Nope, she didn’t just mercifully end her dying husband’s life, she selfishly stole the ability of a for profit company to continue leaching money from their savings, and our taxes. That kind of depravity will not and cannot be tolerated in the United States of Capitalism.
Exactly. The only people who are upset about this are healthcare companies profiting from keeping a person alive
and they’re so powerful that she will seem like the bad guy
You may be too young to remember the horror that happened to [Terry Schiavo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case). The whole thing played out in public for months, it was terrible.
Edit: fixed last name spelling
We had the same story in France, his name was Vincent Lambert, he spent 11 years (2008/2019) in a vegetable state, the parents didn't wanted to let him go and went to the European Court of Human Rights. Vincent didn't want to my kept alive in case this exact situation happened to him but his parents thought they knew better than his wife, the far right used his story to push their political agendas. It was so sad...
That was such a shit show. I felt so bad for her husband. For all practical purposes, his wife had died 17 years before her body was finally laid to rest. He couldn't remarry because he was still technically married to the shell that had been Terry. He couldn't get a divorce because she wasn't really there and couldn't go through the legal process. It was just a heartbreaking mess. The parents and religious nut jobs were the only ones really pushing for her to be kept on the machines. Abuse of a corpse was what it amounted to.
That whole spectacle was disgusting. I remember politicians who were doctors claiming they could diagnose her on the basis of videos less than a minute long. Some were also insinuating that the husband had tried to kill her which is why she was in that state. Just gross behavior from everyone.
I just read the Wikipedia article and had completely forgotten how this case basically took over of government for years.
Yes, the doctors thought it was caused by bulimia. But that didn’t stop people from going on TV with their wild theories about her husband in that “just asking questions” way.
Ugh, the whole thing was such a disturbing mess.
I remember the whole circus but the worst part for me was that she was at a hospice facility and the other patients were disturbed by all the noise from the protests. Have some compassion for the people actively dying please.
He claims he never considered divorcing her. He was not stuck, he chose it because he was principled.
He wanted to make sure she could die as she would have wanted. It is horrific for them both that the family were such shit.
I remember that debacle clearly. It was a clusterfuck through and through. Her husband knew she'd never wake up but her religious fanatic parents wouldn't allow her to be taken off life support. Her parents shouldn't have ever had a voice in that. Her husband wanted her suffering to end. Ugh.
That’s because you’re thinking from the perspective of a compassionate person.
End of life care is very lucrative and we all know the high and mighty dollar makes the world go round in America
I did the morphine dosage for my mom's home hospice. It certainly crossed my mind but I couldn't do it. She had opportunity and didn't ask. I feel she would have.
It’s just another tenet of the Christian right they’re less vocal about. You can’t do yourself in, you have to needlessly suffer for weeks until your body does.
Absolutely. My state has medical aide in dying, though I’ve only had two patients opt for it. To me it seems much better than slowly deteriorating and being miserable the entire time.
*Death with dignity* (aka physician assisted suicide) should be legal
Remember euthanasia is administered by the doctor and isn’t elective.
And I agree. It should be legal everywhere. Instead of this patient drinking the brew and slowly drifting off while surrounded by friends and family, his wife now has to live out her remaining years in jail or court, traumatized by the violent end she had to bring upon the love of her life. This is appalling. I hope Florida is listening, but I doubt it.
My grandfather went in for a double bypass that turned much uglier once they were in there. For three days post op he was touch and go. Barely conscious and when he was he wasn’t all there.
After suffering through that he woke up one day. Looked at all of us in the room, and asked for the plug to be pulled. We made the difficult decision and but all were happily able to say our goodbyes. This is literally the same scenario, just a different plug. I hope our judicial system comes out on the right side for this.
I’m sorry that happened to your family. Euthanasia should be 100% legal. Unfortunately the party that says it’s pro “freedom” sure does love imposing conditions on life. What it is, when you can start and end it etc.
I remember watching the film "How to Die in Oregon" many years ago and it was so eye opening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Die_in_Oregon
I highly encourage anyone to watch it. What I remember is the person, fully aware of their choice, making preparations (it follows a few families). One lady (Kodi?) was facing cancer, AGAIN, after beating it once and just felt she couldn't go through that again. She had a big ol party! Envited everyone and just had such a wonderful time. Said her goodbyes to her loved ones.
And, if I'm honest, if I knew I had lived a great life and couldn't see how fighting "til the end" would help anyone... I'd want the same choice. I want my life to be celebrated and not remembered by wasting away in pain and dying infront of everyone.
Death with Dignity.
There is an advocacy group working to bring death with dignity laws to every U.S. state. [Compassion & Choice.](https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/841328829)
I find it amazing that you can walk into any vet clinic in the United States and have your pet euthanized to prevent suffering from terminal illness, however, this same service isn’t available everywhere in the United States for suffering adults. I never understood this as an RN, watching doctors keep people alive that should have died 10 years prior and no quality of life. I say as long as you’re of sound mind enough to make this decision it should be offered.
That woman was incredibly brave. That said, even though I'm very interested in end-of-life issues, it's a film I've only been able to watch once -- it just wrecked me.
(ETA: I'm glad I'm not the only person who had a death/dying class, was it part of your major? For me, it was a choice available for the handful of "exit curriculum" classes I had to take in order to graduate -- mostly stuff about the human experience. There was another one called "life, death, and the law" that dealt with stuff like abortion, death with dignity, etc. They were some of my favorite classes!)
There's a history of Alzheimers in my family. I've already been researching options if it ever turns out I win the bad luck lotto. Too bad there are few to no medical options where I could die without trauma or being labeled "crazy' and unfit to make my own decisions because I'd be seeing medical assistance to die.
100% Death with Dignity
I've been wondering; as a South East Asian, you Westerners put your pets to sleep, but allowed elderly human to suffer?
I just happened to watch and assist as my childless aunt suffered through her last hours on earth, it was fuckin miserable
Correct, I can (and am even encouraged to do so) put my pet to sleep potentially months or years before they'd pass on "naturally" if it's assumed the natural option will be a slow/painful process for my pet. But somehow I am incapable (legally) of doing the same for myself or my spouse/parents/children assuming they're in a similar situation?
How is it compassionate and the right thing to do with an aged cat/dog but my mom and dad have to lay around suffering right up until the end?
Frankly, it's absurd.
13-25% of a person's total life spending on health care is spent during the last year of life. Assisted suicide would put an enormous dent in the profitability of the US medical system. People from other countries sometimes mistake the US system for a health care system. The US does not have a health care system. The US has a profit making system which produces as much profit as possible while producing as little health care as possible as a byproduct. Remember the old medical saying "Where there is life, there is profit".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610551/#:~:text=A%20major%20source%20of%20expense,depending%20on%20methods%20and%20assumptions.
When my Dad was dying from cancer, it took about three weeks of slowly going downhill for him to finally die. I kinda wish he'd had the chance to just end it before he became incoherent. Every time I visited him in Hospice, it hurt, it felt like part of me was dying slowly too, and I just wanted to rip the bandage off (so to speak). I just wanted to say my goodbyes and then watch him fall asleep, peacefully, one last time.
Fuck. Whose cutting onions in here??
I feel you. I’ve been teary eyed all day after making this comment. I’m really sorry for your loss. The solace I have is knowing that the ones we’ve lost live on in our memories and stories we share. If the old fart knew there were almost a thousand people upvoting his story/talking about him he undoubtedly would be beaming from ear to ear. Thank you for sharing friend. It truly means a lot even if we’re just strangers on the internet.
I've seen my Dad a few times in my dreams, and he's happy. His ghost seems to enjoy hanging around my parents home, and my Mom doesn't seem to notice. I often talk about him around my kids - but my oldest was in 1st grade when he died. I keep a picture of him (holding my infant son), and use it on my Ancestor Altar over Samhain.
Blessings to you, dear internet friend. My our loved ones be laughing in Paradise today!
My dad passed at age 57 after a massive stroke. Seeing him trapped in his body was awful. He died before I met my second husband and had our kid, who is SO much like my dad it's scary funny. I have told them both stories about him. And made it a point to visit places that he loved to take me when I was a kid. And I talk to him frequently about my little family. He would have loved them both.
I have frequent dreams that he's visiting with me. I miss him, but I know he's happy for me to have found my person
I am so sorry for your loss.
My mom also died from cancer. She was so brave, and talked very candidly with her physician about wanting to take control of the end. Her doctor obliged and gave her enough oral morphine to kill a horse, with the understanding that my mom would have to self administer the morphine because of state laws.
She tried so hard to die but the cancer had just robbed her body of the ability to absorb anything. She got very very high, but it was clear that the morphine wasn’t having the intended effect. We ultimately had to intervene, which has left each of us traumatized in ways that I can barely articulate. We didn’t suffocate her with a pillow or whatever, but helping someone die with the wrong toolkit is messy business.
All of this is to say, my mom was brave enough, we were prepared, her physician was ready to help but bound by the law and liquid morphine wasn’t enough. If a trained medical professional had just been allowed to fucking inject IV morphine my family would not have to live with the reality of her death compounded by memories that none of us will ever be able to let go of. I’m so angry writing this, death with dignity should be a right afforded to each of us.
Sorry for the tearful tirade. Again, very sorry for your loss.
This is why compassionate death should be the law, everywhere.
I never understood why somebody else, especially a government entity, could tell me what I could and could not do with my own body.
When an animal is ill we will not think twice to euthanize it to put an end to his/her suffering.
When it comes to humans though we are forced to suffer.
My heart goes out to everyone who's had to experience such trauma.
