A Duty To Die?

What's with this "johnny foreigner" crap, it cannot be beyond us to implement a system that sees human beings treated as humanely as animals and as someone whose had to watch family and friends suffer long beyond there being a point we need to have a legal means to end suffering.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

What's with this "johnny foreigner" crap, it cannot be beyond us to implement a system that sees human beings treated as humanely as animals and as someone whose had to watch family and friends suffer long beyond there being a point we need to have a legal means to end suffering.

Quite so, Rizzy. This is so straight forward I am surprised that anyone who is not a religious fanatic can have a problem with it.

My clear view is that a person who is in pain and with no quality of life left should be allowed to die with dignity. I cannot see why any reasonable person would disagree with this.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

What's with this "johnny foreigner" crap, it cannot be beyond us to implement a system that sees human beings treated as humanely as animals and as someone whose had to watch family and friends suffer long beyond there being a point we need to have a legal means to end suffering.

You say "us" as if you have any say in it, same as old boy was earlier, that's what this Johnny foreigner crap is all about, I'm sure they thought it wasn't beyond them to implement a system that ended suffering to the end stages of the terminally ill but guess what, it was beyond them and before you say ours would be different you only have to look at the very first post in this thread, the one where a then key government advisor on health and someone who is incredibly influential on medical ethics advocated euthanising dementia sufferers as the were wasting people's time and were a burden on the state, she also hoped to use her words eventually people would be licenced to put others down , that's her vision on how this would turn out, somewhat different to yours and old boys and unlike you two she actually has influence. I have no doubt even if it was implemented in the way you suggest it'd soon get watered down and open to abuse.

Euthanasia should only be considered when someone is terminal or has a condition that drastically reduces quality of life to near zero that's it. Any system that allows tired people and blind people to make use of euthanasia is broken and unfit for purpose I'm not sure how anyone could think we would implement a system that lax. Make it a requirement that three doctors need to agree with any patients request for a termination of life hell have one be a psychiatrist who'd be able to better gauge bad reasoning on the part of the patient. It is not impossible to create a system that could work as intended and allow people a dignified end to their lives.

Life is life is not a good enough argument to oppose a euthanasia system life without quality of life is not worth it and keeps people in limbo sometimes for years along with their family dragging out the suffering and damage that can be caused.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

Euthanasia should only be considered when someone is terminal or has a condition that drastically reduces quality of life to near zero that's it. Any system that allows tired people and blind people to make use of euthanasia is broken and unfit for purpose I'm not sure how anyone could think we would implement a system that lax. Make it a requirement that three doctors need to agree with any patients request for a termination of life hell have one be a psychiatrist who'd be able to better gauge bad reasoning on the part of the patient. It is not impossible to create a system that could work as intended and allow people a dignified end to their lives.

Life is life is not a good enough argument to oppose a euthanasia system life without quality of life is not worth it and keeps people in limbo sometimes for years along with their family dragging out the suffering and damage that can be caused.

I believe the three doctor system is used in Holland, it might not be but think it is, here's a case from there, it's tragic and I can only hope her abusers suffer horribly for this, worryingly though a 2nd opinion might mean she'd still be alive and improving

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...uncurable.html

I've never argued life is life btw, quite the opposite, some of the examples I've highlighted in this thread a're truely heart breaking but for everyone of them there's another from someone relatively healthy and they're not always from abroad either, there was a nasty tale from this country where a young woman abused the living will system to kill herself whilst medical staff could do nothing but watch.

We haven't done enough with improving palliative care to even consider this yet imo and that will be something good that comes out of this whole debate, it can't help but improve palliative care no matter what road we eventually go down.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

I believe the three doctor system is used in Holland, it might not be but think it is, here's a case from there, it's tragic and I can only hope her abusers suffer horribly for this, worryingly though a 2nd opinion might mean she'd still be alive and improving

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...uncurable.html

I've never argued life is life btw, quite the opposite, some of the examples I've highlighted in this thread a're truely heart breaking but for everyone of them there's another from someone relatively healthy and they're not always from abroad either, there was a nasty tale from this country where a young woman abused the living will system to kill herself whilst medical staff could do nothing but watch.

We haven't done enough with improving palliative care to even consider this yet imo and that will be something good that comes out of this whole debate, it can't help but improve palliative care no matter what road we eventually go down.

Well, you've quoted some pretty ridiculous examples of how your 'Johnny Foreigner' people can get it so badly wrong.

We Brits are better than that! Proper legislative scrutiny would ensure that the likes of such malpractice would not occur without murder charges swiftly following. If necessary, it may be necessary to have a judge's ruling.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Well, you've quoted some pretty ridiculous examples of how your 'Johnny Foreigner' people can get it so badly wrong.

We Brits are better than that! Proper legislative scrutiny would ensure that the likes of such malpractice would not occur without murder charges swiftly following. If necessary, it may be necessary to have a judge's ruling.

