Ross Douthat’s feelings about euthanasia are similar his take on the vagina: it’s icky, messy and not to be considered in polite company.
[…] We are all dying, day by day: do the terminally ill really occupy a completely different moral category from the rest? A cancer patient’s suffering isn’t necessarily more unbearable than the more indefinite agony of someone living with multiple sclerosis or quadriplegia or manic depression. And not every unbearable agony is medical: if a man losing a battle with Parkinson’s disease can claim the relief of physician-assisted suicide, then why not a devastated widower, or a parent who has lost her only child?This isn’t a hypothetical slippery slope. Jack Kevorkian spent his career putting this dark, expansive logic into practice. He didn’t just provide death to the dying; he helped anyone whose suffering seemed sufficient to warrant his deadly assistance. When The Detroit Free Press investigated his “practice” in 1997, it found that 60 percent of those he assisted weren’t actually terminally ill. In several cases, autopsies revealed “no anatomical evidence of disease.”
Kevin Drum makes all the obvious arguments against this weak slippery slope, but I want to go a bit farther. Why is it any of the government’s concern that people in all sorts of pain want to die? As long as all the reasonable safeguards are in place (checks for treatable depression, sufficient painkillers, etc), why is it grossly unpalatable that they are assisted in their journey from this vale of woe by a compassionate care provider? Is it so much better that they gargle some lead from a shotgun, walk in front of a bus or have a sketchy one-car accident? Because that’s what they’re doing in this messy, icky world of ours, despite the disapproval of scolds like Douthat.
DBrown
Because the church says its evil – QED. We all know that this is a christian country so get with the flow and force christian values down everyone’s throats.
OzoneR
Well clearly dying people should be forced to bear pain and suffering while attached to machines that keep them alive, just as God intended, so that their families don’t have to face the horror of letting go just yet.
That’s the
ChristianAmerican way!Freddie
Well done sir.
ericblair
Funny how all the conservative bromides against Big Gummint and for states’ rights go out the window the minute it’s a law they don’t like.
mac
Because it makes the baby Bobo cry.
WereBear
Because Douthat is miserable we all should be?
RalfW
I’d have to agree, mistermix. Before even reading your last paragraph, I was thinking it: people commit suicide now in awful ways that traumatize their loved ones, so a blanket prohibition against suicide doesn’t work, and has serious repercussions of it’s own.
The only slippery slope I worry about is that mental health care is treated as a cost to be minimized as much as possible, so treating manageable depression sounds right, but is far from guaranteed in our shitty private insurance world.
JPL
Anyone know Douthat’s opinion on Terry Schiavo? Man made devices are okay to keep people alive but man is not allowed to assist in letting someone to die with dignity.
alwhite
Because we would need the safeguards in place, as you pointed out. That would mean no safeguards for poor people unless they had health care & those looters do not deserve health care. The suffering will purify them.
BTW – someone tell D’ohhat that it is “bi-polar disorder” not manic depression
Tata
The editorial makes zero sense if you believe individuals have or should have bodily autonomy. By the end, he’s reduced to insulting holders of the belief that anyone’s medical care is no one else’s business, which is exactly why he opposes abortion and contraception.
No common ground to find there for me and his is not a persuasive argument.
gypsy howell
It’s Ross Douthat, mm. People not named Ross Douthat are supposed to suffer in unspeakable ways. His god wants it that way.
nitpicker
Personal freedom only applies to rich people’s pocketbooks. You know that.
Capri
I see a big slippery slope.
If assisted suicide were legal and common place, how would one differentiate the person who assists in someone’s suicide from someone who commits murder? Let’s say I know I stand to inherit a large sum of money from my mother. She’s getting on in years, is starting to fade and isn’t quite as sharp mentally as she once was. Furthermore she will need expensive assisted living shortly.
If she “commits suicide” with my help – i.e. I place her I.V. catheter and hang the bottle of KCl/sedative/succinylcholine. And give her several valium to ease the anxiety. Could I get off if I make it clear that she told me she didn’t want to go on living? Even if she never said anything like that to anyone else?
Wonder if her wishes are to not be kept alive by artificial means and does not want to be kept in a vegetative state. Should I “help” her kill herself (as in doing it all myself) when she’s no longer aware of her surroundings?