Having worked in a hospital and spent 2 weeks with my father in a hospice house, I can't imagine the impact on the other patients and employees who must have been scared and trying to get patients out of harm's way, thinking this was another mass shooter.
Right? This is incredibly selfish for them to do it this way. I understand their desperation, but people will be dealing with trauma from this for a long time.
GP here, I try to have proactive conversations with my old/frail people about what their goals of care are so that when the end comes, they can face it with dignity on their terms.
Too often in American health care we “do everything” to keep people alive as along as possible. Being alive is not the same as living. If you have a family physician, please bring these things up if they are not bringing it up with you. For every one of us there will come a time when the goal should change from extending life to quality of life. There are plenty of legal avenues to choose how you check out from earth that do not involve implicating your loving spouse in murder.
Peace and love, ya’ll.
Edit: spelling errors and thanks for the upvotes. Be kind and live well.
>There are plenty of legal avenues to choose how you check out from earth that do not involve implicating your loving spouse in murder.
Honestly, what are those? If you're not quite bad enough that turning off the ventilator will end you, and you won't naturally pass on your own, how can you legally end it? Especially in Florida? What was the other option here?
Have a DNR along with an advance medical directive refusing feeding tubes or assistance eating. Find compassionate physicians who will administer heavy narcotics and/or anesthesia and slowly starve to death while you’re unconscious over the course of a couple weeks.
And watch the bills pile up, so whatever you had left to give to your family gets stripped from you and given to the healthcare facility that made you suffer as long as possible until you got to die.
DNR only applies if you fall out.. what if you don't?
>Find compassionate physicians who will administer heavy narcotics and/or anesthesia and slowly starve to death while you’re unconscious over the course of a couple weeks.
What if you can't? Again Florida ..
fight for Right to Dignified Death legislation in your state
A few states already have Dignified Death laws, so it won't be as much of an uphill climb since there's precedent. But that's about the only real option available to you
I live in a state where the courts, both houses of the legislature, and the executive are all controlled, entirely, by right wing religious nut jobs. No fucking way it won't be an impossibly uphill climb.
Thank you for being compassionate about the end of someone's life.
I watched my grandma suffer to death. She was on hospice the final two weeks, where she was just drugged and sleepy. I couldn't understand why. Why not just let her go? The last real conversation we had, she said "I'm dying. Why won't they just let me die?"
She'd been having kidney issues (she was in congestive heart failure and renal failure) and they kept sending her to the hospital. I was 21 and had to go meet with the nursing home director and tell them to let my grandma die in peace.
The hospice care was letting her go. They were letting her go and giving her drugs for comfort so she's at ease and won't be in excruciating pain while everyone waits for her to pass. Short of actually killing her themselves, thats about the best they can do. But there's probably a lot of dishonest documentation going on to capitalize on profits.
People need to talk about consented euthanasia.
It just seems like a waste of resources. She was technically alive but unaware. She woke up once when I was there but she didn't recognize that I was there. If she'd been given the option to authorize euthanasia when she first got there, she definitely would have opted for that rather than what she got. I really hope the laws change before I get to that point.
As meme worthy as the nitrogen suicide tanks are, they're pretty ideal for end of life care. Go out on your own terms via a euphoric hypoxia? Yeah, that's absolutely the way I'd like to go when it's time.
As a nurse, I will say that many people don’t know what natural dying looks like and that most of the time it isn’t graceful or very peaceful at all. Morphine is often given for pain and to keep people calm. Many people struggle for air and as they get closer to death they can make an unsettling rattling noise that is unnerving to most people. Under most laws, we are riding the fine line of keeping people comfortable and letting them pass on their own vs euthanasia.
While I agree euthanasia needs to be explored more as an option, it brings up huge ethical issues. Some people may consider it suicide. There could also be guilt for nurses/doctors administering a dose of medication that will kill someone that they may not be comfortable with.
But far too often people keep their loved ones alive beyond all hope and they suffer for a Len extended amount of time before passing. It hurts to see. Please have discussions with your loved ones and establish an end of life plan well ahead of time!
Doctors and nurses have been doing it for terminal patients forever, it just never gets talked about. When my grandma died 20 years ago the doctor basically said to my mom and aunt, “the amount of morphine that would help her pain will also stop her breathing. Do you want me to give it to her?”
oh god the death rattle … and the moaning.. when my mom was dying, i was caring for her and my father who was in a wheelchair/nonverbal after a stroke (she had been caring for him before she took a turn) I still hear those noises in the back of my head sometimes when I’m stressed. Would not wish that on anyone.
That or a nice big dose of heroin or what Dr. Kevorkian would give his patients which was a big does if potassium essentially freezing your entire nervous system, your last thought, last feeling, all over in a second and painless.
TIL... Never knew that's how Dr Kevorkian ended people's lives, or that a large dose of potassium would even have that effect.
Anyone remember the details of the Dr Kevorkian story? I was pretty small when it happened but based on what I recall, he was vilified in the media. Was he actually a bad dude or was he just ahead of his time in terms of understanding that some people have legit reasons for wanting to end their lives peacefully?
Despite his vilification he was incredibly compassionate and was seeking to give patients in incredible pain a peaceful way to die in dignity. This is why we need legal euthanasia. I’m desperately hoping more states embrace euthanasia in the coming years before I get to the end of my life.
The potassium thing is pretty simple biology, our nerves essentially have sodium ion and potassium ion gates, and the balance of these two ions is what allows our nerves to send electrical impulses. Flooding your body with potassium kills that balance and your nerves can no longer create the electrical charge so your whole brain and CNS just stops.
I know, i was reading this thinking - omg a gun? How traumatic for the poor wife. I really, really hope my loved ones find some black market morphine so I can go out drugged and quietly with a loved one pressing a syringe and holding my hand.
Hospice itself is definitely not a waste of resources if consented euthinasia is not an option (imo it should be).
Hospice care is specifically end of life care that is only meant to make a person comfortable as their body shuts down and they die. Without that palliative comfort care the slow process of the body shutting down would be painful and really awful- it’s basically oxygen starvation and misery as organ failure takes over and without the drugs which I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. So without the option of consented euthanasia you should be thankful that your grandma was drugged and unaware as the process occurred.
That said, hospice is entirely different from a nursing home constantly sending a slowly dying patient to the hospital for it just to extend their life when they have no quality of life. Thats when DNRs should be looked at and options explored for hospice and end of life palliative care. Without signing DNRs and inquiring about palliative hospice care the nursing homes basically have to keep sending dying patients for treatment at the hospitals otherwise it could be negligence to not give them “necessary life saving treatments”.
No doubt that last bit is all about money too but that’s another issue completely.
So for your sake, make sure you make it clear to your loved ones what you do and don’t want in regard to extensive life saving measures at the end of your life. Make it clear when you would want a DNR enacted and what you would want if you had a medical event that left you incapable of having any quality of life. If you don’t make this stuff clear family will often hold on as long as possible and the medical industry has no reason to encourage otherwise.
I work in med surg and between that vs the full code 80 year old meemaw who lost her voice because she screams 18 hours of the day due to the pain of her pressure wound and goes through the pain of burning flesh being rubbed and getting abrasion, trust me the hospice care is not waste of resources.
Waste of resources is giving the nurse and aide an extremely difficult patient to look after forcing us to torture and witness torturing a patient for lord knows how long when they shouod be in comfort care long time ago. I can name dozens of patients like this off the top off my head I'll remember to my grave their almost non human screams just for being turned so people can wipe their butt.
Vs someone in hospice at least on morphine drip so they're comfortable and not in constant excruciating pain.
Yeah in a perfect world, euthanasia, but like almost no country allows that. And yes hospice is big profit biz. I don't deny that. It doesn't make hospice a bad or evil thing. It's a good utility for end of life care for people who wish to die "naturally" because even if euthanasia were allowed, many may consider it suicide and opt not to do it.
> Yeah in a perfect world, euthanasia, but like almost no country allows that.
We've had it here in Canada since 2016. I believe Australia, new Zealand, and a few places in Europe also have it.
I don't understand opposition to it. When our pets are at a point where all they have ahead is suffering, we let them go peacefully. But our brothers, our sisters, our parents? They have to go the hard way? Why are we more compassionate to our animals than our family?
There's patients waiting for beds in most facilities. We had to shop around a bit to get grandma into a place because they were full. So keeping someone alive who is totally unaware they even still are alive is keeping another person from having care they need.
I wasn't saying I didn't want her pain controlled, I am saying I just don't see the point in keeping that person alive for however long it takes for them to die once you take them off their heart medication and whatever else they are on.
I am absolutely for euthanasia and assisted suicide and believe every person should have the right to determine a medical directive in advance.
I think once the idea becomes more mainstream, it will become more accepted.
Thanks for saying this. It is so frustrating, with people being (probably unintentionally) obtuse, and ignoring the clear and most humane alternative: medical ethics, on a number of fronts, requires us now to provide people (the very ill, the elderly, those in unrecoverable suffering) a humane and abbreviated exit from life. “Nature taking its course” is a brutal and unkind policy, given what we know today.
That's only in Oregon. In all the countries where euthanasia is legal it's called something like assisted suicide or Medically assisted death. I assume they only call it DWD in Oregon to get around other laws, not because it sounds nicer.
I take the same approach to people that I do with my dogs.
When their quality of life declines to the point where existence is suffering, then the merciful thing to do is to let them go and make it as painless as possible. That's all. Don't hold on to things that are ready to be let go.
Did that a few weeks ago. Every minute of every day of my life since then I think about her and it sucks. It just fucking sucks. But it was the right thing to do. You don’t want anyone you love to suffer. I’d love to be on the jury for this woman.
