadows: in one case, of which I was tangentially aware several years ago, a quite elderly patient with increasingly severe medical problems repeatedly expressed to me (and probably to several others) a desire to commit suicide; after a long period of slow deterioration, the patient finally became unable to remain at home and, in the course of moving to new someone else to whom I spoke) regarded as a likely case of assisted suicide, into which matter we were both completely disinclined to inquire further.

[Flying Dutchman]

9. Come on; see the light!

Living in the Netherlands (soft drugs tolerated; legal prostitution; gambling; abortion; excellent social security; no capital punishment; gay marriage; legal mercy killings; and so on), I have to tell you it ain't that bad!

In the Netherlands we 've got strong regulation for mercy killings; only terminal patients with strong pains who asked for it themselves, compared with the vision of at least two doctors, will get euthanasia! So if your uncle goes to the hospital, you can't order the doctors behind his back to put a toxic needle in him! You can only ask for it yourself (when you're not insane) and you have to be terminal ill. Also the doctors have no obligation to do it (for example when they feel a personal or religious objection).

B.t.w.: euthanasia is not formally allowed, but doctors who follow the strong regulations won't get sued.


U.S.A. claims freedom, but has still a long, long way to go to reach real personal freedom!!! (But in Holland also freedom is limited; guns and weapons are banned).

[NYC]

10. Welcome to DU, Flying Dutchman.

Greetings from Nieuw Amsterdam. :hi:

I favor having the option of euthanasia.

[struggle4progress]

16. In the context of the US health care system, in which doctors ...

... consistently fight against stronger regulation and favor instead an essentially toothless "self-policing" which consistently fails to take action in the cases of 100,000-200,000 Americans killed each year by medical mistakes, your proposal that we should copy the Netherlands scheme would play out as follows: anyone eager to bump off dear demented Mommy would simply shop around to find two doctors willing to diagnose a case of the terminal heebie-jeebies and willing to accept the offered translation of her mumblings as evidence of her begging for death.

Those who have the bad luck to end their days in an American nursing home, without funds, may get limited attention: regularly, patients are found malnourished, covered in their own waste, and suffering from decubitus ulcers and ratbites. In this context, non-profitable patients may not receive any care if "euthanizing" is an option. The problem, of course, is that the safety net is grossly underfunded and the industry is not carefully policed.

America may need to discuss euthanasia policy at some point. But in my view, other issues are much more pressing.

Meanwhile, as I stated in my earlier post, many patients of sound mind, who want to end their lives due to intractable pain, can probably, with the cooperation of their doctors, work out a solution involving their own deliberate misuse, contrary to medical advice, of legitimately prescribed medications.

[Flying Dutchman]

25. Oh no,

I didn't suggest to simply copy/paste the Dutch legislation. Only wanted to make a statement that the regulation is well thought, human and strict. It's all voluntary; nobody will force you to undergo euthanasia!
This despite some releases in the international press, which compared it to Nazism.

Of course the situation in US is different, but I only wanted to state that there are models in which you can regulate mercy killings in a rational and human way.

[PassingFair]

11. You seem to be missing the key word here...

Voluntary.

[PassingFair]

12. So glad you've got it all figured out!

My father died of Lou Gehrig's disease. He had a plan to end his misery, and at his signal, I would have done whatever I could to help him. He CHOSE to live until he could no longer breathe.
I would have admired him no less if he had chosen to leave a little earlier and spare himself such agony.
What's wrong with choice?
I understand that there are ethical problems if someone is not coherent, but in a clear cut case like my Dad's, his wishes should have been respected with no argument.

[struggle4progress]

17. I don't think you understood my final paragraph.

[mitchtv]

4. Dealing with hospital induced bankruptcy

investing in Medical hardware
long term care insurance
Insurance and homelessness for seniors

[zann725]

19. Yep! And here in U.S....Euthanasia reduces S.S. pay-outs to seniors

n/t

[FizzFuzz]

3. I never understood the vehement opposition to euthanasia

In spite of the slippery slope arguments against, I sure as hell would want to be able to end my life if I had some incurable, painful, vegetating disease or accident. Forcing people to suffer in the name some moralistic ideal seems like the most obvious wrong to me.

And I have great respect for Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

[w4rma]

5. I think it's fear that folks won't fight so hard to save lives and instead

will enact policies to "save costs" by giving folks the option (that may not really be an option, if you catch my drift) to submit to euthanasia.

Folks need to be VERY careful with this. It can easily be turned against regular people if we don't prevent those boundries from being stretched to that point.

Any euthenasia policy must be accompanied by *strong* and well-worded policy that protects folks from abuse of that option.

[mitchtv]

6. the republicans will stop fighting for the poor

by cutting medical care to indigents.then cry "murder"

[zann725]

20. Exactly. And in Senior Homes, when no one's looking...

"Murder,Inc."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. that's not how it works in Oregon

In Oregon, you can only request your own assisted suicide, not anyone elses. You have to be certified by three doctors as being six months away from death, and you have to be judged mentally competent.

No one can use it to legally bump off an ailing person who is "inconvenient."

If you pass these criteria, your doctor is allowed to prescribe a lethal dose of pills, which you then take home and use or don't use as you see fit. Many of the people who get the pills die of their illness before they revert to suicide.

[FizzFuzz]

7. sigh. It seems so wrong to force suffering people to remain trapped

in their body because evil ideologues/profiteers/insert-other-evil-here could and probably would abuse the law. One's body can inflict the most horrific suffering and linger for years--I would do anything I could to find a way not to become a hostage to that.

Well, shit, that's what legislative lawyers are for, careful wording.

[struggle4progress]

18. You could always refuse nutrition. You wouldn't linger for months. eom

[FizzFuzz]

22. that's true. brrr, scary. I'd really prefer something kinder and easier.

call me a wimp.

[struggle4progress]

23. I've known at least one person who did this under medical supervision.

That person had no appetite anyway, was already on pain medication, and continued to receive adequate hydration. To my knowledge, in that case, the decision not to eat produced no additional discomfort.

[FizzFuzz]

24. ohh! Thanks for the info!

not that I need it now, but it's getting put in a little mental file, for someday 50 years down the road ;)

Gee, I wonder, can med personnel refuse to offer supportive help like this? I'd imagine a smirkCo-loving health agency could refuse the hydration and pain meds.....??? Just running possible scenarios through my mind.

[davis_islander]

26. You shouldn't HAVE to refuse nutrition to die with dignity...

It is YOUR life and it is YOUR CHOICE when to end it. The religious establishment has no business in your life unless you invite them to. I never understood how we can let people linger in a hospital with unimaginable pain when a massive overdose of heroine would end their suffering immediately. Of course, the life insurance companies would not like this as it might prevent them from collecting a few more months premiums from the poor soul laying there rotting, not to mention the health care industry.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. The lawyer representing the Florida husband who wants to

remove his wife's feeding tube is ALSO a lawyer involved with businesses that provide hospice care (for-profit hospices) and are allied with the "Death With Dignity movement."

Things that make you go "Hmmmmmmmm. . ."

[daleo]

14. I was at a funeral last week, where the hospital had "induced a coma"

The patient had terminal cancer, and the pain was no longer controllable by opiates. The cancer had also went into the brain. I was told by the family that the doctors had induced a coma, with morphine I guess. He died a while later. I don't know how this differed from euthanasia - it seems like a semantic distinction to me. His suffering had become unbearable, so I certainly didn't think it was the wrong thing to do.

[arwalden]

15. This Is A Good Thing.