There’s nothing clear about end of life care, decisions can be difficult. Separating family members that are trying to carry out their loved ones wishes from ones who are trying to preserve as much of the inheritance as they can isn’t something I’d want to throw into that mix.
lacp
Maybe he buys into that Mother Teresa bullshit that suffering is good for you.
RosiesDad
@RalfW:
I’m not sure how you define “manageable depression;” in the past five years I had a close friend and a cousin with whom I was very close both take their own lives while mired in severe depression. Their depression might have been manageable had they been willing to continue their medications and their therapy but neither did.
That said, as a practicing veterinarian, we use the medical tool of humane euthanasia to prevent and relieve suffering on a near-daily basis. And I cannot count the many times over the past 20 years one of my clients has said, at the end of a peaceful euthanasia, “We are kinder to our pets than we are to people.”
PurpleGirl
@JPL: I used the Google and found cites for other people mentioning a Ross Douthat column on Terri Schiavo (from 2005). But when going to that link, for The American Scene, the page is empty. I did find a Jane Galt posting about the Douthat column which has a paragraph from the Douthat original. You can see that here:
http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005216.html
I will let you all discover for yourselves Douthat on Schiavo.
me
If there is any karma he’ll live the last of his days in agonizing pain due to some debilitating disease.
cathyx
The answer never occurred to me until just now. There’s a lot of money involved in keeping a person alive. That’s the answer to everything the government does that doesn’t make sense.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Using every medical technique to prolong someone’s pain and misery isn’t a slippery slope?
GVG
Because it is too darned easy to see scenario’s where what is really going on is murder. The “assister’s” could be lying. they could be manipulating instead of helping. It would take a lot of work and money to put in place a systems of checks and balance’s that would not be rather easily abused in horrible ways.
Now, in theory I really don’t think we should be preventing people’s personal choices from including suicide. In practice….I can’t imagine how to do it right. People who have real, sure to die medical conditions verified by at least 2 different reputable sources (in case of test mix ups) are something that can be checked on and monitored. the rest are really not.
Also I think there is a lot of evidence that most suicide “attempts” are intended to fail and are cry’s for attention, so making them more effective and easy actually misses their point. Suicidal people seem to change their minds, go through stages and all a lot, so it would be a waste to encourage them to die. Better mental health more available is definately indicated.
Villago Delenda Est
@Capri:
It all boils down to the dirty money, every single fucking time. Who gets the money? The “care provider” who profits from the suffering of others? The family members who want to preserve that wealth for the living…be that for positive or negative purposes? Do we want to start horning in on people’s individual decisions based on our own internal moral compass? Douchehat obviously wants to impose his personal morality on everyone…which is where the problem always lies with asshats like Douchhat. He can run his own life however he sees fit, but that is not enough for him. The asshole thinks he knows better about your life than you do.
Linda Featheringill
I never was sure about the prohibition against speaking ill of the dead but I sure do think you shouldn’t harass the dying.
In the backwoods I grew up in, such behavior was considered bad luck. In the more sophisticated world, it’s called karma. At any rate, it is a sure way to attract bad juju.
Jack Kevorkian probably wasn’t a saint and undoubtedly wasn’t perfect. He was just a guy with some compassion. Mr. Douthat isn’t perfect either and seldom shows much compassion at all.
If you’re into transmigration of souls, you can hope that he will come back as a cockroach.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
I’d love to hear Douchehat’s thoughts (for lack of a better word) on hospice care.
I don’t know, who the fuck cares what other people do? Seriously, who sits around worrying people might kill themselves? Or if they are so worried, why aren’t they patrolling the platforms of the nearest public rail system for possible jumpers?
However, I think it would be impossible to find a doctor who would assist in the death of a person suffering from a temporary condition (grief), versus a terminal, irreversible condition (Parkinson’s, cancer). Apparently making such a distinction is beyond the capacity of the Chunky One.
kdaug
Any way we can monetize Suicide(tm)? For-profit self-offing? I smell a big winner!
OzoneR
@Capri:
Well, for starters, a doctor would need to do it, and second, only a person in sound mind could ask for it (see: Oregon)
Also, if someone asks you to kill them and you do it, it’s usually considered manslaughter anyway.
Mark S.
@PurpleGirl:
From the link, Ross:
Oh, for Christ’s sake, his wife had been in a vegetative state for over a decade when this became national news.