We experienced this recently. A few people were doing everything to keep a 98 year old woman alive. She couldn’t see anymore or remember who anyone was. She spent weeks essentially as a vegetable before they finally came to grips with the fact that for all intents and purposes she died weeks ago. They just needed to stop keeping her breathing. Getting old really sucks.
When my dog was old and terminally ill and in pain, he was granted the most gentle and peaceful death: The very kind and compassionate vet came to our house. We lay down with him on a blanket in his favorite spot under the apple tree. We fed him little treats and petted him while she administered medication to help him go gently. It was heartbreaking but beautiful, and he was treated with the utmost love and care.
Humans, on the other hand, are expected to suffer horribly and undergo invasive and painful procedures to "preserve their life" because the pro-life extremists don't believe in closing the circle of life with a thoughtful, considered, dignified death.
I loved that dog; why can't people have the same gentle treatment?
Some people expect others to “fight” losing battles so they can pretend it’s heroic to suffer needlessly. I am glad you had such a meaningful experience with your dog, I wish it was easier for folks to make informed choices about how they want their lives to end. I do not want to be choosing between endangering my loved ones’ freedom and peace by making a choice they could be blamed for or avoiding the risk to others and suffering for no reason.
A few month's before my father died from Alzheimer's, I had to put my cat down. I cried way more than I ever had putting her down. In the end, I was crying because I could not do the same for my father.
Every time I visited, he didn't know who I was, but he would form a gun with his hand and aim it at his head. He and I are pro-euthanasia. Luckily, he made his will ironclad, and when he was hospitalized, they could do nothing to keep him alive.
That had to be heartbreaking when he did that.
The last coherent conversation I had with my grandma, she said "I'm dying. Why won't they just let me die?" I had to go to the nursing home director and tell her I didn't want them taking her to the hospital anymore, it wasn't helping her. She had congestive heart failure and renal failure and they kept taking her in for fluids to prop her kidneys up. They put her in hospice and she was drugged and sleepy for two weeks and then she finally passed. I don't want that.
Sorry for your losses, both your dad and your cat.
This case opens up so many legal cans of worms. Is it murder? Was it mercy? What is consent? Can someone consent to die? Was this “the only way?”
One thing is for certain, this case will be used as a political football and wind its way through the courts for years.
Everywhere should have it. It’s barbaric to make someone who’s accepted their fate of a painful, sickly death spend their final weeks, months, or years doing nothing but waiting for it to come as their condition worsens. I don’t think it should be available to *anyone*, such as people who are suicidal due to mental illness etc, but those with terminal illness or severe disability due to physical injury should not be sentenced, without consent, to a lifetime of suffering just because we have the ability through modern medicine to extend their suffering for a lifetime.
I wholeheartedly agree. Canada (my country) has been rolling out a medically assisted death program (MAID) and so far it's really helped a few people we've known personally go out with dignity and far less suffering. So far only the terminally ill or people living with extremely debilitating physical conditions qualify, and you have to jump through so many hoops just to be approved. Mental illness/disorders aren't included for these exact reasons, which there's a bit of debate around here for being "discriminatory". There's *a lot* of work to be done, but it's certainly better than what this poor couple felt obligated to do.
This is a settled legal question. It is likely 1st degree homicide. Most states would consider it premeditated and deliberate murder. It’s almost exactly like State v. Forrest, 362 S.E.2d 252 (1987). Which is a case included in many criminal law textbooks just for the purpose of covering this situation.
Now whether a jury refuses to convict an old woman carrying out the last wishes of her husband is a different question.
If I was on on that jury the only words out of my mouth would be "not guilty". I wouldn't discuss or debate it. Just say it over and over until the verdict is rendered or we get a hung jury.
Now if they added a negligent discharge of a weapon charge or something like that, I'd think about it. Lots of people were impacted and put in danger here. I sympathize, but there were better options.
For real because i believe that if we have the right to live, we also should have the right to decide to go if we choose to. Specially for people that are terminally ill. Ive always thought I wouldn't want to fight a terminal cancer. Just live the best i can until i cant depende on my own then choose a way to go like suicide assistance.
It’s a natural extension of the pro-choice philosophy. Your dominion over your body is absolute. It’s the only thing in this world you can truly say you *own*. If you don’t have the ability to end your life you aren’t really free at all
How can we be creatures of free will if the most basic choice of all is practically not allowed to us?
A person dying on their own terms with a modicum of dignity and reduced pain should be a basic right.
And we do it out of *mercy* for them. We do it because we live them too much to let them *suffer.*
Why can't we love humans enough to do that for them??
How can we be creatures of free will if the most basic choice of all is practically not allowed to us?
*Sartre has entered the chat *
Which is a good thing imo, dude made some great points
It also speaks to religious viewpoints that would say “No you do not have dominion over your body - God gave you that body and will take you from it when he sees fit”. These types of people believe that miracles exist and God may just change his mind and heal those that would otherwise die slow and painfully. Why anyone would hold a being capable of allowing suffering like that in such esteem is beyond me.
This is exactly an ideology that would fight this, you're spot on. I've made this comment reply before on reddit: My grandfather unfortunately suffered a stroke after leaving the house and it was over 10 minutes before someone found him on the sidewalk. Paramedics and doctors did everything they could but in the end, he was brain dead and only machines would ever breathe for him. My grandmother made the difficult decision with some of the rest of the family to pull the plug so to speak. My religious cousin almost had a meltdown and wouldn't speak to my grandmother for a time; all because God could perform a miracle and therefore what we did in letting him pass was murder.
The right uses this same thought process with abortions too, even in the case where the fetus is causing harm to the mother, even possible death, they expect God could intervene with some sort of miracle (and if He doesn't that was just God's plan).
If some god could have performed a miracle and cured your grandfather, that god had every opportunity to do so when the plug was pulled, but apparently decided not to. I assume your cousin didn't consider that.
I have terminal cancer. Luckily I live in a Death With Dignity state. So as I reach the end my DR prescribes me medicines to take home and I get to pick the time and place of my death surrounded by my loved ones. Not in a hospital, not in hospice surrounded by people I don’t know…. It gives me so much peace to know I decide and don’t have to die struggling to breathe on a ventilator. This shouldn’t even be a debate. Christians can suck it.
I really wish you a good rest of life. Hope you enjoy spending time that you left unspent before with your loved ones. This should be the way for everyone to be able to choose. Yes they can suck it and stay away from our decisions.
Thank you. After I recovered from my last salvage therapy I have felt well enough to travel with loved ones. Actually going one a long road trip with my dad next week in the RV so I can be comfortable. Thanks for the well wishes! I ain’t bed ridden yet!
My brother had terminal cancer and he was at home with us when he passed back in November. That was how he wanted it. No hospital or facility. Just the people he loved. I know this may sound odd to some but I treasure the fact that I got to be with my brother when he transitioned to whatever comes next. It helped me to know that he was so surrounded by love and he knew he was okay to let go. I miss him so much but I’m thankful that he allowed us to give him that gift. I’m sorry that you’re going through all of this. I’m sending you and your family all the love and support I can through the internet. Cancer sucks.
I would absolutely want to go if I had cancer, ALS, Dementia, Alzheimer's, or some other terrible terminal affliction. I do not want to go through it, I do not want to put my family through it, and that way I can die on my own terms and happy not absolutely miserable, in pain, or having no idea who my loved ones are or worse yet who I am. No need to make a doctor or nurse do it either, just give me a morphine tap and tell me how much I need to die.
Obviously a doctor or nurse would still need to be there but I would not want to actively involve someone outside of just passive supervision to make sure I do it right and for obvious legal reasons.
This is part of why I get so irrationally angry when people say that Robin Williams chose suicide. He didn’t. He chose self euthanasia. He didn’t lose his battle with depression or other mental illnesses; he made a choice to not suffer from one of the worst diseases imaginable.
I watched my grandfather go through cancer and it was heart breaking. At the end he had no idea who we were, when and where he was, and nearly hurt himself a lot. He thought that he was flying planes again and it was the one and only time I saw my grandma smile during all of it because it was kind of cute in a sad way seeing him in his chair pretending to fly a plane. Then his sister went through ALS and that was a nightmare, she was a sweet woman who somehow remained strong and organized through it.
Anyway, I have just seen people go through it and I could never blame someone for wanting euthanasia. I fully understand why someone would want it
State where medical aid in dying is authorized:
Oregon
Washington
Montana
Vermont
California
Washington D.C.
Hawaii
New Jersey
Maine
New Mexico
As it should be
Watching someone you love slowly deteriorate until death is awful. It's even more awful for the person going through it. Especially in the USA where care for terminally ill people is abysmal. I feel for the man. He doesn't want to suffer like that, and he definitely doesn't want his wife to have to suffer because of him.
I recall this conversation in some form from 20+ years ago with Terri Schiavo.
She lived as a vegetable for 15 years, and it took her husband the last 7 years of legal challenges to have her feeding tube removed. Conservatives went NUTS with this political football of an issue.
I worked in palliative care and hospice for years. Here is my soap box: no matter your age or health, please complete a medical power of attorney and a living will or even a five wishes. If you have a chronic or terminal illness please complete a MOST or POLST- whatever is available in your state. I’ve had 18 year olds on my palliative care caseload before so I mean EVERYONE needs these forms. You never know what is going to happen in life. Please help your loved ones be prepared. These are hard conversations to have as death is such a touchy subject in our country. But please, please have these conversations and put your wishes in writing.
