California officially has became the fourth state in the country to allow assisted suicide for the terminally ill and by far the largest in terms of population. The Golden State’s move revives a debate that seems at first to largely affect physicians, with some saying they support the legislation and others arguing that right-to-die laws force them to act against the Hippocratic Oath.
That’s the moral conundrum for doctors. But for patients suffering from terminal illnesses, changes in the law give them the opportunity to take back control and end their lives on their own terms and without burdening loved ones.
Death with dignity
In 2014, 29-year-old schoolteacher Brittany Maynard moved to Oregon so that she could legally end her life with dignity. She had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Maynard soon became the public face of the “death with dignity” movement in the United States, ending her life with legal barbiturates. Before her death, Maynard contacted Compassion & Choices, an end-of-life rights advocacy group, which helped promote a video she posted on YouTube. The video has been viewed more than 13 million times.
Last year, in a landmark victory for supporters of assisted suicide, the California State Legislature approved a bill to allow doctors to help terminally ill people end their lives. Four states — Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont — already allow physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to some patients.
As of this past Thursday, upon written request by the patient, California doctors can no longer be prosecuted for helping terminally ill patients die. However, patients must think through the decision and must make it voluntarily. In addition, patients must make numerous requests for the medication and have a prognosis of less than six months to live.
Not all doctors agree
In the states with assisted suicide laws, the number of people who request and take medication to assist death progressively has increased. But not all doctors agree with the legislation and some hospitals have not yet created policies for dealing with the law. No doctor, health system or pharmacy has to comply with a patient’s request, nor is a doctor obligated to refer you to another physician for life-ending medication.
A group of doctors who strongly oppose assisted suicide has gone to court to try to block the California law. The plaintiffs suing are five physicians from southern California and the American Academy of Medical Ethics (AAME), a Christian medical group with thousands of national members.
AAME’s subscribes to a reading of the ancient pledge taken by physicians, the Hippocratic Oath, which the group interprets as meaning that a “physician must respect all human life and must not intentionally take life (i.e. must not take the life of the unborn, must not perform euthanasia, must not provide assistance for suicide).” There are several versions of the Oath, including a common modern version that doesn’t mention taking life by advises against “playing God.”
According to a document obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Sang-Hoon Ahn, an oncologist in Los Angeles, believes assisted suicide leaves his patients “highly vulnerable to being easily influenced or coerced into making decisions that they really do not want.”
Meanwhile, Roman Catholic and other religious health systems will also not participate.
“We are crossing a line — from being a society that cares for those who are aging and sick to a society that kills those whose suffering we can no longer tolerate,” said José H. Gomez, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, in a statement to The New York Times.
Canada allows assisted suicide
In Canada the right to end your own life is legal and has been since suicide was removed from the Criminal Code in 1972. And on Feb. 6, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada removed the federal ban on assisted dying, and the decision came into force on June 6, 2016. Now, consenting Canadian adults with incurable, intolerable suffering are legally able to end their lives with the help of a physician.
Is it our right?
Maybe you live in a state where assisted suicide is legal — maybe you live in Canada. How do you feel about assisted suicide? While some may call it cowardly, others believe it’s a brave and selfless act.
I believe it’s the latter. But what do you think? Do you feel, as individuals, it’s within our rights to die with dignity?
—Katherine Marko
Everyone should have the right to die with dignity, at home with their loved ones, preferably. just as everyone also has the right to decline any unwanted treatment or medical or surgical intervention. Forcing any undesired medical or surgical treatment on another person is the worst form of physical assault.
Altogether too often a terminal patient gets entubated and put on life support. In most cases this is not life support, but torture for the patient who has lost all quality of life and unable to escape from being tortured by the so called life support.
My 93 year old dad died last week. He was able to die “with Dignity”……letting nature and God take the course. We tended to him for 10 beautiful days with night time help to let us rest and stay strong. We are all pro life and Dad had signed a directive saying that he preferred to go naturally with no medical interference except for morphine and anti-anxiety medicine. That is Death With Dignity. Those words’ meaning has been hijacked to mean euthanization. We have NO right to kill a suffering person. We are not God! That’s His business!
Turn the question around. Who should be able to force another to do what they don’t want to do?
I believe all types of suicide is a sin as a Christian.