AndyG
Holland was been dealing with the voluntary euthanasia issue for some time. One of the interesting things that has come out of the Dutch experience is that if terminally ill people can control their pain, they are much less likely to request euthanasia. They are not afraid of dying, just afraid of chronic pain.
This is particularly relevant to the US because palliative care is hampered by societal attitudes to drugs that become reflected in hospitals. Or as Douthat might say, giving people too much morphine is bad for their moral fiber.
gene108
@RalfW:
The problems with mental health treatment go well beyond mere matters of money.
The stigma associated with it, the inability of people to accept they have it and a host of other problems need to be addressed, as well as increased funding for mental health treatment need to be addressed.
Mental illness is probably the most common illness suffered by Americans, but doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves.
Chris
@WereBear:
You know, I suspect that’s the real motivation for a ton of fundamentalists.
Villago Delenda Est
@AndyG:
Once again, this is Douchehat asserting his superiority over everyone else in making these calls. Looking over everyone’s shoulder, tut-tutting them over anything they do, pronouncing his divinely inspired judgement that must be obeyed.
Which is why tossing his ass into a tumbrel will be so satisfying.
cathyx
Oregon is way ahead of the curve on this one. The Death With Dignity Act passed in 1997.
jayjaybear
@Mark S.: Yeah, but that was one of the pillars of the right wing’s reaction to the whole Schiavo issue. They were seriously defaming Michael Schiavo for the entire length of the little melodrama. “He wants her life insurance!” “He wants to marry his girlfriend!” “He wants to not have to take care of her anymore!” (I’m sure that last one is accurate (it would be for me after a decade)…but if it were his entire motivation, he’d have handed the MPA over to the parents and hightailed it out of Dodge. But he didn’t.)
kdaug
@Capri: 90% inheritance tax. Problem solved.
MBunge
@AndyG: Holland was been dealing with the voluntary euthanasia issue for some time.
And there was a proposal in Holland last year to allow assisted suicide for healthy people over 70 who just don’t want to live any more. Yeah, no slippery slope there.
Mike
alwhite
I had a cousin that was an RN working in a terminal cancer ward in the mid to late 60s. I don’t remember how the topic came up but she explained that at some point in order to give enough morphine to kill the pain you killed the patient. Some doctors offered their patients a choice between pain or death some felt it was immoral to provide the drugs if they knew the dose would kill them. She felt the patients should have been told if their doctor didn’t believe in total pain control but it was a tiny minority that felt that way. Most patients understood they were terminal and were grateful for the pain relief. But the so-called ‘life’ movement in the US has knocked these discussions all out of whack now so reasonable discussions are damn near impossible.
alwhite
@MBunge:
Yeah, and there was a proposal in the US last year to outlaw Islam – so what? Crazy people say crazy things. Call me when that proposal becomes a bill that is likely to pass a vote.
DBrown
@Capri: What slippery slope? Last I checked this procedure was legal (in a few states) only by the direct wishes of the person who will die – no one else has a say, period. MD’s only provide the drugs (in most cases) and the person themselves take it. Exceptions occur but are controlled and rare – this in a country that has tens of thousands of gun murders every year but we ALL die someday and MOST will be very ill and suffer while being supported on equipment that just keeps them alive in terrible illness (pain, and terrible effects of organ failure – can be far worse than pain.) No slippery slope here – move on.
Villago Delenda Est
@MBunge:
Mike, why is any of your fucking business?
dpCap
That’s the thing that confuses me. Libertarians are all about freedom to choose, so if a person chooses death, why should anyone have a problem with it.
(I know, I’m confusing Libertarians with the cognitive dissonance of the Tea Party. True Libertarians would actually agree with this.)
alwhite
@Chris:
Mark Twain said, “The puritans are against bear baiting, not because it brings pain to the bear but because it brings pleasure to the viewers”
That is still the story today.
arguingwithsignposts
chunky bobo asks:
Why, yes, chunky bobo, they do.
Next?
Seanly
I hope Douchehat knows that tasty Soylent Green is made in part from the old people who are “going home”.
Don’t forget that early church fathers had to make suicide a sin to keep people from killing themselves to be with Jeebus ahead of the landowners’ schedule. Can’t have the serfs offing themselves to sit with Jeebus when their free labor is required. And if there is one thing conservative pundits are about, it is making sure we serfs stay in our place and keep making profits for our lords & ladies.