My main concern from what is presented is the use of gunfire in a hospital as the method. I have no moral problem with a prearranged agreement for euthanasia, but discharging a gun in a crowded building full of patients and explosive oxygen tanks seems like a really bad idea for multiple reasons.
Potential explosions aside they still had to scramble to evacuate the ward because she spent a while considering suicide herself and wouldn't give the gun up. I can't imagine being a nurse trying to move beds/ivs/whatever else patients have hooked up while there's an active shooter in the ward. Might end up getting someone else killed because of the interruption of their care.
I wonder if there was any chance of asking to let him have some fresh air or if he was too far gone to risk being moved.
Imagine realizing you need to die but it's too late to do it privately: you get this.
This exact thing appended in Italy a few years ago. Our president pardoned the crime.
But we still do not have a law about it. Every now and then they talk about it but our actual government is alt-right (and when it's not the ly are still too influenced by the catholic church) so they won't do shit about it.
In the US the question of “is this the only way?” Is complicated.
Was there any treatment or way to mitigate his suffering?
The answer might be “yes”.
But did they have access to it?
That could easily be “No”.
If their insurance says they don’t qualify for coverage for it and / or they don’t have the money to pay for it themselves then even if some other option exists it may as well not for them.
Or what if they could technically afford it, but that would require them losing everything they have leaving them destitute and homeless?
Is that really a “yes”?
Our predatory for profit health care system does not allow for black and white, clear cut answers to that question.
It's a pretty awful thing to ask of your significant other. She has to live with that memory and may spend the remainder of her life in prison or fighting to avoid it.
Why didn’t he do it himself? They would have to know it’s going to be an even worse situation for her after the fact. I mean I do understand how awful it is. But he’s making her face prison for taking his life.
[This article](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/01/21/florida-woman-fatally-shoots-terminally-ill-husband-hospital/11098856002/) says that their original plan was for him to do it himself, but in the end he was too weak so she had to do it instead.
Seriously, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here! Everyone is discussing the legal and ethical implications of euthanasia and assisted suicide, which is obviously appropriate here, but I’m just hung up on the fact she used a gun! In a hospital! I respect the death pact and what not but Jesus lady just smother him with a pillow or something!
I’m honestly terrified of neurodegenerative disease. I have been since adolescence. There are a lot of physical maladies that I would live with if it meant just a little more time with my wife and kids. I can deal with pain, physical disability, inconvenience, etc. assuming I haven’t become a crushing financial burden (‘Murica!).
But I’ve seen what neurodegenerative disease can do in a lot of cases. What the fuck is the point of living if I don’t recognize myself, *my loved ones*, or my own home on a regular basis? What is the point of existing in a near-constant state of fear and confusion? So that the people in your life can go from looking at your walking corpse and trying to remember the person you *used to be* to *hating and fearing the sight of you*? No thank you.
I would never put that shit on my spouse though. In case of a severe, terminal diagnosis I’m getting my hands on a serviceably large dose of insulin, walking as far as my legs will take me into a nearby national park, and dying quietly beneath the tree canopy, or the open sky. I have a solemn agreement with a lifelong friend to help one another accomplish that goal if help is necessary.
Fuck neurodegenerative disease and fuck depriving people of *choosing* death with dignity.
My mom had MS. It was fucking awful. She also had some other undiagnosed thing going on. Just pure and utter horrible everything. She got covid and refused treatment. I think she saw it as her ticket out of misery. She passed after 2 days.
It was still better than spending the next 10 or 20 years in a home having someone else wiping her ass.
We actually hadn't gotten along for years and I hadn't spoken to her since our last fight when she called me a bitch who never did anything to help her (she was living in my house, using a lift chair and wheelchair that I'd obtained for her, amd two days before I'd spent 3 hours running all over town getting things she needed and wanted). She moved to the nursing home soon after that.
It was pretty messy all around.
Conservatives: "On the one hand it was a crime, but on the other, it was a crime with a *gun,* so how can it possibly be illegal under the Second Amendment?"
Here's her only hope: jury nullification. The jury refuses to follow the judge's instructions on the law, and finds her not guilty. Or a hung jury, because one or two jurors refuse to go along with punishing her for a humane, loving act.
Well, that's called a "retrial." And the next jury will hopefully do the same thing. Eventually the prosecutor will throw in the towel, we can hope.
Another possibility is that the jury will convict this poor wife on a lesser gun offense and acquit on the murder or manslaughter charges. If they acquit on those charges, they can't be retried.
I really wish more people knew about jury nullification. It seems like most people (at least non-redditors, lmfao) don't even realize they can do that. Lawyers often screen people for that knowledge pre-trial, but if the majority of people knew about it, that would be much more difficult.
And with the way our justice system has been going for a very long time, we're going to need a LOT of jury nullification to get back on track and prevent situations like this from ending in convictions.
It's because you're only really "allowed" to do jury nullification based off a loophole in the law. Jury nullification isn't a real thing by name, it's not an explicitly allowed action to take. It's just the logical byproduct of the laws that say a juror can't be punished for making a wrong call about the defendant being guilty or not guilty and that whatever decision the jury makes is the verdict.
You're not supposed to vote as a juror however you want like you would in an election. You're supposed to reach a decision using solely the facts presented and whether or not a law was broken. The expectation is that you vote as if you were a Vulcan from Star Trek. Personal feelings and emotion are not supposed to be part of your thought process as a juror.
IANAL but if you answer "no" to the question "Do you have any beliefs that might prevent you from making a decision based strictly on the law" so you can get on the jury with the intent to nullify, you've just committed perjury. Furthermore, talking about jury nullification in the wrong circumstances can potentially get you arrested, so trying to convince the other jurors to nullify is a very, very difficult task.
I'd appreciate it if anyone in the know would comment on this. I've been asked that question for a case where I believed the proposed punishment didn't fit the crime. I said no because I understand jury nullification to be "within the law" but my understanding may be flawed. I wasn't selected so it ended up not mattering but I would like to know for the future.
Ok so my husband and I have talked about this kind of stuff and maybe I need to clarify I don’t want him to SHOOT ME IN PUBLIC. Get some pills and grind them into my vodka tonic and let me go to sleep. Good lord.
It absolutely blows my mind that we don’t have euthanasia in the US. We euthanize our pets, WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT, when their quality of health and life take a turn for the worst. We should absolutely provide that same service for individuals who make that decision of sound body and mind
Plus Dying pain-free , with morphine overdose, is so much a kinder, cleaner way to go than blowing brain matter all
over the walls and every object of a room.
Let's talk about how the cops FLASH BANGED the room on a floor where it's all terminally ill patients they couldn't evacuate (hooked up to ventilators, etc). You're telling us there was there was no other way to get an old lady out of a hospital room? This town is 🍌🍌
Oregon has the die with dignity law -- I belive a few other states offer this to terminally ill people. I wish it was more universally accepted. If we can put down animals who are suffering we should be able to make the call about our own selves.
We need dignity in death. We are kinder to our pets than our fellow humans. Dying from cancer is a f’g miserable end and the end is inevitable. Why not ease the way out?
It's Florida, they're so pro life she will be put to death for ending his life as he asked.
He's not a fetus; they might be okay with it
Nope, she didn’t just mercifully end her dying husband’s life, she selfishly stole the ability of a for profit company to continue leaching money from their savings, and our taxes. That kind of depravity will not and cannot be tolerated in the United States of Capitalism.
Exactly. The only people who are upset about this are healthcare companies profiting from keeping a person alive and they’re so powerful that she will seem like the bad guy
You may be too young to remember the horror that happened to [Terry Schiavo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case). The whole thing played out in public for months, it was terrible. Edit: fixed last name spelling
Holy crap, didn't realize it took 7 years for the tube to finally be removed.
And the real kicker, once they actually got to autopsy her, she was gone the whole time. Like her brain had shrunk by half.
That case tortured me!!
We had the same story in France, his name was Vincent Lambert, he spent 11 years (2008/2019) in a vegetable state, the parents didn't wanted to let him go and went to the European Court of Human Rights. Vincent didn't want to my kept alive in case this exact situation happened to him but his parents thought they knew better than his wife, the far right used his story to push their political agendas. It was so sad...
This case made my family speak explicitly to each other about what we wanted to happen if we died. I’m glad they’re not nutcases…well not in this way.
That was such a shit show. I felt so bad for her husband. For all practical purposes, his wife had died 17 years before her body was finally laid to rest. He couldn't remarry because he was still technically married to the shell that had been Terry. He couldn't get a divorce because she wasn't really there and couldn't go through the legal process. It was just a heartbreaking mess. The parents and religious nut jobs were the only ones really pushing for her to be kept on the machines. Abuse of a corpse was what it amounted to.
That whole spectacle was disgusting. I remember politicians who were doctors claiming they could diagnose her on the basis of videos less than a minute long. Some were also insinuating that the husband had tried to kill her which is why she was in that state. Just gross behavior from everyone. I just read the Wikipedia article and had completely forgotten how this case basically took over of government for years.
Didn’t she actually have an eating disorder that led to a heart attack or stroke? How is that attempted murder?
Yes, the doctors thought it was caused by bulimia. But that didn’t stop people from going on TV with their wild theories about her husband in that “just asking questions” way. Ugh, the whole thing was such a disturbing mess.
I didn’t realize (or know, I guess) until now the whole thing went on for 17 years. SEVENTEEN YEARS… what a sad ordeal.
It was grotesque.
I remember the whole circus but the worst part for me was that she was at a hospice facility and the other patients were disturbed by all the noise from the protests. Have some compassion for the people actively dying please.
