This scares the hell out of me

[mugglechump]

(Apologies to friends who have already seen this on therightfangirl.) Italicized sections are taken from an article on www.americanthinker.com.

I've always been slightly on the fence about euthanasia laws. I believe it's wrong to commit suicide, but there's a little part of me that has a hard time telling someone in constant pain with no hope of relief that they need to suffer because it will make me feel better. In all my internal debates, though, the real reason 'death with dignity' laws are BAD (and I say that now unequivocally.) didn't really enter into it. The reason they are bad is because it allows suicide to be encouraged, even suggested, by the health care industry in place of treatment that could allow patients to live longer. Patients who had no thoughts of doing themselves in, and just want to be treated.

Case in point:

In May 2008, 64-year-old retired school bus driver Barbara Wagner received bad news from her doctor. She found out that her cancer, which had been in remission for two years, had returned. Then, she got some good news. Her doctor gave her a prescription that would likely slow the cancer's growth and extend her life. She was relieved by the news and also by the fact that she had health care coverage through the Oregon Health Plan.

It didn't take long for her hopes to be dashed.

Barbara Wagner was notified by letter that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn't cover her prescription. But the letter didn't leave it at that. It also notified her that, although it wouldn't cover her prescription, it would cover assisted suicide.

After Wagner's story appeared in the Eugene Register-Guard, the Oregon Health Plan acknowledged that it routinely sends similar letters to patients who have little chance of surviving more than five years, informing them that the health plan will pay for assisted suicide (euphemistically categorized as "comfort care"), but not for treatment that could help them live for months or years.

A similar law is now being considered in Washington, but it goes a step further. The Oregon law requires doctors to report when they've assisted a suicide. The Washington proposal actually requires them to falsely list the cause of death as the underlying disease, not the overdose of drugs that put the patient out of their supposed misery.

The Washington proposal, in a major departure from Oregon's law, adds a layer of unprecedented deception by forcing doctors to lie about the cause of death. It requires that, when a patient dies after taking the prescription for assisted suicide, the physician "shall list the underlying terminal disease as the cause of death." Washington State Medical Association president, Brian Wicks, M.D., described the requirement in a WSMA press release opposing the initiative:

Under I-1000, if a physician prescribes a lethal overdose, when that physician completes the death certificate, he or she is required - actually required - to list the underlying disease (say lung cancer) as the cause of death, even when the doctor knows full well that the patient died due to the suicidal overdose he or she prescribed. To my knowledge there's no other situation in medicine in which the death certificate is deliberately falsified - and in which this falsification is mandated by law.

Is anyone else sick to their stomach, or is it just me? Thankfully, I live in Virginia, where they can't suggest I off myself rather than go take an antacid.

Comments

[mynuet.livejournal.com]

In another triumph of socialized medicine (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2983652/Baroness-Warnock-Dementia-sufferers-may-have-a-duty-to-die.html?source=EMC-new_19092008), a "veteran government advisor" in England... well, I'll just quote: "I think that's the way the future will go, putting it rather brutally, you'd be licensing people to put others down."

Gee, I can't wait until the government's completely in charge of whether I live or die, can you?

[seegrim.livejournal.com]

O.o

[twinklepug.livejournal.com]

holy cow. I'm guessing the insurance companies "encourage" the assisted suicide because it cuts down costs for them in the long run? *vomits a little in my mouth* This is all kinds of wrong. But at the same time...being a former cancer nurse I cannot tell you how many times I've had patients ask me if I could "give them something a little extra" because they're in constant massive amounts of pain and no amount of pain meds helps short of putting them into a medically induced coma. And it's..so...sucky for lack of a better word to pretty much say, "No you have to stay there and suffer. You don't get to say 'when'."

so I dunno. Is there an in between...?

[amazonmink.livejournal.com]

*long list of creative expletives*

Frightening.

Thanks for posting this.

[goddessvicky.livejournal.com]

Wow. WOW.

I haven't thought too much about assisted suicide, I suppose. I do think it's wrong forcing someone to die and slow and painful death... but I don't think people should be ENCOURAGING it. That's a fault of the health care system, I think.

"No, we won't pay for the medicine to make you BETTER, we'll just KILL you because it's CHEAPER!"

Yeah. I don't believe in that. Though, terminal cancer and other things that someone will NEVER recover from? That, I think, needs to be explored. NOT someone who has a CHANCE to be better and just isn't allowed to try... that's ridiculous.

Thanks for posting this :) Made me get all thinky this morning!

health care

[boldmouth.livejournal.com]

I really think that the most important issue this year is health care and that it should be a much bigger part of the political discussion. I work for Boldmouth Inc. and have had the privilege of working for the Divided We Fail sponsored film competition at UCLA that is highlighting this issue. It is called Stolen Dreams and everyone, regardless of their political views, should check it out.

The website is http://www.stolendreams.com

[maenaine.livejournal.com]

What's really sad is that none of this is actually done for the patient. The Insurance companies don't want to spend the money (believe me, I've got a case at work like this, they don't give a shit)And the doctors sadly go about it because they do not like to see people in pain and are just as human as the rest of us when it comes to fearing death (especially horrible deaths like dying from cancer). That's why they became doctors.

As someone who has taken this path personally almost 10 years ago, suicide(assisted or at one's own hand) is never a good choice. Whether or not you believe in any spiritual repercussions in this action doesn't really matter. By allowing this option to be presented at all be the insurance companies or a doctor, you destroy the patient whether or not they decide to go through with it.

1. It destroys hope. While these cases are usually "no hope cases" anyway, the patient can at least look forward to that one last sunset, that last kiss. You are not dead until you are dead. You have to pay the hand you are dealt. You may be that lucky bastard that gets a miracle. You may not. It depletes any chance of the patient being able to truly come to terms with death and to die with true dignity and completely on their own terms.

2. If you have not ever known someone who committed suicide (again either assisted or not), you can not believe the added amount of mental anguish it will put on that person's loved ones.

3. Drug overdoses are a crap shoot, even if it is a doctor giving out the medicine. Believe me, no one wants to go through the suffering that surviving that overdose causes, even if it's only for a few minutes until they pump more drugs into you. The amount of Morphine that I took that day should have killed me. At the very least it should have left me with a failing liver and kidneys, but by the grace of God all I suffered physically was a drug induced coma. The emotional and spiritual suffering is a whole other story.

Insurance companies need to stop "playing doctor" and the doctors need to came to terms with death and help their patient learn not to fear it as well.

The cold hard truth is that life's a bitch. We do not all get to die quietly in our sleep at some ripe old age over 90. If someone decides that they can not take it anymore, it should be their decision and their's alone to take their life. Again, I will never agree that suicide would be a good decision, as someone who did try to kill myself, but I can completely understand that decision. But it should not, under any circumstances, ever be suggested or encouraged but anyone else. Especially not by some damned Insurance company.

[brendanm720.livejournal.com]

No, it's not just you.

[spottedcat83.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one who is horrified.

I'm all for giving people who are in their final fight with death enough pain medication so they don't feel very much, but I am not for suicide. It's scary. Just plain scary.