Villago Delenda Est
@DBrown:
The important thing here is that the “care providers” who seek to extend life no matter what its quality, and no matter what the wishes of the patient, get their money. THAT is what is important here.
Chris
@alwhite:
I like that one.
Another I’ve heard is “puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
Foxhunter
@cathyx:
Bingo.
@alwhite:
Bingo, again. I just went through this with my Grandmother. Alzheimer’s, over a 3 year period, finally took her. Well, acutally, the morphine did. And I am glad. Quality of life was gone and she no longer recongized anyone.
I’m certain the care facility was disappointed to see Kathleen go, along with her $5000 per month care fee…but they wanted us to get her belongings out of her room within 48 hours of her death so they could roll another cash machine into the room.
MBunge
@Villago Delenda Est: Mike, why is any of your fucking business?
Why is it any of your fucking business if people go homeless? Why is it any of your fucking business if people can’t get health care? Why is it any of your fucking business if women in sub-Saharan Africa get their genitals mutiliated?
I’m sorry I didn’t the get updated list of other people’s problems with which we’re allowed to be concerned. Is healthy elderly people possibly being pressured or otherwise influenced to kill themselves #7 or #10 on the list?
Mike
Linda Featheringill
On a more cheerful note, is it true that it is now raining because I got out before my morning coffee and watered my little garden?
jrg
Good lord, what a dumb ass.
kdaug
@GVG:
Ain’t just the “care providers”, mate. Drug companies, insurance outfits, funeral homes, casket makers, plot owners – there a lot of money to be made in death.
And it’s real steady business.
kdaug
@Foxhunter: You said it better than I.
Waldo
Do this: Make attempted suicide a capital offense. If you try to kill yourself and fail, the state finishes the job. That should satisfy everyone — from death penalty ghouls to euthanasia zealots. Just a thought.
PurpleGirl
@Linda Featheringill:
On a more cheerful note, is it true that it is now raining because I got out before my morning coffee and watered my little garden?
Probably. Hope you enjoy your morning coffee.
Villago Delenda Est
@MBunge:
Why the fuck do you assume they are being “pressured”? Why are you making that judgement? How can you know, with such certitude? Did you get inside their heads and find out for yourself?
BTW, nice conflation of a army of strawmen with the basic question. Your lame attempts at Jedi mind tricks do not work on me.
Foxhunter
@kdaug: No, you added to the conversation. That 5k I referenced was for the room and board only…didn’t include any ‘ancillary’ benefits one receives when dying a slow death.
Situation is FUBAR and everyone has their hand out. But heaven forbid we have rational discussion about quality of life issues and death. Douthat has obviously never put down an aged but beloved pet nor dealt with any direct family member that is/was terminal.
Asshat.
Alex S.
I think there is a bit of a slippery slope. But it can be fixed, for example with a mandatory waiting period during which the wish to die has to be maintained. Douthat, just like Brooks in the thread above, argues along black-and-white lines, i.e. if it’s wrong once, it’s always wrong, no matter what the circumstances are.
kdaug
@Waldo:
Love it. Another bed filled on a for-profit death row.
Money to be made, folks. Money to be made.
Rosalita
@OzoneR:
and hospitals/insurance companies make money on them…the sick are a profit center dammit!
kdaug
@Foxhunter:
We did. It was called “Death Panels”.
AAA Bonds
Every Catholic knows a Creepy Catholic. But thanks to Ross Douthat, everyone else can too!
cathyx
Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act
On October 27, 1997 Oregon enacted the Death with Dignity Act which allows terminally-ill Oregonians to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose.
Chrisd
As a doctor, what strikes me most about this hand-wringing is the amount of time and effort this society expends over the awful crimes of physician-assisted suicide and prescription-drug abuse compared with, say, adequate pain control in patients with chronic disease. And I’m not exempting the medical profession here, either.
I really want to believe that the discrepancy doesn’t stem from our base cruelty, but I can’t conclude otherwise.
RalfW
@RosiesDad:
I’m not sure either. But as with many things, its a spectrum, and treatment doesn’t work for everyone. My point was that right now, even getting care for moderate depression sucks – they give you a pill, but insurers won’t (most often) pay for talk therapy.