Sorry as a Christian, Scripture says that is not an option. God is in control. “Thou shalt not kill” is absolute. Pertains to all including ourselves and those assisting. It is possibly to die at home with dignity. Life support is NOT required. Each of us has to make that decision and for those of us who have placed our lives in His Hands, it is not a choice we make. Non believers can do as they choose. Judging the decision others make, is not something we are to do. Again God is in control, HE looks on our hearts,
“Forever, Oh Lord, Thy Word is Settled in Heaven!”
Stop believing in the fairy in the sky. I know a brilliant woman with a PhD, who suffers with a brain disorder that leaves her very violent and she will be tied down the rest of her life. Delaware does not have a death with dignity law, therefore she has to plan her own suicide. Her plan is to save enough pills, and have her family leave the home..she will take the pills and then the family will call 911 to go to see whats happening as they can not reach her by phone…THAT IS horrible…she is under 60 and stands to live a normal lifetime…she doesn’t want to live tied to a bed, violent, erractic and not even know what she is doing. I am an elder care person who deals with life and death all the time. I have a patient with parkinsons, who daily asks for a gun…she has no life, she remembers nothing…her life is laying in a bed screaming with night terrors…three shifts a day to care for her…eating up all the hard earned money she saved…now she is running out. NO family, what the hell is she supposed to do…the last freedom we have is to be of sound mind and know that our condition at the end of life will be filled with pain and suffering.
YOU have no right to IMPOSE your fairy tales on the rest of humanity. You don’t like assisted suicide fine…but you don’t have the right to decide for the rest of humanity.
You Christians are like the fundamental muslims…YOU have been brainwashed and bamboozled by a book over 2000 yrs old, and written by MEN not by God in a time when 99.9% of the people couldn’t read or write. Its time to TAX the churches and end their propaganda imposed on the rest of humanity.
Absolutely…have been in the elder care field for 25 yrs…seen to much pain and suffering of human beings who have conditions most don’t even understand and yet they believe they have a right to overrule the rights of another….its mind boggling in the year 2016.
What I have always been afraid of is, if terminally ill, I save up pills and then do not have the mental capacity to take them.
Can’t you atheists come up with something better then the same old dead horse you folks keeping beating? You can’t disprove God but there is evidence of God out there in His Creation,in the Bible and in pure logic.
Amen Anne but as usual the atheists will continue to imply the same old illogical arguments that have been disapproved for centuries but their closed minds and hard hearts just can’t see the truth. May we pray that their eyes will finally be open before it’s too late.
Wow some people here are so hateful towards those who want to leave this world in peace and not in torment. If someone wants to end their life to make the inevitable more bearable, let them. According to some of your guys’ religious text and such, you can hate the sin not the sinner. Let them answer for their actions IF they are even punishable. Only your God determines judgment, not you. Get over yourselves, seriously. Leave your religious beliefs out of this. Afterall your God isn’t the one suffering from cancer or whatever.
How is committing suicide dying with dignity? The only person that dies with dignity even when God is allowed to take that person at His own appointed time, is the Christian because they go to be with the Lord eternally.
life support is not torture, it helps remove some of the stress.
No one has the “right” to choose the time and method of their death. God commands all to choose life, not death. He and He alone has the right to determine when and how a person dies. But many people think they know more than God.
Christians have the responsibility to spread the truth of God’s Word.
It is God that permits one to suffer and He has a purpose in it. His way is perfect He never makes a mistake.
We Christians haven’t been “bamboozled by a book…written by men…”
We have been indwelt permanently by the Sovereign God, who you will
soon have to give account to.
Anne, don’t be sorry. You don’t have to apologize for what you believe.
Since when are doctors ethical. Since when do they actually adhere to the Hypocratic Oath? They force their opinions on their patients whether their opinions carry any weight or not. I know of several cases where the doctor told a patient they only had six months to live…and twenty years later they were still alive after the doctor died. Never give up! Look for alternative methods to beat your disease. The truth is out there, you have only to look for it.
@spktruth200:disqus ….and you do? Do you have the right to impose YOUR fairy tales (something made up) on the rest of America (humanity included)? If you like assisted suicide, by all means do it…if you have the guts when your time approaches… but YOU don’t have the right to decide for us either. Live up to your name and speak truth.
When Jesus Christ was faced with a torturous humiliating death he set the example for all would-be Christians. Although he had no choice in the matter he faced it with dignity and honor. Terminal patients, however, often have options. Doctors are not all-knowing. In fact, just the opposite is true. it is surprising how little they know given a decade’s worth of training. Do your due diligence. Seek out the facts and learn. Ask for help. The truth will surprise you.
