Weekend Poll: Death with Dignity?

In exceptional circumstances, I would be able to justify physician-assisted suicide. I think it is compassionate, even empowering, to allow someone facing an extended terminal illness or degenerative condition some control over how and when they choose to exit their mortal existence.

In a former ward, I knew a man who’s wife was in the advanced stages of MS, to the point where she was incapable of moving, speaking, eating, or any form of bodily control–basically a vegetable. She was kept alive for many years in misery and indignity only due to aggressive medical intervention, and always at the behest of the husband. After she passed away, it was discovered that she had signed a DNR years before, which he had conveniently ignored (apparently, in some states a spouse can legally override a DNR order).

The Church has made official statements of disapproval of physician-assisted suicide. If that case, if a terminally ill member makes plans to legally end his own life, and reveals those plans to his bishop with no intention of changing them, would the member then be subject to church discipline?

In Australia we have had a patchy history with such laws. The Northern Territory had laws similar for a short time, however the Federal government had them repealed. There is significant community push for laws like this to come back.

For me, euthanasia laws are just an attempt to shift the line on the continuum of life and death a little more towards life. In certain circumstances that line moves anyhow – like in final stage cancer treatment. I support the movement of that line, in some circumstances, away from the inevitability of death towards a more controlled departure from this life. I see little value in the unnecessary and arbitrary prolonging of life where doing so only allows for the person to live in a vegetative state or whose prognosis is such that imminent death is likely.

The difficulty in such laws is that most people express different levels of uncomfortability as the line moves towards a more liberalised decision.

In any case, I think that positions at either end of this debate are not overly helpful – medical intervention at ANY cost one one end of the scale, and then very liberal attempts to allow many individuals to end their life in a variety of circumstances at the other. The question is where to draw the line????

I think there might be a lot of room for interpretation as to what constitutes the “assist” in physician-assisted suicide, and there’s the rub. I do, however, oppose laws which prevent people from harming themselves simply because someone else (the LDS Church, for example) thinks it’s immoral. Even if they’re right. Which of course means that I don’t believe that the law of God should be the law of the land. “It is not meet” that He should command in all things; we’re supposed to exercise our agency to bring to pass much righteousness. To me, that means without being compelled by some busybody in the Legislature.

If the Savior knew that his earthly mission was completed, and he had the power to lay down his life, and he did so, is that not, in effect, suicide?

We can do a lot in medicine now. The fear and uncertainty surrounding death make otherwise rational people do the most bizarre, and, frankly, sickening things. I have heard my fair share of “moral outrage” against people deciding their life was no longer worth living and desperately seeking for someone to help them end it because their suffering was so terrible. Many times these patients quite literally cry out in pain and anguish for release. There are fates that, in my opinion, are far worse than death, and I would be lying if I said I don’t judge harshly the family members who put a patient into one of those fates. Instead of allowing a natural death they extend out their “loved” one’s suffering for years, sometimes even decades. Due to their own fear of loss and inability to let go they will force a sick family member into a tortuous existence against their will. It is heartbreaking. Especially for me as I work in pediatrics. I have seen some despicable, self-serving decisions made by parents. On the flip side, the most heroic events I have ever witnessed in medicine are when parents let their children die a natural death, refusing to prolong their suffering. It is easy to forget that death is not the end and allow yourself to be swallowed whole by fear.

I think that if I were of sound mind, in terrible pain, had no chance of recovery, and had prayerfully considered my options and concluded that the only thing left to me in mortality was suffering and death – and I had it within my power to shorten that suffering, to “lay down my life” – I would wish the option to do so. My mission would be done at that point. It would appear that Brittany Maynard has reached that point.

I’m a responsible free agent with a sound understanding of the gospel, certain comments notwithstanding. 🙂 I would not fear to face my Father under those circumstances.

In this discussion, it’s helpful to consider that most doctors don’t want heroic measures taken at the end. They’ve seen what prolonging life in sickness looks like and they don’t want it. They just want pain relief on the way out.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/262588-bitter-end/

But if there is no relief from the pain, I’m for letting people choose when to end it and allowing their doctor to help if the patient is unable to self-administer the last treatment (as long as it is abundantly clear that’s what the patient wants).

When you get to my age dying has been witnessed many times—infants, little ones, teens, adults, sudden in car crashes, strokes, etc., or very pro-longed such as cancer, ALS, Alzheimer’s, etc. Even at this writing a dear friend has been dying from breast cancer gone to her brain for 2 years. These past three months have been torture. Her body cages her in a hideous realm of lost bodily functions that cause painful, painful rashes and infections on top of her unbearable head pain, bone pain, and acid reflux. She can no longer speak, and is now almost unable to swallow. She cannot talk. She has breakthrough seizures. Her gut-wrenching moans of pain lay my heart upon the ground. She is, and has always been a righteous, faithful person. Her suffering is of no value to her, nor any who serve her. She was given a priesthood blessing of healing and almost immediately went straight downhill, leaving everyone puzzled at the Matthew-Cowley-type-faith, fasts, and prayers that have not borne fruit. She is given morphine until she’s unconscious for awhile, but the moaning still comes. As seconds feel like hours, and hours feel like days, we all ask why?—why can’t she go home?