I’m supportive of people choosing their own end. I just am concerned that at some point, given the perverse incentives of insurance, that there could be more pressure to take the Quietus (“You decide when”) than have treatable conditions treated.
Tuffy
Let the free market decide.
The pro-suffering lobby is so weak and its arguments are so shitty it needs Big Government to prop it up.
arguingwithsignposts
Perhaps someone with knowledge of anthropology of something could chime in and help me with this. Does any other culture have such a hang-up about death?
WereBear
@AndyG: Holland is extraordinarily pertinent here, because they’ve actually tried things we’ve been agitating for, and found out what works and what doesn’t. For the most part, it works.
For what it might be worth, I think the “Mother Teresa/suffering is good for you” thing is at work with a LOT of this crap.
kdaug
Also strikes me that this is a new phenomena, sourced in “because we can”.
The technology exists to keep you alive virtually indefinitely.
Doesn’t make much difference if you’re aware, or if you’d prefer not to be kept alive (see: Shaivo, et.al).
Who’s going to make these decisions? The profit-takers?
kdaug
@Chrisd:
Appreciate you chiming in. So – cruelty, or profit motive?
Deep, or shallow?
Villago Delenda Est
@kdaug:
Obviously.
They are the most important party in any decision of this sort, because profit is the most sacred thing there is. Ever.
Chrisd
@kdaug:
I think it’s cruelty at the bottom. We could reconfigure end-of-life care. And there’s money to be made in treating chronic pain–look at the number of Vicodin mills out there. Americans would rather stew in agony believing that the War on Drugs is not in vain and that Jesus will reward them for their suffering.
PurpleGirl
I read the Douthat column yesterday and don’t intend to read it again. I don’t remember him getting into Catholic thought on the idea that God owns your life and you can’t end your own life because of that. But I do vaguely remember discussing this in religious instruction class way back when. This also ties into the Mother Teresa/suffering is good for stuff. In essence the Catholic Church taught that you offer your suffering as a sacrifice to God.
I don’t believe a word of it. Never did, never will.
kdaug
@Villago Delenda Est:
Bzzt. Wrong answer.
You do.
shortstop
Douthat could save a lot of time and wasted words if every one of his “contributions” were limited to this:
You have no control over the beginning, middle or end of your lives. Turn it all over to my god now. Sorry about the collateral suffering, but your total powerlessness must be maintained at all costs.
shortstop
@PurpleGirl: Most of his columns don’t directly discuss Catholic thought. But every single one of them aligns perfectly with his church’s teachings about life and death. Not so much about what his church says about caring for the poor, weak and suffering.
JPL
@PurpleGirl: Thanks for the link.. Douthat is entitled to his opinion and I’m entitled to mine. My opinion is that Douthat is dangerous because he has a national platform.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chrisd:
Why do they worship such a cruel, spiteful, vindictive deity? Fuck, they might as well just go whole hog and toss their devotion to Cthulhu. Why waste time?
kdaug
@Chrisd:
Great. EOL decisions as collateral damage in the “War On [n]” where n=Drugs.
Can you think of an issue before us that this doesn’t apply to, though? Not trying to goad you, but by your reasoning, I’d be hard-pressed to find any problems that didn’t have cruelty at the bottom.
Normally I’d pass it off as greed, but you think it goes deeper?
Woodrowfan
@AndyG:
Do you have a link? I don’t doubt you but I would like to read more…
PurpleGirl
@shortstop: That is a good summation — clear and succinct.
Judas Escargot
Same reason they’re for anything else: Power and control over the little people. We are to be conceived on their terms, born on their terms, school work eat drink fuck and breed, only on their terms… why would death be any different?
You’ll die when it gets too expensive to keep you alive. Until then, your life and labor belong to us.
Classic abuser-mindset.
Chrisd
@kdaug:
It’s deeper than greed. I’ve witnessed too many patients with the requisite expensive EOL surgeries, interventions, tubes, bells and whistles, yet still in agony. Pain didn’t become the “5th Vital Sign” until the 2000’s, and you can forget about routine inquiries into mental suffering. We’re simply not there yet.
We are technologically complex but remain primitive, saddled with a religion that fetishizes suffering and prefers pity to empathy.
kdaug
@Chrisd: Gah. Where do you practice? Deep in some red state? (And yes, I’m hoping you’re not PRN).