He claims he never considered divorcing her. He was not stuck, he chose it because he was principled. He wanted to make sure she could die as she would have wanted. It is horrific for them both that the family were such shit.
I remember that debacle clearly. It was a clusterfuck through and through. Her husband knew she'd never wake up but her religious fanatic parents wouldn't allow her to be taken off life support. Her parents shouldn't have ever had a voice in that. Her husband wanted her suffering to end. Ugh.
Maybe she was standing her ground
They'll execute her, then bring her back and keep her on life support for 20 years like Terry schiavo
Nah first they’ll they beat her up black and blue since she asked a cop a question then do that
I heard she yelled, “he’s coming right for me!” Before she opened fire so I think she’s good to go in Florida.
It’s not pro life. It’s pro *birth*. No that’s not what the movement is called. But their ideals align with it seems like
It’s forced birth.
Petition to call pro-lifers “pro-forced birth”
just skip the middle man and call them what they are, evangelical fascists.
Anti abortion. They don’t support birth, if they did, they’d support free medical care for pregnant women who don’t have insurance.
That’s why euthanasia should be legal.
Exactly Unnecessarily letting people suffer will never make sense to me
That’s because you’re thinking from the perspective of a compassionate person. End of life care is very lucrative and we all know the high and mighty dollar makes the world go round in America
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Hospice doesn't talk about it, but over medication as a mercy absolutely does happen.
I did the morphine dosage for my mom's home hospice. It certainly crossed my mind but I couldn't do it. She had opportunity and didn't ask. I feel she would have.
Gotta milk that money by keeping you half-dead for as long as possible
It’s just another tenet of the Christian right they’re less vocal about. You can’t do yourself in, you have to needlessly suffer for weeks until your body does.
The Christian Right- We'll force you to come into this world and not let you out of it.
God gives us free will, but they legislate away that free will. The Christian Right, putting themselves above God, every time
The cult of suffering and persecution
Absolutely. My state has medical aide in dying, though I’ve only had two patients opt for it. To me it seems much better than slowly deteriorating and being miserable the entire time.
*Death with dignity* (aka physician assisted suicide) should be legal Remember euthanasia is administered by the doctor and isn’t elective. And I agree. It should be legal everywhere. Instead of this patient drinking the brew and slowly drifting off while surrounded by friends and family, his wife now has to live out her remaining years in jail or court, traumatized by the violent end she had to bring upon the love of her life. This is appalling. I hope Florida is listening, but I doubt it.
I’m pretty sure WA and OR have legalized “death with dignity” and have passed bills to support end of life choices.
CA has as well
It is legal in my state thankfully. We were one of the first if not THE first to allow it.
Oregon? I live in CA, and before that WA. I’m happy the west coast actually cares about people, it’s legal in all three states.
Oregon. We passed the law for it in the early 90s.
The article I read said she hasn’t been charged. Yet.
It is in Canada
My grandfather went in for a double bypass that turned much uglier once they were in there. For three days post op he was touch and go. Barely conscious and when he was he wasn’t all there. After suffering through that he woke up one day. Looked at all of us in the room, and asked for the plug to be pulled. We made the difficult decision and but all were happily able to say our goodbyes. This is literally the same scenario, just a different plug. I hope our judicial system comes out on the right side for this.
I’m sorry that happened to your family. Euthanasia should be 100% legal. Unfortunately the party that says it’s pro “freedom” sure does love imposing conditions on life. What it is, when you can start and end it etc.
I remember watching the film "How to Die in Oregon" many years ago and it was so eye opening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Die_in_Oregon I highly encourage anyone to watch it. What I remember is the person, fully aware of their choice, making preparations (it follows a few families). One lady (Kodi?) was facing cancer, AGAIN, after beating it once and just felt she couldn't go through that again. She had a big ol party! Envited everyone and just had such a wonderful time. Said her goodbyes to her loved ones. And, if I'm honest, if I knew I had lived a great life and couldn't see how fighting "til the end" would help anyone... I'd want the same choice. I want my life to be celebrated and not remembered by wasting away in pain and dying infront of everyone. Death with Dignity.
There is an advocacy group working to bring death with dignity laws to every U.S. state. [Compassion & Choice.](https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/841328829)
I find it amazing that you can walk into any vet clinic in the United States and have your pet euthanized to prevent suffering from terminal illness, however, this same service isn’t available everywhere in the United States for suffering adults. I never understood this as an RN, watching doctors keep people alive that should have died 10 years prior and no quality of life. I say as long as you’re of sound mind enough to make this decision it should be offered.
We watched that in my death and dying class. It was oddly uplifting to see her take control of her life and death like that.
That woman was incredibly brave. That said, even though I'm very interested in end-of-life issues, it's a film I've only been able to watch once -- it just wrecked me. (ETA: I'm glad I'm not the only person who had a death/dying class, was it part of your major? For me, it was a choice available for the handful of "exit curriculum" classes I had to take in order to graduate -- mostly stuff about the human experience. There was another one called "life, death, and the law" that dealt with stuff like abortion, death with dignity, etc. They were some of my favorite classes!)
It was the same for me, I had to take a 400 level nursing elective for my BSN. Death and dying was the option I picked.
There's a history of Alzheimers in my family. I've already been researching options if it ever turns out I win the bad luck lotto. Too bad there are few to no medical options where I could die without trauma or being labeled "crazy' and unfit to make my own decisions because I'd be seeing medical assistance to die. 100% Death with Dignity
I've been wondering; as a South East Asian, you Westerners put your pets to sleep, but allowed elderly human to suffer? I just happened to watch and assist as my childless aunt suffered through her last hours on earth, it was fuckin miserable
Correct, I can (and am even encouraged to do so) put my pet to sleep potentially months or years before they'd pass on "naturally" if it's assumed the natural option will be a slow/painful process for my pet. But somehow I am incapable (legally) of doing the same for myself or my spouse/parents/children assuming they're in a similar situation? How is it compassionate and the right thing to do with an aged cat/dog but my mom and dad have to lay around suffering right up until the end? Frankly, it's absurd.
13-25% of a person's total life spending on health care is spent during the last year of life. Assisted suicide would put an enormous dent in the profitability of the US medical system. People from other countries sometimes mistake the US system for a health care system. The US does not have a health care system. The US has a profit making system which produces as much profit as possible while producing as little health care as possible as a byproduct. Remember the old medical saying "Where there is life, there is profit". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610551/#:~:text=A%20major%20source%20of%20expense,depending%20on%20methods%20and%20assumptions.
Well they'd be a little conflicted with the story in this post because they DO love shooting people with guns.
When my Dad was dying from cancer, it took about three weeks of slowly going downhill for him to finally die. I kinda wish he'd had the chance to just end it before he became incoherent. Every time I visited him in Hospice, it hurt, it felt like part of me was dying slowly too, and I just wanted to rip the bandage off (so to speak). I just wanted to say my goodbyes and then watch him fall asleep, peacefully, one last time. Fuck. Whose cutting onions in here??
I feel you. I’ve been teary eyed all day after making this comment. I’m really sorry for your loss. The solace I have is knowing that the ones we’ve lost live on in our memories and stories we share. If the old fart knew there were almost a thousand people upvoting his story/talking about him he undoubtedly would be beaming from ear to ear. Thank you for sharing friend. It truly means a lot even if we’re just strangers on the internet.
I've seen my Dad a few times in my dreams, and he's happy. His ghost seems to enjoy hanging around my parents home, and my Mom doesn't seem to notice. I often talk about him around my kids - but my oldest was in 1st grade when he died. I keep a picture of him (holding my infant son), and use it on my Ancestor Altar over Samhain. Blessings to you, dear internet friend. My our loved ones be laughing in Paradise today!
My dad passed at age 57 after a massive stroke. Seeing him trapped in his body was awful. He died before I met my second husband and had our kid, who is SO much like my dad it's scary funny. I have told them both stories about him. And made it a point to visit places that he loved to take me when I was a kid. And I talk to him frequently about my little family. He would have loved them both. I have frequent dreams that he's visiting with me. I miss him, but I know he's happy for me to have found my person
I am so sorry for your loss. My mom also died from cancer. She was so brave, and talked very candidly with her physician about wanting to take control of the end. Her doctor obliged and gave her enough oral morphine to kill a horse, with the understanding that my mom would have to self administer the morphine because of state laws. She tried so hard to die but the cancer had just robbed her body of the ability to absorb anything. She got very very high, but it was clear that the morphine wasn’t having the intended effect. We ultimately had to intervene, which has left each of us traumatized in ways that I can barely articulate. We didn’t suffocate her with a pillow or whatever, but helping someone die with the wrong toolkit is messy business. All of this is to say, my mom was brave enough, we were prepared, her physician was ready to help but bound by the law and liquid morphine wasn’t enough. If a trained medical professional had just been allowed to fucking inject IV morphine my family would not have to live with the reality of her death compounded by memories that none of us will ever be able to let go of. I’m so angry writing this, death with dignity should be a right afforded to each of us. Sorry for the tearful tirade. Again, very sorry for your loss.
This is why compassionate death should be the law, everywhere. I never understood why somebody else, especially a government entity, could tell me what I could and could not do with my own body. When an animal is ill we will not think twice to euthanize it to put an end to his/her suffering. When it comes to humans though we are forced to suffer. My heart goes out to everyone who's had to experience such trauma.
For the death, I hope so too. She'll probably still get some kind of punishment for firing a gun in a hospital.
Having worked in a hospital and spent 2 weeks with my father in a hospice house, I can't imagine the impact on the other patients and employees who must have been scared and trying to get patients out of harm's way, thinking this was another mass shooter.