Yet, we have the power to end her suffering. She has begged us to do so with her eyes many, many times. We think we are doing the right thing as we wipe her lips and brow, but in my heart I know we have been cruel.

When our pets are ill and dying, we put them mercifully out of their misery. But humans are given no such mercy. We say it’s up to the Lord—it’s His call. Yet we treat a dog with more Christlike compassion than a child of God. Some say we don’t choose when we’re born nor when we die. But I’ve heard little children tell how they weren’t ready to be born so they waited for another pregnancy–the mother having miscarried before. I believe we do choose when we are born, and I believe it’s holy to prayerfully choose when we die when we have that opportunity.

And may our loved ones and God forgive us for NOT heeding the pleas for mercy of those who suffer because we abdicate everything and put it on God’s shoulders instead of stepping up to the plate of seeking the spirit to be God’s hands of mercy–even in death. Letting a loved go home takes courage and is unselfish. It is loving. If they desire an overdose of morphine to slip quietly away, let us give a faithful doctor the legal power to do as we do for our beloved pets and mercifully let our loved be free.

Late last night I learned a missionary companion who has been fighting brain cancer for 2.5 years, was told that there are no more treatment options, and has been placed on hospice care.

He has been fighting hard this whole time, and I think he doesn’t want to give up the fight. I don’t know what measures he plans to take, but I wouldn’t begrudge him one bit if he moved to Oregon to follow Brittany’s example. We are all going to die. I know his family will miss him. I miss my sister who died of a brain tumor 17 years ago. But there is no reason to continue the suffering.

brjones,

That seems to oversimplify the problem a little. I think there is wisdom in not allowing life-ending therapy on demand. Do we really want to make it that easy for the 23 year old male to end his life after he gets dumped by his girlfriend and can’t imagine how to live without her? Would it be better for a middle aged woman to have her life ended rather than leave her abusive husband?

Restricting the option of life ending therapy to individuals who are facing life ending circumstances already seems like a wise restriction.

#17 and #18, Benjamin and brjones, approach tangentially but miss by a gnat’s whisker one of the key points of this exchange: the difference between legal interference in an individual’s right to take his own life (regardless of our opinion of the moral dimensions of that decision), and the legal permission to medically assist a person in implementing that decision. About the first, I have no doubts. About the second, I have deep reservations, and I think the grey areas make it very, very hard to write law on the issue.

One more area in which governments, as usual, would do best to stay out. That should probably be the default choice.

20 and 21, does the government need to get involved and change the law so that someone is not charged with an offence, for helping, supplying the pill or whatever?

I think, and my wife agrees, that once you loose your dignity in order to continue living, your standard of living is departing. What is the point of living if you have no longer capable of living life, just existing.

I am hoping that by the time I get to that point I can just take a pill and end it.

MH, I’m so sorry. I hope he passed peacefully.

When I read your #24 this morning, I wonder if those poll results reflect the makeup of this blog’s readership, or if they in some way reflect the fact that Mormons, by virtue of the service work and VT/HT networks we’re tied up in, may have slightly more experience with death and dying than your average American. It’s easy to pontificate in black and white terms about the moral dimensions of policy when you’ve not actually spent time at a dying person’s bedside, and with their family. That does tend to add some nuance to your view.

I’m uncomfortable with questions that ask us to judge the actions of some unfortunate soul like Ms. Maynard – she didn’t want unnecessary interventions in her decision about her life that was coming to an early and likely painful and degrading end. I don’t really support ‘assisted’ suicide but certainly there is a natural right to go out with dignity as one sees it. To be compelled to ‘tough it out’ for the sake of being a medical experiment, or to be ‘heroic’..I can’t imagine a greater tyranny.

Our prayers ought to be with her (now departed, so on her behalf, of course) her surviving husband and family. Rather than pontificate about judging her decision, be supportive of they that had to suffer.

BTW, on something VAGUELY related, I broke my usual stance about helping out street beggars and gave some bucks to a 70ish fellow…I don’t support grifting, but typically someone with a missing leg isn’t ‘faking’ it (he was doing the gratuitous ‘clean your windshield’ game hobbling on crutches and the one remaining leg, a truly forlorn sight). Realistically, the man needs further help than my spare change, and there’s got to be a better way that begging in the street for him.

Likewise let’s look with compassion towards those that face an imminent and likely painful end, along with their families, and worry more about what to do for them now, not whether they’re ‘sinning’ by wanting to check out.