ETA: Decisively NOT because I’m worried about your experience rubbing off, but because I hope – fervently – that this is isolated.
DZ
Physician-assisted suicide, as it exists in Oregon, has absolutely nothing to do with euthanasia. The physician presribes the lethal dose of drugs – does nothing else. No person may assist the person dying in taking the pills. When my wife was on the verge of death from ovarian cancer, she had the drugs, but was physically unable to take them. Had I assisted, I would have gone to jail.
shortstop
@Chrisd:
With a little tweaking (one example: adding “punishment” to “pity”), this could go beyond healthcare to be a general tagline for the U.S. I always have a hard time explaining the weird American mix of vast resources and emotional barbarism to people from other countries.
George Sanders
Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.
kdaug
@Chrisd:
Actually, belay that last.
So where from here?
Sly
It’s the Sodom and Gomorrah Principle: Tolerating sin is as bad as the sin itself, and Douthat would rather not be burned along with the rest of us infidels. Or turned into a pillar of salt.
John Weiss
@shortstop: Douthat is just another authoritarian asshole with a megaphone. You heard him once, you’ve heard it all.
Villago Delenda Est
@Sly:
Douchehat need not worry. He’s already a pillar of shit.
Chrisd
@kdaug:
You got me. Deprivation usually doesn’t make people more receptive to the suffering of others. The current declining American economy and its mean God fit like a hand in glove.
WereBear
Secular science has the answer, but dying cannot be looked at clearly and rationally (such as we can) as long as we are dominated by religions that fetishize cruelty.
Maude
@Chrisd:
DEA is what is scary to pain med prescribing for chronic pain patients.
In some pain management places, drug testing is done because of the opiates.
A long time ago, there was a study done with paitients on opiates for pain. They found that the patients did well and were able to function better on a dose that blocked most of the pain.
hilzoy
@DZ: I’m really sorry for your loss. And you’re absolutely right.
Physician-assisted suicide does not mean: a doctor gets to do whatever s/he wants to help you to commit suicide — turning on the gas, easing your head into the oven, whatever. It means that the doctor can write you a prescription for drugs. You still have to fill that prescription, take the drugs, etc. The advantage is that it’s a much better death than a lot of the other ways of killing yourself. The disadvantage is the slippery slope.
But slippery slopes can be dealt with. Here’s how Oregon does it:
WereBear
Dr. William Stewart Halsted was addicted to cocaine and morphine for the majority of his working life. It didn’t stop him from revolutionizing many aspects of surgery; nor from operating, nor from living to the age of 70.
A lot of what horrifies people about the “drug life” is what we force people into. Not the drugs.
stormhit
Another mistermix point free of any deep thought and entirely identical to what you’d see in a high school sophomore’s take on philosophical issues.
mcmillan
@Woodrowfan:
Don’t know about Holland but I heard similar things about Oregon, though as DZ in 82 posted there are issues with the person being required to take the drugs themselves. I found this page which stated:
arguingwithsignposts
@stormhit: sort of like that comment you just made there, eh?
daveX99
@mac:
Win!
Further:
This reminds me of the part of the arguments for legalizing abortion or drugs (which I mostly agree with): People will do these things no matter what the law says. Why not make it safe?
-d.
Chrisd
@Maude:
The DEA and state medical boards instill just enough fear into docs that they avoid pain cases rather than deal with ATF-style recrimination. Every new patient is a potential addict. And patients without docs have a hell of a time seeing certified pain docs, who usually require professional referral and exhaustive documentation before taking them on. It’s a mess.
The War on Drugs means Americans are more than willing to sacrifice pain treatment for the satisfaction of cracking down on drug abuse. We tolerate more suffering for law enforcement, for freedom, for religion. It’s how we roll.
blondie
I’d pay more attention to Douthat’s opinions if he were suffering from Stage 4 cancer. Until then, his opinions are as worthwhile as some crazy person yelling in the street.
scav
I know there are Pratchett fans here, so I pass this topical bit along: Terry Pratchett’s BBC documentary reopens debate on assisted dying
beergoggles
@PurpleGirl: I was just about to comment on that. This is exactly what the catholic church teaches – suffering is good, people should suffer. Monster Theresa is a perfect example of Catholic teaching and the misery it enacts on people’s lives even if they aren’t believers. Couple that with their promotion of AIDS infection in Africa and I’d definitely have to say that Catholics are currently the largest purveyor of evil in the world.
shortstop
@WereBear: Some of it is what we force people into, and yes, that part is circumstantial. The rest of it is about some of the horrors of actual addiction, which can be visited upon even the most economically secure addicts who have regular, safe and orderly access to their drugs.
