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If an individual feels that their quality of life
is unacceptable should they be allowed to end it?
No, I largely agree with the Disability
Rights Commission's view.
"The DRC is committed to the principle of autonomy for disabled
people. Individual disabled people should therefore, be able
to make autonomous choices, in the same way as non-disabled people,
including potentially choosing the manner and time of their death.
The DRC therefore does not oppose, in principle, legalisation
of euthanasia for competent adults who freely choose it.
However, we believe that in the current climate of discrimination against disabled people, where a lack of access to palliative care and social support means that free choice does not really exist, the threat to the lives of disabled people posed by such legislation is real and significant. We, therefore, cannot currently support legalisation of euthanasia." from the Disability Rights Commission's Policy statement on voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide.
This is a very well balanced piece of work,
well worth a read even if you don't agree when you've finished!
Web
address
Can
extreme pain, indignity and despair be overcome?
Yes if our systems are improved. Overcoming Pain | Indignity | Despair Despair
Overcoming
Pain
At least 95% of pain is manageable and
Palliative Care is getting better at dealing with it all the
time. Tests on Diamorphine have shown that if the dosage is increased
gradually the body is able to cope with the problems it causes
with breathing. So instead of being the hastener of death that
it is often supposed to be it is a very effective pain reliever
if it is managed properly. It is now also possible to use differing
levels of anaesthesia to overcome periods of extreme pain.
http://www.globalchange.com/painreli.htm
Overcoming
Indignity
The line between dignity and indignity is very subjective. To some, shared same sex washing facilities in boarding schools and youth hostels would be too much yet most people get over that if they have to.
I did a radio interview and answered callers questions in Stoke on Trent and one caller said that if she could no longer feed, wash or toilet herself she would want to die. My answer was that if she was given the correct level of care she would be able to say what she wanted done when and how. She would therefore be able to stay in control of her life. Although I am aware that doesn't totally answer the question, I believe that if the rest of life is good, has a purpose and the means to fulfil that purpose, indignity alone is not enough to die for.
Overcoming
Despair Despair
is again to do with the lack of a viable future, loss of a fulfilling role to play and loss of autonomy. I know because I have been there. In the darkest days, when life was so difficult because my ability was going down and all the future held was the prospect of getting worse, I really did want to end it. I was actively looking for a way that wouldn't effect anyone more than I had to. But even when life was that bad I knew I actually didn't want to die and half of me was in mourning for myself.
When the bottom falls out of your world like that, you need help to rebuild your life. My wish for death was very much a cry for help, which I did get. They increased my care, adapted our home and gave me some counselling although without my husband's repeated intervention I would have been given Prozac and much less of everything else. Most of what was on offer was for my physical well being, very very little was spent helping me get more out of life and continue to contribute to those around me which was what I needed for my life to have a worth.
If euthanasia was carefully regulated and
controlled would it be acceptable?
No. It has proved impossible for regulations to be followed
for long. Everywhere that has made it legal has gone further
down the slippery slope than the legislators intended.
Swiss case law made it legal in the 1930s.
According to the Dignitas welcome pack it was meant for people
who were not only terminally ill but who were diagnosed with
no more than three weeks to live. But anyone can die who asks
for it whether their illnesses are treatable or not, like the
couple from Leighton Buzzard who died in Zurich. They only had
moderate Arthritis and Manic Depression. The only thing that
is rigidly enforced is that no one involved is allowed to make
money out of assisting someone to die
Research in the Netherlands, where voluntary euthanasia was legalised
more recently, has shown that 20% of assisted deaths there were
not voluntary. They were either carried out without the patient's
consent or actually against their wishes.
I suspect that once killing is legal, whatever conditions are attached, the sacrosanct ness of life is irreparably damaged somewhere deep in the human psyche.
What
is the effect of assisted suicide on those that assist?