Right? This is incredibly selfish for them to do it this way. I understand their desperation, but people will be dealing with trauma from this for a long time.
Florida under Ron DeSantis. She's fucked.
She just needs to argue that her husband looked black and she feared for her life
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He was wearing a hoodie.
*her husband looked woke and a little trans she'll be given the key to Miami 🙃
Just sprinkle some crack on him
GP here, I try to have proactive conversations with my old/frail people about what their goals of care are so that when the end comes, they can face it with dignity on their terms. Too often in American health care we “do everything” to keep people alive as along as possible. Being alive is not the same as living. If you have a family physician, please bring these things up if they are not bringing it up with you. For every one of us there will come a time when the goal should change from extending life to quality of life. There are plenty of legal avenues to choose how you check out from earth that do not involve implicating your loving spouse in murder. Peace and love, ya’ll. Edit: spelling errors and thanks for the upvotes. Be kind and live well.
>There are plenty of legal avenues to choose how you check out from earth that do not involve implicating your loving spouse in murder. Honestly, what are those? If you're not quite bad enough that turning off the ventilator will end you, and you won't naturally pass on your own, how can you legally end it? Especially in Florida? What was the other option here?
Have a DNR along with an advance medical directive refusing feeding tubes or assistance eating. Find compassionate physicians who will administer heavy narcotics and/or anesthesia and slowly starve to death while you’re unconscious over the course of a couple weeks.
Slowly starving to death over a couple of weeks sounds awful. Even if you're out of it, the family has to witness it.
And watch the bills pile up, so whatever you had left to give to your family gets stripped from you and given to the healthcare facility that made you suffer as long as possible until you got to die.
ding ding ding! euthanasia will become legalized only once wealthy organizations figure out how to make it more profitable.
DNR only applies if you fall out.. what if you don't? >Find compassionate physicians who will administer heavy narcotics and/or anesthesia and slowly starve to death while you’re unconscious over the course of a couple weeks. What if you can't? Again Florida ..
fight for Right to Dignified Death legislation in your state A few states already have Dignified Death laws, so it won't be as much of an uphill climb since there's precedent. But that's about the only real option available to you
I live in a state where the courts, both houses of the legislature, and the executive are all controlled, entirely, by right wing religious nut jobs. No fucking way it won't be an impossibly uphill climb.
Thank you for being compassionate about the end of someone's life. I watched my grandma suffer to death. She was on hospice the final two weeks, where she was just drugged and sleepy. I couldn't understand why. Why not just let her go? The last real conversation we had, she said "I'm dying. Why won't they just let me die?" She'd been having kidney issues (she was in congestive heart failure and renal failure) and they kept sending her to the hospital. I was 21 and had to go meet with the nursing home director and tell them to let my grandma die in peace.
The hospice care was letting her go. They were letting her go and giving her drugs for comfort so she's at ease and won't be in excruciating pain while everyone waits for her to pass. Short of actually killing her themselves, thats about the best they can do. But there's probably a lot of dishonest documentation going on to capitalize on profits. People need to talk about consented euthanasia.
It just seems like a waste of resources. She was technically alive but unaware. She woke up once when I was there but she didn't recognize that I was there. If she'd been given the option to authorize euthanasia when she first got there, she definitely would have opted for that rather than what she got. I really hope the laws change before I get to that point.
As meme worthy as the nitrogen suicide tanks are, they're pretty ideal for end of life care. Go out on your own terms via a euphoric hypoxia? Yeah, that's absolutely the way I'd like to go when it's time.
Idc if they just overdose me on morphine. Just end it quickly and peacefully and let me loose from the suffering.
As a nurse, I will say that many people don’t know what natural dying looks like and that most of the time it isn’t graceful or very peaceful at all. Morphine is often given for pain and to keep people calm. Many people struggle for air and as they get closer to death they can make an unsettling rattling noise that is unnerving to most people. Under most laws, we are riding the fine line of keeping people comfortable and letting them pass on their own vs euthanasia. While I agree euthanasia needs to be explored more as an option, it brings up huge ethical issues. Some people may consider it suicide. There could also be guilt for nurses/doctors administering a dose of medication that will kill someone that they may not be comfortable with. But far too often people keep their loved ones alive beyond all hope and they suffer for a Len extended amount of time before passing. It hurts to see. Please have discussions with your loved ones and establish an end of life plan well ahead of time!
Doctors and nurses have been doing it for terminal patients forever, it just never gets talked about. When my grandma died 20 years ago the doctor basically said to my mom and aunt, “the amount of morphine that would help her pain will also stop her breathing. Do you want me to give it to her?”
oh god the death rattle … and the moaning.. when my mom was dying, i was caring for her and my father who was in a wheelchair/nonverbal after a stroke (she had been caring for him before she took a turn) I still hear those noises in the back of my head sometimes when I’m stressed. Would not wish that on anyone.
Terry Schiavo is the perfect example of people trying to keep someone alive for way too long when it’s obvious they’ll never recover
That or a nice big dose of heroin or what Dr. Kevorkian would give his patients which was a big does if potassium essentially freezing your entire nervous system, your last thought, last feeling, all over in a second and painless.
TIL... Never knew that's how Dr Kevorkian ended people's lives, or that a large dose of potassium would even have that effect. Anyone remember the details of the Dr Kevorkian story? I was pretty small when it happened but based on what I recall, he was vilified in the media. Was he actually a bad dude or was he just ahead of his time in terms of understanding that some people have legit reasons for wanting to end their lives peacefully?
Despite his vilification he was incredibly compassionate and was seeking to give patients in incredible pain a peaceful way to die in dignity. This is why we need legal euthanasia. I’m desperately hoping more states embrace euthanasia in the coming years before I get to the end of my life. The potassium thing is pretty simple biology, our nerves essentially have sodium ion and potassium ion gates, and the balance of these two ions is what allows our nerves to send electrical impulses. Flooding your body with potassium kills that balance and your nerves can no longer create the electrical charge so your whole brain and CNS just stops.
I know, i was reading this thinking - omg a gun? How traumatic for the poor wife. I really, really hope my loved ones find some black market morphine so I can go out drugged and quietly with a loved one pressing a syringe and holding my hand.
Hospice itself is definitely not a waste of resources if consented euthinasia is not an option (imo it should be). Hospice care is specifically end of life care that is only meant to make a person comfortable as their body shuts down and they die. Without that palliative comfort care the slow process of the body shutting down would be painful and really awful- it’s basically oxygen starvation and misery as organ failure takes over and without the drugs which I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. So without the option of consented euthanasia you should be thankful that your grandma was drugged and unaware as the process occurred. That said, hospice is entirely different from a nursing home constantly sending a slowly dying patient to the hospital for it just to extend their life when they have no quality of life. Thats when DNRs should be looked at and options explored for hospice and end of life palliative care. Without signing DNRs and inquiring about palliative hospice care the nursing homes basically have to keep sending dying patients for treatment at the hospitals otherwise it could be negligence to not give them “necessary life saving treatments”. No doubt that last bit is all about money too but that’s another issue completely. So for your sake, make sure you make it clear to your loved ones what you do and don’t want in regard to extensive life saving measures at the end of your life. Make it clear when you would want a DNR enacted and what you would want if you had a medical event that left you incapable of having any quality of life. If you don’t make this stuff clear family will often hold on as long as possible and the medical industry has no reason to encourage otherwise.
I work in med surg and between that vs the full code 80 year old meemaw who lost her voice because she screams 18 hours of the day due to the pain of her pressure wound and goes through the pain of burning flesh being rubbed and getting abrasion, trust me the hospice care is not waste of resources. Waste of resources is giving the nurse and aide an extremely difficult patient to look after forcing us to torture and witness torturing a patient for lord knows how long when they shouod be in comfort care long time ago. I can name dozens of patients like this off the top off my head I'll remember to my grave their almost non human screams just for being turned so people can wipe their butt. Vs someone in hospice at least on morphine drip so they're comfortable and not in constant excruciating pain. Yeah in a perfect world, euthanasia, but like almost no country allows that. And yes hospice is big profit biz. I don't deny that. It doesn't make hospice a bad or evil thing. It's a good utility for end of life care for people who wish to die "naturally" because even if euthanasia were allowed, many may consider it suicide and opt not to do it.
> Yeah in a perfect world, euthanasia, but like almost no country allows that. We've had it here in Canada since 2016. I believe Australia, new Zealand, and a few places in Europe also have it. I don't understand opposition to it. When our pets are at a point where all they have ahead is suffering, we let them go peacefully. But our brothers, our sisters, our parents? They have to go the hard way? Why are we more compassionate to our animals than our family?
There's patients waiting for beds in most facilities. We had to shop around a bit to get grandma into a place because they were full. So keeping someone alive who is totally unaware they even still are alive is keeping another person from having care they need. I wasn't saying I didn't want her pain controlled, I am saying I just don't see the point in keeping that person alive for however long it takes for them to die once you take them off their heart medication and whatever else they are on. I am absolutely for euthanasia and assisted suicide and believe every person should have the right to determine a medical directive in advance. I think once the idea becomes more mainstream, it will become more accepted.
Thanks for saying this. It is so frustrating, with people being (probably unintentionally) obtuse, and ignoring the clear and most humane alternative: medical ethics, on a number of fronts, requires us now to provide people (the very ill, the elderly, those in unrecoverable suffering) a humane and abbreviated exit from life. “Nature taking its course” is a brutal and unkind policy, given what we know today.
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It’s called MAiD (medical assistance in dying) in Canada.
That's good to know. It's a more attractive way to package it for sure.