ETA: That’s not to imply that I’m in favor of the insane “war on drugs.” Criminalization just exacerbates some of the problems you mention, and there’re strong, standalone arguments against it that don’t require wrongly minimizing the physical, mental and emotional costs of addiction.
negative 1
Anyone who makes these arguments should be forced to watch someone die of terminal cancer. Witness the wracking, 24 hour non-stop pain that will not stop until the person dies. Guaranteed. Watch that person unable to speak because of the pain, watch them starve, go sleepless until they are insane. Watch them bleed from ulcers that form, watch them cry out from something that no one will be able to stop, and know that they know that.
Then, look their spouse in the eyes, their children, their parents, and tell them that only you know what’s best, not them. That you can decide, and that you are removing any power that they have to stop this person from suffering. Because that’s what Douthat is doing, and all of his soul-dead empty eyed followers.
My father delivered meds to the terminally ill housebound. He always told the wives how to disarm the security on the morphine dispensers. So did many of his colleagues. Go ahead and let Douthat lecture on morality.
WereBear
That was not my intention; I was just pointing out that people in favor of criminalization outright lie to get their point across.
We would be able to spend a fraction of the money the Drug War costs us on rehab for every single addict out there. Why don’t we?
And I remember, as a small child, hearing about dying people having morphine witheld from them so “they wouldn’t get addicted.”
Really? How much sense does that make?
Ruckus
@AndyG:
As a sufferer of chronic pain I agree with this. I wonder every day what my life will be like if the pain gets a lot worse. If instead of the pain keeping me from walking once in a while it keeps me from walking at all. The thought of living one more day in pain is worth it is one that I expect to have some day. I look back at the last ten years and wonder what the next ten will bring. When the thing that stands out most in last ten is pain every day that builds in intensity just a very little bit at a time, one wonders just what the next ten will bring. So one day the question becomes clear. Do I want to be drugged out and still in some pain with no positive change in sight or do I want to end it?
And so I ask this question, What the fuck business is it of anyone else if I live or die? For I, like everyone of us, am going to die, it is only a matter of when and how.
And of course there is money in keeping people alive. There may be future taxes to collect, there may be rent money to be made in the process. And without SS and medicare it becomes personal money to be collected, not that of the greater assembly. The rent collectors want all of that, not just what you are willing to give.
gex
The most profitable part of health care is at the end when an entire family’s assets get eaten up by expensive care that prolongs but cannot save a life. Euthanasia is an unfair tax on hospitals, medical device makers, and pharmaceuticals.
gex
@gex: It literally is the MBA’s dream scenario. You get paid big bucks for providing absolutely nothing of value to the customer.
shortstop
@WereBear: I know it wasn’t your intention, and on rereading my comment, I can see how it sounded like I thought it was. Mea culpa. And BTW, I wasn’t conflating dying people and long-term addicts such as the Dr. Halsted you mentioned. We’re on the same page.
quaint irene
Gaah, How I hate that both pompous and callous phrase, “Hey, we’re ALL terminally ill.”
DBrown
@Ruckus: Words can not express and I hope only the best for you – as little as what I say compares to what you have to live and deal with every day.
Thinker
I’m confused–isn’t one of the big points of “It Gets Better” to prevent suicide? How can someone who’s not disturbed when a cancer patient kills herself get upset when a gay teen does it? Ageism, anyone?
Ruckus
@Chrisd:
Americans would rather stew in agony believing that the War on Drugs is not in vain and that Jesus will reward them for their suffering.
Not all of us. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say fuck jesus. Or at least the people who use his name to their own twisted ends.
Ruckus
@DBrown:
Thanks
It really is not that bad. Most days. It is the future that worries me.
I have had to make the decision for one family member to withhold all care except for morphine and water as they were terminal and unable to make any decisions. I did not feel good about it. But, and this is the big but, it was absolutely the correct thing to do. I would do it again without question, given the right circumstances. And if fact I will probably have to do it again soon for another family member.
