Terminal options for the irreversibly ill
Outside the law - as if lawmakers
cared.
International Herald Tribune, by Jane E.
Brody
My Feb. 5 column, “A Heartfelt Appeal for a Graceful Exit,” prompted a deluge of information and requests for information on how people too sick to reap meaningful pleasure from life might be able to control their death.
Many seeking such control are take-charge people who consider quality of life more important than quantity. They do not want their hard-earned money squandered on costly, yet hopeless, treatments. They do not want to keep their bodies alive when their minds have died. They do not want to die under circumstances they consider inhumane, hooked up to all sorts of medical apparatus, unable to control bodily functions or to communicate with loved ones.
The desire to hasten death is not uncommon among the terminally ill. In a 1995 study of 200 such patients, 44 percent occasionally wished for death soon, although only 9 percent expressed “a serious and pervasive wish to die…”
When mentally competent, terminally ill and suffering patients are certain about their desire to hasten death and their families are not opposed, the route often suggested is to stop eating and drinking, both naturally and artificially. There are no legal or moral obstacles to this route, which most often results in a peaceful death within two weeks. It also gives patients an unrushed opportunity to say their goodbyes or to change their minds about dying before it is too late.
Detailed, thoughtful article. There are two organizations referenced: Compassion & Choices and Final Exit Network
My Feb. 5 column, “A Heartfelt Appeal for a Graceful Exit,” prompted a deluge of information and requests for information on how people too sick to reap meaningful pleasure from life might be able to control their death.
Many seeking such control are take-charge people who consider quality of life more important than quantity. They do not want their hard-earned money squandered on costly, yet hopeless, treatments. They do not want to keep their bodies alive when their minds have died. They do not want to die under circumstances they consider inhumane, hooked up to all sorts of medical apparatus, unable to control bodily functions or to communicate with loved ones.
The desire to hasten death is not uncommon among the terminally ill. In a 1995 study of 200 such patients, 44 percent occasionally wished for death soon, although only 9 percent expressed “a serious and pervasive wish to die…”
When mentally competent, terminally ill and suffering patients are certain about their desire to hasten death and their families are not opposed, the route often suggested is to stop eating and drinking, both naturally and artificially. There are no legal or moral obstacles to this route, which most often results in a peaceful death within two weeks. It also gives patients an unrushed opportunity to say their goodbyes or to change their minds about dying before it is too late.
Detailed, thoughtful article. There are two organizations referenced: Compassion & Choices and Final Exit Network
Posted: Thu - March 20, 2008 at 10:31 AM