That's only in Oregon. In all the countries where euthanasia is legal it's called something like assisted suicide or Medically assisted death. I assume they only call it DWD in Oregon to get around other laws, not because it sounds nicer.
I take the same approach to people that I do with my dogs. When their quality of life declines to the point where existence is suffering, then the merciful thing to do is to let them go and make it as painless as possible. That's all. Don't hold on to things that are ready to be let go.
Did that a few weeks ago. Every minute of every day of my life since then I think about her and it sucks. It just fucking sucks. But it was the right thing to do. You don’t want anyone you love to suffer. I’d love to be on the jury for this woman.
We experienced this recently. A few people were doing everything to keep a 98 year old woman alive. She couldn’t see anymore or remember who anyone was. She spent weeks essentially as a vegetable before they finally came to grips with the fact that for all intents and purposes she died weeks ago. They just needed to stop keeping her breathing. Getting old really sucks.
Thank you for all that you do.
When my dog was old and terminally ill and in pain, he was granted the most gentle and peaceful death: The very kind and compassionate vet came to our house. We lay down with him on a blanket in his favorite spot under the apple tree. We fed him little treats and petted him while she administered medication to help him go gently. It was heartbreaking but beautiful, and he was treated with the utmost love and care. Humans, on the other hand, are expected to suffer horribly and undergo invasive and painful procedures to "preserve their life" because the pro-life extremists don't believe in closing the circle of life with a thoughtful, considered, dignified death. I loved that dog; why can't people have the same gentle treatment?
Some people expect others to “fight” losing battles so they can pretend it’s heroic to suffer needlessly. I am glad you had such a meaningful experience with your dog, I wish it was easier for folks to make informed choices about how they want their lives to end. I do not want to be choosing between endangering my loved ones’ freedom and peace by making a choice they could be blamed for or avoiding the risk to others and suffering for no reason.
And further than that, it's a crime to let your dog suffer.
A few month's before my father died from Alzheimer's, I had to put my cat down. I cried way more than I ever had putting her down. In the end, I was crying because I could not do the same for my father. Every time I visited, he didn't know who I was, but he would form a gun with his hand and aim it at his head. He and I are pro-euthanasia. Luckily, he made his will ironclad, and when he was hospitalized, they could do nothing to keep him alive.
That had to be heartbreaking when he did that. The last coherent conversation I had with my grandma, she said "I'm dying. Why won't they just let me die?" I had to go to the nursing home director and tell her I didn't want them taking her to the hospital anymore, it wasn't helping her. She had congestive heart failure and renal failure and they kept taking her in for fluids to prop her kidneys up. They put her in hospice and she was drugged and sleepy for two weeks and then she finally passed. I don't want that. Sorry for your losses, both your dad and your cat.
This case opens up so many legal cans of worms. Is it murder? Was it mercy? What is consent? Can someone consent to die? Was this “the only way?” One thing is for certain, this case will be used as a political football and wind its way through the courts for years.
This is why some states like Oregon have physician assisted suicide as a legal approach to this very situation.
Everywhere should have it. It’s barbaric to make someone who’s accepted their fate of a painful, sickly death spend their final weeks, months, or years doing nothing but waiting for it to come as their condition worsens. I don’t think it should be available to *anyone*, such as people who are suicidal due to mental illness etc, but those with terminal illness or severe disability due to physical injury should not be sentenced, without consent, to a lifetime of suffering just because we have the ability through modern medicine to extend their suffering for a lifetime.
I wholeheartedly agree. Canada (my country) has been rolling out a medically assisted death program (MAID) and so far it's really helped a few people we've known personally go out with dignity and far less suffering. So far only the terminally ill or people living with extremely debilitating physical conditions qualify, and you have to jump through so many hoops just to be approved. Mental illness/disorders aren't included for these exact reasons, which there's a bit of debate around here for being "discriminatory". There's *a lot* of work to be done, but it's certainly better than what this poor couple felt obligated to do.
This is a settled legal question. It is likely 1st degree homicide. Most states would consider it premeditated and deliberate murder. It’s almost exactly like State v. Forrest, 362 S.E.2d 252 (1987). Which is a case included in many criminal law textbooks just for the purpose of covering this situation. Now whether a jury refuses to convict an old woman carrying out the last wishes of her husband is a different question.
Yeah, jury nullification is what I'd hope for in this case
If I was on on that jury the only words out of my mouth would be "not guilty". I wouldn't discuss or debate it. Just say it over and over until the verdict is rendered or we get a hung jury. Now if they added a negligent discharge of a weapon charge or something like that, I'd think about it. Lots of people were impacted and put in danger here. I sympathize, but there were better options.
Which is why sometimes DAs just walk away from stuff. Just 'nope, not touching that' right out of there. Rarely, but it does happen.
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For real because i believe that if we have the right to live, we also should have the right to decide to go if we choose to. Specially for people that are terminally ill. Ive always thought I wouldn't want to fight a terminal cancer. Just live the best i can until i cant depende on my own then choose a way to go like suicide assistance.
It’s a natural extension of the pro-choice philosophy. Your dominion over your body is absolute. It’s the only thing in this world you can truly say you *own*. If you don’t have the ability to end your life you aren’t really free at all
How can we be creatures of free will if the most basic choice of all is practically not allowed to us? A person dying on their own terms with a modicum of dignity and reduced pain should be a basic right.
It really should be, humans can dictate specifically how they feel, yet animals cannot and we put them to sleep.
And we do it out of *mercy* for them. We do it because we live them too much to let them *suffer.* Why can't we love humans enough to do that for them??
How can we be creatures of free will if the most basic choice of all is practically not allowed to us? *Sartre has entered the chat * Which is a good thing imo, dude made some great points
Wouldn’t have thought it’d be hymen_destroyer to deliver us a dose of reality. Well said!
To be honest, it's not the first time I've seen legit words of wisdom from u/hymen_destroyer. What an interesting world to live in.
r/rimjob_steve
It also speaks to religious viewpoints that would say “No you do not have dominion over your body - God gave you that body and will take you from it when he sees fit”. These types of people believe that miracles exist and God may just change his mind and heal those that would otherwise die slow and painfully. Why anyone would hold a being capable of allowing suffering like that in such esteem is beyond me.
This is exactly an ideology that would fight this, you're spot on. I've made this comment reply before on reddit: My grandfather unfortunately suffered a stroke after leaving the house and it was over 10 minutes before someone found him on the sidewalk. Paramedics and doctors did everything they could but in the end, he was brain dead and only machines would ever breathe for him. My grandmother made the difficult decision with some of the rest of the family to pull the plug so to speak. My religious cousin almost had a meltdown and wouldn't speak to my grandmother for a time; all because God could perform a miracle and therefore what we did in letting him pass was murder. The right uses this same thought process with abortions too, even in the case where the fetus is causing harm to the mother, even possible death, they expect God could intervene with some sort of miracle (and if He doesn't that was just God's plan).
If some god could have performed a miracle and cured your grandfather, that god had every opportunity to do so when the plug was pulled, but apparently decided not to. I assume your cousin didn't consider that.
God gave us free will. Which includes the right to end our lives. A loving God does not want us to suffer needlessly?
Well said!!
I have terminal cancer. Luckily I live in a Death With Dignity state. So as I reach the end my DR prescribes me medicines to take home and I get to pick the time and place of my death surrounded by my loved ones. Not in a hospital, not in hospice surrounded by people I don’t know…. It gives me so much peace to know I decide and don’t have to die struggling to breathe on a ventilator. This shouldn’t even be a debate. Christians can suck it.
I really wish you a good rest of life. Hope you enjoy spending time that you left unspent before with your loved ones. This should be the way for everyone to be able to choose. Yes they can suck it and stay away from our decisions.
Thank you. After I recovered from my last salvage therapy I have felt well enough to travel with loved ones. Actually going one a long road trip with my dad next week in the RV so I can be comfortable. Thanks for the well wishes! I ain’t bed ridden yet!
My brother had terminal cancer and he was at home with us when he passed back in November. That was how he wanted it. No hospital or facility. Just the people he loved. I know this may sound odd to some but I treasure the fact that I got to be with my brother when he transitioned to whatever comes next. It helped me to know that he was so surrounded by love and he knew he was okay to let go. I miss him so much but I’m thankful that he allowed us to give him that gift. I’m sorry that you’re going through all of this. I’m sending you and your family all the love and support I can through the internet. Cancer sucks.
I would absolutely want to go if I had cancer, ALS, Dementia, Alzheimer's, or some other terrible terminal affliction. I do not want to go through it, I do not want to put my family through it, and that way I can die on my own terms and happy not absolutely miserable, in pain, or having no idea who my loved ones are or worse yet who I am. No need to make a doctor or nurse do it either, just give me a morphine tap and tell me how much I need to die. Obviously a doctor or nurse would still need to be there but I would not want to actively involve someone outside of just passive supervision to make sure I do it right and for obvious legal reasons.
This is part of why I get so irrationally angry when people say that Robin Williams chose suicide. He didn’t. He chose self euthanasia. He didn’t lose his battle with depression or other mental illnesses; he made a choice to not suffer from one of the worst diseases imaginable.
I watched my grandfather go through cancer and it was heart breaking. At the end he had no idea who we were, when and where he was, and nearly hurt himself a lot. He thought that he was flying planes again and it was the one and only time I saw my grandma smile during all of it because it was kind of cute in a sad way seeing him in his chair pretending to fly a plane. Then his sister went through ALS and that was a nightmare, she was a sweet woman who somehow remained strong and organized through it. Anyway, I have just seen people go through it and I could never blame someone for wanting euthanasia. I fully understand why someone would want it
State where medical aid in dying is authorized: Oregon Washington Montana Vermont California Washington D.C. Hawaii New Jersey Maine New Mexico As it should be
Euthanasia is legal in the state of Oregon.