@spktruth200:disqus..have not your opinions and hate been formed from books written by men? How have we transitioned from “death with dignity” to “taxing churches”? Many over the centuries could still HEAR the Word of God when preached even if they could not read or write. What’s your excuse? You can read and write. Try reading, listening to the Word of God. There’s lots of great promises in there for you… even about how you can be free from anger and bitterness; which I think working with the elder generation in nursing homes and such has caused you this malady. Christians always have Hope…it is given to us by God. Hope is not wishing, it is believing in what God has assured us in our hearts. It gives us peace. Unfortunately, you have been around people who, maybe all their lives never gave God the rightful place in their lives. Now they are reaping what they sowed. When God calls you to repentance, you’d better answer…he may not be there when you need Him. Maybe it’s time to find another line of work…or you may end up like the ones you see suffering.
I love it when people like you decide what God commands and presupposes what God has determined how we should die. Did you ever think that maybe his will is that a person should no longer suffer and therefore allows him to end his life by his own will? What you’re saying is that God allows people to be hooked up to machinery to keep them alive so that they may suffer for some unknown reason. It’s ironic that you accuse others of thinking they know more than God when in fact that’s exactly what you’re doing.
For whom??? Certainly not for the patient on the ventilator, with no quality of life and unable to escape from the prolonged torture as they develop bed sores and other complications.
Many families cannot handle letting their loved ones die at home and altogether too often those poor patients are put on life support and their body’s kept breathing for a tortorous long time before they die. It would have been more humane and much kinder if they had let them go when God decided it was their time.
Fortunately your opinion doesn’t make one an atheist, my friend.
However many of us who also believe in a Supreme Being called God or Yahweh, do not believe that our souls go to the grave or a crematorium or purgatory until Gabriel toots his horn. Others know that the transition to the other side occurs when our soul departs our earthly body which dies because we don’t need it any longer. Death
in nothing to fear, my friend. Going home to a big family reunion is indeed a pleasant thought to many of us.
It is said that the cryptocracy of the planet Earth, the Illuminati, plan to reduce Earth’s population to five hundred million. What? Are THEY going to continue genociding genotypes, THEY don’t like, miserably and slowly by poverty and starvation, like the Nazis first killed Jews by malnutrition combined with hard labor in the concentration camps; and, the cryptocratic government in Romania today is killing mental patients, in its mental hospital gulags, by only feeding them cabbage and dopamine blockers? By the way, I recently had a young neighbor, and friend, who died of Parkenson’s disease caused by dopamine blockers that were forced on him for many years by court ordered and police enforced injections. This punishment was inflicted for attempted suicide. The Illuminati say they must reduce the world’s population to five hundred million, yet, THEY outlaw suicide, and even requested euthanasia. It is obvious,THEY just want to make people suffer. THEY are too stupid to know that their evil karma is on the way back to them by the inevitable closed circuitry of the one substance, energy, circulating in the one substance, energy. Pain is evil, relief is good, there is no other morality. Actions bring reaction that return with equal worth, there is no other justice.
So let’s think for a minute. Some people, whose hearts are “desperately wicked above all things” want to allow others to die peacefully without pain and end their unimaginable suffering but according to all the good Christians here, their God, who they say is love, wants exactly the opposite. He desires that these people suffer down to the last second of their lives. That even goes for His “chosen” ones, the ones who have to suffer right before they are whisked to heaven. They say it’s God who determines ALL life and death scenarios. He chooses to allow children all over the world to die of starvation, to be burned alive by weapons of mass destruction, to suffer with childhood cancers and other diseases that wreck their young bodies and minds. And why? “His ways are not like our ways”. Well, if that’s true, you have no way of knowing how to interpret anything in His book since His words aren’t like ours either and one of his ways may be to deal in trickery. So just how do we interpret “thou shalt not kill”? Did He mean “thou shalt not: murder (in cold blood), kill animals, wage war, use drone strikes, allow capital punishment (oh, forgive me, those last couple are OK cause He obviously contradicted Himself somewhere else in the Bible since you have another verse making that kind of killing good ), And what exactly did He mean here: NUMBERS 31:17-18 God commanded Moses to kill all of the male Midianite children and “kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.” ? If God tells you to kill it’s OK? I guess there’s the ticket people – if you want to help your loved one go peacefully from this world rather than suffer, just use the old, “God commanded me and I’m sure He has His reasons”. Who can then argue with that?