Ruckus
I want to thank mistermix for the post.
This is one of many issues that we need to have discussions about in this country.
arguingwithsignposts
@Thinker:
Your username, ur doin’ it wrong.
PurpleGirl
@Thinker: The cancer patient, as she/he approaches the end of life, is in pain and is existing, not living. A person who has advanced ALS cannot even move, talk, eat, drink… the muscles can do nothing. Any number of physically debilitating conditions reduce the person to barely breathing. I can understand the desire to die and wish to be able to do so.
The “it gets better” campaign is aimed at young LGBT people that as emotionally painful life might be, life can and very often does get better as they get older. (ETA: There is still a lot to live for and to experience.)
People with physical conditions I detailed in the first paragraph (or other ones) AREN’T going to get better. They only get worse. Why should they die in pain?
LongHairedWeirdo
I’m going to deliberately ignore my normal desire for reasonable debate and respect for opposing viewpoints in order to make my point a bit stronger.
*OH, that’s *SO PRECIOUS*! Someone thinks that people facing end of life decisions will be evaluated for depression, and assured of high quality pain management! Did you lose a tooth because you can’t afford dental care? Put it under your pillow, and maybe the Tooth Fairy will bring you something nice!
Okay. Back to normal.
Personally, I can kind of understand a person who is not depressed, and comfortable, deciding that, you know, Saturday night at 8pm would be a fine time to take a final dose of barbiturates (or whatever). But we don’t live in a world where that’s likely to happen. We are more likely to be in a world where a person isn’t evaluated for depression, or where counseling is too expensive, or where doctors are under pressure not to be aggressive in pain management, or where a few joints would calm some terrible nausea, and synthetic THC doesn’t, but synthetic THC is all that’ll be given.
Until we live in a world in which we’re absolutely sure that everyone who is dying is assured of a comfortable, dignified exit if they let nature take its course, we can’t trust that allowing assisted suicide isn’t a way to ignore treatable suffering.
I fully support people’s rights to end their lives in a manner of their choosing, if that is their own choice, freely made, without pressure from suffering and inadequate medical treatment. But I’ve come to realize that we can’t allow it to be done under color of the law until we have assurances that people are receiving good medical treatment.
(Edited to change my phrasing to something that’s less distracting.)
Ruckus
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Your final graph is spot on. The availability of good medical care (physical including dental and mental) is way past paramount to a healthy society.
But I have become completely oblivious to “We can’t just let people die” answer, even without or maybe especially without good health care.
And why? Because it is still none of anyone’s business how/when I die as long as I am not causing someone else to do the same. It is not the states business that I am depressed or not, or sick or not, or dying or not. It is only the states business when someone else is making the end of life (or even lack of health care) decision for me, against my wishes.
There is no difference from the state deciding that I can’t get treatment for my depression if that treatment is counseling instead of drugs, or death instead of either of those. The state is making the choice that it’s decision for my life overrides my liberty or pursuit of happiness. The anti-abortion folks are making the same argument. That their decision about my life is more important than mine.
It is not.
dutchmarbel
Speaking as a Dutch person: our euthanasia laws are quite strict. two thirds of the people applying for it are rejected. euthanatia can only be performed by a medic (not by a family member), there has to be a situation of suffering that will not improve, that has to be decided by at least 2 doctors who cannot be too involved with the patient and the person who wants to end his or her life has to be declared competent to make and understand the decision both at the time that the request is made and at the time that the euthanatia is about to be performed.
The cases where requests are denied are often people who are too demented, or have fallen into a coma, or are otherwise incapable to meet the above mentioned requirements at the moment of giving the drugs.
the discussion about ending life without suffering is not even near becoming a law. But there are groups who feel that if people (elderly) have a ‘completed life’ and feel that they want to die, they should be allowed to decide for themselves. The ‘right to die’ people made a brochure about their POV (http://www.nvve.nl/assets/nvve-english/publications/CompletedLife.pdf).
In the Netherlands everybody has health care and everybody is entitled to minimum dole. So costs of disease or loss of income are not big motivators in the decision.
Frankly, I feel that society has to protect people from pressure to die by other sources, but the decision about living or dying should ultimately belong to the person living the life. If you make an informed decision and have no dependents – why would other people be allowed to decide that you HAVE to live?