We weren't very swift about Harold Shipman, who gave about 250 an 'early death' before we caught up with him.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Mr K

We weren't very swift about Harold Shipman, who gave about 250 an 'early death' before we caught up with him.

Yes, but he did that unlawfully. We are talking here about making euthanasia legal in certain well defined circumstances.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Yes, but he did that unlawfully. We are talking here about making euthanasia legal in certain well defined circumstances.

Getting a bit bored waiting for you to set out the well defined circumstances, or even the proper regulation, that you keep appealing to. You haven’t actually made a case for euthanasia, all you’ve done is said - repeatedly - how you agree with it. Well so what, I agree with free food for everyone but that would be a pointless position to take in a debate about world hunger, unless I was also able to show how it might be achieved.

Go on, knock yourself out, advance the argument, even just a little bit...

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Chris

Getting a bit bored waiting for you to set out the well defined circumstances, or even the proper regulation, that you keep appealing to. You haven’t actually made a case for euthanasia, all you’ve done is said - repeatedly - how you agree with it. Well so what, I agree with free food for everyone but that would be a pointless position to take in a debate about world hunger, unless I was also able to show how it might be achieved.

Go on, knock yourself out, advance the argument, even just a little bit...

I don't know what you are on about, Chris, to be honest. It's not up to me to set out the legislation! The principle would be that the person has a terminal illness and suffering intense pain, providing no real quality of life. Why are you having such a difficult time understanding this? I just hope that you never have to face this position personally, but this might be the only thing that would open your eyes to what we are speaking about.

Fortunately, doctors do understand and step up the morphine to bring it about anyway. No doubt, you are appalled.

Just as some may be coloured by not having been in a position of having to watch family and friends disappear before their eye's I'm coloured by having been in that position more then once and it strongly influenced my viewpoint on this issue. In all my dealings with doctors within the NHS I've never met one who would sign off on ending someone's life without very good and practical reasons I can't speak for doctors in other countries but am confident in the moral and ethical standards in our current system of doctors. Please don't bother with any harold shipman comments as he clearly was not an example of the general standard of doctors anymore then peter sutcliffe represents all of us.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I don't know what you are on about, Chris, to be honest. It's not up to me to set out the legislation! The principle would be that the person has a terminal illness and suffering intense pain, providing no real quality of life. Why are you having such a difficult time understanding this? I just hope that you never have to face this position personally, but this might be the only thing that would open your eyes to what we are speaking about.

Fortunately, doctors do understand and step up the morphine to bring it about anyway. No doubt, you are appalled.

Mmm. As an attempt at deflecting the question this is pretty poor. I’m having a hard time deciding whether you don’t have an answer, or whether perhaps you don’t even understand the question.

Let me try it another way. This isn’t Parliament and nobody is asking you to set out legislation. What this is, is a discussion forum. For a discussion to move forwards you have to be able to defend and build on the position you choose to take.

Now, your opinion is that euthanasia should be permitted, and that it is ok as long as it is ‘properly regulated’. Fine, if that’s your opinion. But you said that several pages back. The problem is, opinions are like assoles. Everybody has one. So what. If you’re interested in having an actual discussion, as opposed to repeatedly excreting your opinion every eight hours, then you have to develop an argument. One way of doing that is to define, in some way, what you mean by ‘properly regulated’.

I’m curious to know whether you’re capable of doing that, or whether, when challenged, your only recourse is to parody and denigrate what you think other people believe.

Over to you.

I assume someone has brought up the idea of having only in the event of a terminal diagnosis and serious degenerative conditions (ALS) where the quality of life declines to a horrible level. The latter being decided by the three doctors system as mentioned above?

The Oregon Approach mentioned in this BBC article seems fairly robust.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanas...lation_1.shtml

The Oregon approach
The US state of Oregon legalised physician-assisted suicide in 1998. During the first three years, only around 2 people a month used this to end their lives. This was partly because of the severe conditions that had to be satisfied before a request for euthanasia could be granted:

patient must be resident in Oregon
patient must be aged over 18
patient must make 2 oral and 1 written request for euthanasia
there must be at least 15 days between the first and the last request
patient must be terminally ill with a life expectancy of less than 6 months
this prognosis must be confirmed by a second consultant physician
both doctors must confirm that the patient is capable of making this decision
both doctors must confirm that the patient does not have medical condition that impairs their judgement
patient must self-administer the lethal medication
About 30% of patients who started the process died before it was completed. 19 patients in the period who were given access to lethal medication decided not to use it. One survey showed that 45% of patients who were given good palliative care changed their mind about euthanasia.

Another reason for the low take-up was the difficulty of finding a doctor who go along with the request: The Oregon Health Division reported that only a fifth of physicians of control patients dying of similar terminal illnesses would have prescribed a lethal medication if asked.

Here are the stats for 2017 -
http://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/PROVIDE...nts/year20.pdf

I don't know. I think making sure the patient is based on Oregon wouldn't work well for us.