I have read somewhere that research has shown that those who have assisted a suicide are at risk of committing suicide themselves later because of it. Here I believe the Voluntary Euthanasia Society has produced research that shows that the incidence is as high as 50%. They claim it happens because assisted suicide isn't legal in the UK. In the Netherlands where assisted suicide is legal they have had to limit the number of suicides a doctor is allowed to preside over purely because of the affect it has on their mental health. I cannot remember where these statistics were quoted if anyone knows please let me know.
Can
euthanasia be carefully regulated and controlled by legalisation?
No. Although careful regulation is the watchword of those wanting to legalise euthanasia I cannot see how any regulation can be careful enough. When disabled people do not have the same rights as the majority of the population and are regarded as suffering specimens of humanity who ought to be able to die when they want to. Suicide is not condoned for any other member of the population but if you are ill or disabled it is suddenly all right.
Is
euthanasia acceptable if a person makes their wishes known beforehand?
Living Wills or Advanced Directives are
regarded as insurance policies against pain, indignity and despair
and/or a way of maintaining autonomy in those situations. Yet
most people don't know what they are going to feel like if something
like a severe illness or disability happens to them. If they
do have their wishes written out and what they fear does happen
very often their minds change. It is OK for them to change their
minds if their verbal wishes are given the same legality as those
they wrote down in front of a Solicitor or witnesses but I have
yet to see legally watertight procedures that guarantee everyone's
rights if there is a change of mind.
SEE can extreme pain, indignity and despair be overcome? to see
why Living Wills or Advanced Directives aren't needed
Also the situations that Living Wills
or Advanced Directives are supposed to deal with are so multifaceted
that they cannot hope to deal with every possible permutation
that might arise. This means that they have to be written in
such general terms that they are full of legal holes and are
ripe for misinterpretation and abuse.
Is it the western
world's taboo on the subject of death and dying that causes so
many problems?
Partly, we Westerners are bad at dealing with death but the fact that we seem to be supposed to prefer death to severe sickness and disability suggests that we are even worse at dealing with those. Yes everyone is going to die; we have therefore got to make the best of what is always a very short and precious life. We cannot make everyone well or able but we could do a lot more to make life viable for people who have an illness or disability.
How
can we make life viable for people who have an illness or disability?
By concentrating on their mental wellbeing to the same level as we meet their physical needs in or out of hospital.
What
is euthanasia?
Euthanasia literally means "good death". It came into use in the seventeenth century, meaning 'dying well and happily, being prepared for death in the most positive sense of the word. Later its meaning changed and it came to have overtones of 'putting someone to death before their natural end.
Currently it is defined by the Brainy Dictionary as 'An easy death; a mode of dying to be desired.'
What
is the official position on euthanasia?
See Department of Health letter
What
is euthanasia by the back door?
When euthanasia is practised without the law explicitly allowing it as in the UK post the Tony Bland case.
How
is euthanasia practised in the UK?
Even though it is prohibited by law for doctors to kill, it is currently acceptable for Doctors to use Do Not Resuscitate notices. They can also implement The Withholding and Withdrawing Medical Treatment [including sustenance] Guidelines on anyone who they regard such 'treatment' as being over-burdensome or for patients they regard as having a life not worth prolonging. Doctors can also over proscribe morphine to deliberately hasten death but claim it is treating increased pain.
Why
do Doctors let people die early?
How
Does Society normally deal with Suicide?
See That Kind of Assistance is Not Required
Why
don't we help people end their lives early?
See That Kind of Assistance is Not Required
What
changes when the person wanting to die is severely disabled?
See That Kind of Assistance is Not Required
What
is a disabled person's life worth?
See That Kind of Assistance is Not Required
Is
it all right for a civilised humane society to want to relieve
suffering through death?
No. The supporters of voluntary euthanasia often equate sick and disabled people with animals by saying "they wouldn't let an animal live like that so a human shouldn't have to either." But humans don't have the limitations of animals. Even though humans allegedly feel pain more than animals they can communicate thoughts and feelings, mentally share in another's life and use lots of different art forms to create extensions of themselves that could survive long after their life has ended.
Humans are worth far more than animals.