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
Letting your loved ones suffer is a funny way to show love. Even the Samaritan loved his enemy better. You people claim to love God, but you make Him out to be the worse kind of deity ever. I’m sure He appreciates the psychopath you make Him out to be.
Please don’t lump all Christians together spktruth200, not all Christians want to debate and as a christian, I believe our only job is to love, we don’t have to debate or take up arms, so to speak over subjects that divide the kingdom, I can still love my neighbor even if they have a different view besides the thing that frustrates me is that most Christians hide their judgement behind issues like this thinking that they are right because they think the Scriptures supports it, but in all actuality, it is just their sinful judgement on others. Anyone who judges another is only doing it because that person sins differently than they do. We all fall short and that is why God’s greatest commandment is to love thy neighbor because none one of us is fit to. Also, when is the last time anyone changed their mind because someone else was judging you with criticism, hate, disapproval, ect.? Me never, only way I ever change my mind is if someone shows me with love. Here is what I know is absolute….My job is to love, nothing else, it is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to be the judge. I know some Christians act like they can’t wait for the Holy Spirit to retire so they can apply for the job. I believe the Bible is 100% truth and infallible but man’s interpertation of the word is, our interpertation of the Bible is always changing for example Scriptures claim that if a man is to rape a woman that man must pay the woman’s family and the woman then marries her rapist. We would never say a woman who won’t marry her rapist isn’t following Scripture because our interpertation has changed. I just think it is sad and I blame Christians that hurting people feel more love and acceptance on a bar stool then they do a church pew. My God is bigger than this issue and I don’t think He would want ME deciding for others or making it a divisive issue from my fellow brothers and sisters all of humankind. In closing spktruth200 not all Christians are the same, some of us just want to love people who are terminally ill and pray that they have the strength to make the right choice for them, which ever one that may be for them..
If God is so perfect, why do people commit suicide because life became too much? Why do all these atrocities happen if God is so perfect? If it’s God’s work to let ppl suffer, should we just allow ppl who got injured suffer and not treat them in the name of God like Mother Theresa did to her patients? Silly…
much abuse has been documented in the Oregon assisted suicide system.
See the federal case of Thomas Middleton who was killed with the Oregon law for his assets according to the feds.
There are more details at http://dredf DOT org/public-policy/assisted-suicide/some-oregon-assisted-suicide-abuses-and-complications/
Opposition to euthanasia comes from 95% of the entire spectrum of humanity once they learn how these laws can easily be administered wrongly against the individual. It is as simple as that.
Correction please:
Your source has done you a disservice. The promoters of assisted suicide have worn out their thesaurus attempting to imply that it is legal in Montana. Assisted suicide is a homicide in Montana. Our MT Supreme Court did ruled that if a doctor is charged with a homicide they might have a potential defense based on consent. They acknowledged it is a homicide in the ruling.
The Court did not address civil liabilities and they vacated the lower court’s claim that it was a constitutional right. Unlike Oregon no one in Montana has immunity from civil or criminal prosecution and investigations are not prohibited like Oregon. Does that sound legal to you?
Perhaps the promotors are frustrated that even though they were the largest lobbying spender in Montana their Oregon model legalizing assisted suicide bills have been rejected in Montana in 2011, 2013 and 2015.
Your source have also done the public a disservice. Their ordinary bait and switch campaign is demonstrated by their selling “must self-administer” then they do not provide in their legislation for an ordinary witness of the “self-administration”. This omission eviscerates the flaunted safeguards putting the entire population at risk of exploitation.
Respectfully submitted,
Bradley Williams
President
Mtaas dot org
PS: Note much abuse has been documented in the Oregon assisted suicide system.
See the federal case of Thomas Middleton who was killed with the Oregon law for his assets according to the feds.
There are more details at http://dredf DOT org/public-policy/assisted-suicide/some-oregon-assisted-suicide-abuses-and-complications/
Opposition to euthanasia comes from the entire spectrum of humanity once they learn how these laws can easily be administered wrongly against the individual. It is as simple as that.
I am sure your dad appreciated that his family loved him enough to let him go with dignity and grace, with his loved ones surrounding him. I know you miss him, but hope you find comfort in knowing that only his earthly body died and his higher self or soul crossed over at the moment of death, to our real home. Rest assured he is keeping check on his loved ones from the other side, but not worrying about you because he now knows what your future in our real home will be like.
