A looming battle in Washington state over efforts to create a right-to-die law for the terminally ill is a personal one for two men leading it, both of whom are ill. Fighting for the measure is a former governor who wants the freedom to exercise such a right; fighting against it is a former press secretary who can’t imagine anyone wanting to.
Proponents are wrapping up a petition drive to put Initiative 1000, the proposed Washington Death With Dignity Act, on the November ballot.
The initiative would let a doctor prescribe lethal drugs to patients given less than six months to live. Oregon is the only state with such a law, which the Supreme Court upheld in 2006.
Booth Gardner, 71, who served two terms as a Democratic governor in Washington, has Parkinson’s disease and has declared this his “final campaign.”“There are people like me everywhere who are coping with pain — they know that their next step is death,” Gardner said in an e-mail interview. “When death is inevitable, we shouldn’t force people to endure agonizing suffering if we don’t have to…”
“We have all made tough decisions throughout our lives, and we should be trusted to make tough decisions about the end of life,” he said. “It’s about autonomy, personal choice and respect. I was in control of my life. I should be allowed to be in control of my death.”
As usual, those who confuse ethics with morality, counter science with superstition – march in lockstep with their culture of divine death versus an individual’s right to choose to order their own life. Or death.
>>Might want to see just how great that assisted
>>suicide law in Oregon is working out by reading
>>this…
Oh. Nice. An article from a right-wingnut haterag like World Hate Daily! Kewl!
If you google this issue, every single hit is either from right-wing hate rags or Roman Catholic sources.
It would be interesting to see the other side of this story.
And the patient should be thankful that her health care wasn’t being managed by the denial-of-health-care industry, they wouldn’t have even paid for the fucking hot needle!
The key here is that the patient must REQUEST the assisted suicide. Any system that is in place will be abused, but the number of people who are forced to unwillingly undergo fruitless, expensive, agonizing “life-prolonging” “therapies” is so great, something needs to be done.
#17–Warden==that link gave me a good idea. Instead of wasting money on those born with life long defects of whatever origin, the state should offer all parents a cash bounty to euthanize their kiddies after birth. It could be a flat fee, or a percentage of the estimated cost of governmental provided care?
The government should always provide financial incentives within the context of individual choice.
Who could be against such a win/win decision? Or maybe, who could argue against such a decision?
*Thump* *Thump* *Thump* *Thump* god I love the bible! With this little hole in it.
#10 – But Mustard, isn’t this diametrically in opposition of your religious beliefs? Why the contradiction? I wouldn’t want to be a burden to anyone and just lying there being a shit and piss factory.
I want the overdose of heroin.
#24 – Ketchup
No.
There’s always been quiet euthanasias done in rest homes with consenting doctors. Just give them a down pillow that they can smother themselves with.
But don’t force the doctors to kill; it sounds a little too Nazi. But then again the far left and the far right are pretty much the same.
In the end we all have the right to choose our death.
No one can stop a determined effort.
The problem is that people want someone else to do it because they fear pain or failure more than death.
Cursor_
Much ado about nothing, as usual. No one is stopping these guys from committing suicide. If they had wanted, they would already be pushing up daisies.
Man these oldsters just need to die already. They are costing us too much money, between Social Security, Medicare, pensions, etc.
They were collecting signatures for the petition the other day at the drug store. I stood in line to sign it; it might not pass, but the margin gets a little narrower every time it winds up on the ballot.
Figure it will probably go through by the time I need it.
The religious right doesn’t have a lot of pull, here. Washington is the most secular state in the union.
We’ve greatly extended our lifespan through medicine and technology, and there’s no reason that we should not be able to die comfortably and pleasantly by the same methods. As it stands, those same methods make dying a protracted, miserable process for the individual and their loved ones. This will come to an end. We should die as intelligently as we live. If you don’t want to, that’s your call.
Usually it’s the physicality of the illness that stops a patient from being able to commit suicide. When the caring Dr. Kevorkian was able to help those so ill that they couldn’t even press a button to administer their lethal cocktail he would do it. Physicians should be given this option without the fear of the jail time.
>>”The Bible thumpers will fight this to the bitter end.
I thump the Bible proudly, and I fully support the right to die.
So STFU.” Post 13
Amen brother. If I’m in pain and I’m going out the door anyway I want enough pain killer to stop the pain.
#32–deowll==so what do you think of organized pressure groups that use biblical enterpretation as the basis to oppose right to die legislation?
You join Mustard in a logical error. If most of the opposition are bible thumpers, that does not mean most bible thumpers are in opposition.
Curious in this case most bible thumpers would be against the right to die==be proud when your own nuts are in the fire, you forgo the teachings you otherwise force on other people.
Very few physicians are out there saving lives. Most of their effort is to relieve suffering.
This initiative is for those diagnosed with a terminal illness with an estimated 6 months or left to live. I would go further. As shown by the Terry Schiavo case, any persistent vegetative state or severe brain injury where the prognosis of a successful recovery is remote to non-existent should be included. I don’t want to lay paralyzed from the neck down unable to live except on a machine, tube fed, unable to even scratch an itch and retarded.
To those who want to live in that condition, feel free. I don’t.
#16, you say doctors won’t be forced, yet people on this board cheer when pharmacists are forced to stock birth control, etc, saying that if they don’t like it they should get a new line of work. I think doctors would indeed eventually be forced.
#35–Mike, not close at all. Provision of personal services is very different than stocking shelves. Silly, even transparently manipulative, to think/post otherwise.
>>so what do you think of organized pressure
>>groups that use biblical enterpretation as
>>the basis to oppose right to die legislation?
Why they suck total dick, and are hypocritical sleazebag fucktards.
Next question?
#37–Mustard==exactly–as are most bible thumpers/moralists/anyone who want to legislate their version of morality hence the appropriateness of the label.
MikeN, “people on this board cheer when pharmacists are forced to stock birth control, etc”
Why birth control? You lost me there. How about viagra? How about methadone? How about antibiotics? Various religious organizations object to all of these?
#3 “That we don’t allow Americans the option to die with dignity, without draining their finances, bankrupt their families, and force their loved ones to watch them wither away and die a lingering, painful (not to mention breath-takingly expensive) death is one of the great shames of this country.”
False argument. Cancel your insurance, x-fer your
$ & property into a trust and the hospital will kick you out the door if you don’t want treatment.
Don’t believe it? Try it and see how long you will stay in the hospital if you want out.