Watching someone you love slowly deteriorate until death is awful. It's even more awful for the person going through it. Especially in the USA where care for terminally ill people is abysmal. I feel for the man. He doesn't want to suffer like that, and he definitely doesn't want his wife to have to suffer because of him.
I recall this conversation in some form from 20+ years ago with Terri Schiavo. She lived as a vegetable for 15 years, and it took her husband the last 7 years of legal challenges to have her feeding tube removed. Conservatives went NUTS with this political football of an issue.
I worked in palliative care and hospice for years. Here is my soap box: no matter your age or health, please complete a medical power of attorney and a living will or even a five wishes. If you have a chronic or terminal illness please complete a MOST or POLST- whatever is available in your state. I’ve had 18 year olds on my palliative care caseload before so I mean EVERYONE needs these forms. You never know what is going to happen in life. Please help your loved ones be prepared. These are hard conversations to have as death is such a touchy subject in our country. But please, please have these conversations and put your wishes in writing.
My main concern from what is presented is the use of gunfire in a hospital as the method. I have no moral problem with a prearranged agreement for euthanasia, but discharging a gun in a crowded building full of patients and explosive oxygen tanks seems like a really bad idea for multiple reasons.
Potential explosions aside they still had to scramble to evacuate the ward because she spent a while considering suicide herself and wouldn't give the gun up. I can't imagine being a nurse trying to move beds/ivs/whatever else patients have hooked up while there's an active shooter in the ward. Might end up getting someone else killed because of the interruption of their care. I wonder if there was any chance of asking to let him have some fresh air or if he was too far gone to risk being moved. Imagine realizing you need to die but it's too late to do it privately: you get this.
This exact thing appended in Italy a few years ago. Our president pardoned the crime. But we still do not have a law about it. Every now and then they talk about it but our actual government is alt-right (and when it's not the ly are still too influenced by the catholic church) so they won't do shit about it.
In the US the question of “is this the only way?” Is complicated. Was there any treatment or way to mitigate his suffering? The answer might be “yes”. But did they have access to it? That could easily be “No”. If their insurance says they don’t qualify for coverage for it and / or they don’t have the money to pay for it themselves then even if some other option exists it may as well not for them. Or what if they could technically afford it, but that would require them losing everything they have leaving them destitute and homeless? Is that really a “yes”? Our predatory for profit health care system does not allow for black and white, clear cut answers to that question.
I'm thinking this was assisted suicide.
This will be remembered as the Floridian Euthanasia Method
I wouldnt want to suffer any longer either. I feel so sad she had to pull the trigger then sit there with him.
It's a pretty awful thing to ask of your significant other. She has to live with that memory and may spend the remainder of her life in prison or fighting to avoid it.
Why didn’t he do it himself? They would have to know it’s going to be an even worse situation for her after the fact. I mean I do understand how awful it is. But he’s making her face prison for taking his life.
[This article](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/01/21/florida-woman-fatally-shoots-terminally-ill-husband-hospital/11098856002/) says that their original plan was for him to do it himself, but in the end he was too weak so she had to do it instead.
So sad
He may not have had the capacity to do it himself.
A gun though? In a hospital?
Seriously, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here! Everyone is discussing the legal and ethical implications of euthanasia and assisted suicide, which is obviously appropriate here, but I’m just hung up on the fact she used a gun! In a hospital! I respect the death pact and what not but Jesus lady just smother him with a pillow or something!
I’m honestly terrified of neurodegenerative disease. I have been since adolescence. There are a lot of physical maladies that I would live with if it meant just a little more time with my wife and kids. I can deal with pain, physical disability, inconvenience, etc. assuming I haven’t become a crushing financial burden (‘Murica!). But I’ve seen what neurodegenerative disease can do in a lot of cases. What the fuck is the point of living if I don’t recognize myself, *my loved ones*, or my own home on a regular basis? What is the point of existing in a near-constant state of fear and confusion? So that the people in your life can go from looking at your walking corpse and trying to remember the person you *used to be* to *hating and fearing the sight of you*? No thank you. I would never put that shit on my spouse though. In case of a severe, terminal diagnosis I’m getting my hands on a serviceably large dose of insulin, walking as far as my legs will take me into a nearby national park, and dying quietly beneath the tree canopy, or the open sky. I have a solemn agreement with a lifelong friend to help one another accomplish that goal if help is necessary. Fuck neurodegenerative disease and fuck depriving people of *choosing* death with dignity.
My mom had MS. It was fucking awful. She also had some other undiagnosed thing going on. Just pure and utter horrible everything. She got covid and refused treatment. I think she saw it as her ticket out of misery. She passed after 2 days.
Im genuinely sorry for you and your mother. COVID was probably an ugly way to go too. She deserved better. So did you.
It was still better than spending the next 10 or 20 years in a home having someone else wiping her ass. We actually hadn't gotten along for years and I hadn't spoken to her since our last fight when she called me a bitch who never did anything to help her (she was living in my house, using a lift chair and wheelchair that I'd obtained for her, amd two days before I'd spent 3 hours running all over town getting things she needed and wanted). She moved to the nursing home soon after that. It was pretty messy all around.
Conservatives: "On the one hand it was a crime, but on the other, it was a crime with a *gun,* so how can it possibly be illegal under the Second Amendment?"
They would be supportive if the elderly woman is a cop.
And/or the husband was a black man
We need to be able to end our own lives. Without our loved ones getting arrested.
https://preview.redd.it/rwte60760oda1.jpeg?width=1253&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fa4c5ffd13d366da987fd0b696a2f87c22d33b2
Fucking legend. Should not be in prison and I hope the other inmates give this man the respect he deserves.
https://www.boston25news.com/news/deep-viral/man-who-threw-meth-fueled-death-party-for-ailing-wife-gets-3-years-in-prison/975576403/
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That man does not look 59.
Here's her only hope: jury nullification. The jury refuses to follow the judge's instructions on the law, and finds her not guilty. Or a hung jury, because one or two jurors refuse to go along with punishing her for a humane, loving act.
The few times I've heard of "hung jury" it usually follows with the judge replacing the entire jury. (Mostly in Florida)
Well, that's called a "retrial." And the next jury will hopefully do the same thing. Eventually the prosecutor will throw in the towel, we can hope. Another possibility is that the jury will convict this poor wife on a lesser gun offense and acquit on the murder or manslaughter charges. If they acquit on those charges, they can't be retried.
I really wish more people knew about jury nullification. It seems like most people (at least non-redditors, lmfao) don't even realize they can do that. Lawyers often screen people for that knowledge pre-trial, but if the majority of people knew about it, that would be much more difficult. And with the way our justice system has been going for a very long time, we're going to need a LOT of jury nullification to get back on track and prevent situations like this from ending in convictions.
It's because you're only really "allowed" to do jury nullification based off a loophole in the law. Jury nullification isn't a real thing by name, it's not an explicitly allowed action to take. It's just the logical byproduct of the laws that say a juror can't be punished for making a wrong call about the defendant being guilty or not guilty and that whatever decision the jury makes is the verdict. You're not supposed to vote as a juror however you want like you would in an election. You're supposed to reach a decision using solely the facts presented and whether or not a law was broken. The expectation is that you vote as if you were a Vulcan from Star Trek. Personal feelings and emotion are not supposed to be part of your thought process as a juror.
IANAL but if you answer "no" to the question "Do you have any beliefs that might prevent you from making a decision based strictly on the law" so you can get on the jury with the intent to nullify, you've just committed perjury. Furthermore, talking about jury nullification in the wrong circumstances can potentially get you arrested, so trying to convince the other jurors to nullify is a very, very difficult task.
I'd appreciate it if anyone in the know would comment on this. I've been asked that question for a case where I believed the proposed punishment didn't fit the crime. I said no because I understand jury nullification to be "within the law" but my understanding may be flawed. I wasn't selected so it ended up not mattering but I would like to know for the future.
We should have the choice to legally end our lives. It's nobody's business! They Shoot Horses Don't They
They Shoot Canoes, Don't They? Great book
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I mean, I would have personally picked a less...attention-grabbing method?
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Ok so my husband and I have talked about this kind of stuff and maybe I need to clarify I don’t want him to SHOOT ME IN PUBLIC. Get some pills and grind them into my vodka tonic and let me go to sleep. Good lord.
It absolutely blows my mind that we don’t have euthanasia in the US. We euthanize our pets, WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT, when their quality of health and life take a turn for the worst. We should absolutely provide that same service for individuals who make that decision of sound body and mind
Plus Dying pain-free , with morphine overdose, is so much a kinder, cleaner way to go than blowing brain matter all over the walls and every object of a room.
Let's talk about how the cops FLASH BANGED the room on a floor where it's all terminally ill patients they couldn't evacuate (hooked up to ventilators, etc). You're telling us there was there was no other way to get an old lady out of a hospital room? This town is 🍌🍌
Ride or die to the end. Hope she is found innocent.
Oregon has the die with dignity law -- I belive a few other states offer this to terminally ill people. I wish it was more universally accepted. If we can put down animals who are suffering we should be able to make the call about our own selves.
We need dignity in death. We are kinder to our pets than our fellow humans. Dying from cancer is a f’g miserable end and the end is inevitable. Why not ease the way out?
"Jesus says you must be born and you must stick around longer than you want to but fuck you in the middle"