James, you might give some thought to the emotions or thoughts behind a suicide. In this world where altogether too often, orthodox medicine fears cures being done by alternative doctors, so they go to court to make the patient a ward of the court and force the patient to undergo orthodox protocol of slash, burn and poison (radiation, chemo, surgery) which usually destroys the patients quality of life, often kills the patient before the cancer has a chance to, and seldom or never cures. These same doctors usually decline the same protocol they prescribe if they develop cancer their self. Recall reading online about an elderly man who declined a recommended surgical procedure and some idiot called the police to persuade him to undergo the doctor’s recommendation. The elderly man died from internal injuries, suffered from being hit with a bag of lead pellets, shot by a policeman who alleged he was threatened by a wheel chair bound elderly male who was in his own home. The elderly man died the day after the policeman’s visit. One wonders why the ambulatory policeman did not apologize to the man and respectfully retreat from his home, leaving in peace and dignity, and more importantly leaving the man living with his decision to live out his life without any surgical intervention – and leaving his departure from Planet Earth up to the man and his Creator instead of hastening the poor fellows demise with a more painful death by acting far outside any authority granted him by God or the Constitution.
He should never have interfered with the man’s decision to begin with. His action was totally outside any humane activity.
Many of us have contemplated suicide at one time or another, usually when faced with poor health. Don’t you think that our Creator will look at the thought behind a suicide? When done by someone as an ultimate act of making someone else feel sorry, that in my opinion is wrong. My opinion changes when the emotion behind it is a desire to escape a never ending pain, or a future of dementia, and leaving their loved ones financially destitute from the drain of medicines and medical treatment bills. Recently read that most people fall into bankruptcy and often into being homeless and living on the street because of overwhelming medical bills.
Americans spend more on medicines, medical insurance (since Obamacare came into being) and doctor and hospital bills than any other nation, yet our medical care leaves much to be desired and our infant mortality rate is higher than most other countries. Worst of all our CDC, FDA, USDA seems to be working with Satan to destroy our health instead of working to improve it.
Most of what the orthodox medical field calls disease is not a disease but symptoms of vitamin, minerals, and nutritional deficiencies and if the deficiencies are corrected by changing our eating habits, our bodies usually return to a normal state of health. Classic example of this is being diagnosed with a sluggish or hypothyroid problem, most doctors hasten to write a prescription for a synthetic version of thyroid hormones, instead of taking time to discuss their dietary habits and working to include more iodine, more magnesium and more of the B complex vitamins to correct the deficiency. We can’t expect our gasoline autos to run on water, no more than we can expect our bodies to function properly on junk foods for fuel.
Yea Rah! Someone paid attention to the part of that book that says our bodies are the temple of God and its only possible interpretation is that little spark of energy or soul that departs the dead body to go to our real home immediately has to be that little piece of our Creator that has been dwelling inside that temple with us all the time, whether we knew it or not.
For those having trouble with this, keep in mind the woman who said her favorite verse of the Bible was “And this too shall pass” because it always helped her make it through tough times. The same thought must have been in the pastor’s mind, when he said “Tough times never last, but tough people do”.
It also helps one faced with tough times to learn to ask themselves:
“What the H…. am I supposed to learn from this?” because that is the purpose of those tough times. It is not a punishment, but a lesson for something we need to know. It is truly LEARNING by EXPERIENCE which some people call the school of hard knocks.
The answer to your turned around question is NO ONE, because we were created with FREE WILL and it is up to us whether we use that free will for the good of ourselves and mankind or use it as the one world global government, aka the new world order elitists and their puppets are using it today, to create chaos and destruction in order to gain control of all the wealth, resources and power on Planet Earth.
I really DON’T THINK assisted Suicide is the right Decision!You DID NOT CREATE Yourself,GOD created You,SO HE IS THE ONE TO SAY WHEN YOUR LIFE ENDS!!!
BTW,THERE IS NOTHING LIKE TERMINAL ILLNESS–EVERY ILLNESS CAN BE TREATED BY ADJUSTING YOUR FOOD AND LIFESTYLE,SO JACK UP,AND BEAT ANY ILLNESS!
I had CANCER few Months ago.Thanks to THE TRUTH ABOUT CANCER and THE FOOD REVOLUTION I AM CANCER-FREE NOW!I only adjusted MY LIFESTYLE,AND PRAYED MORE TO GOD!!!
AND THAT WAS THE END OF THE CANCER!!!!!