On November 1, Brittany Maynard, a woman in the prime of life at 29, decided to take a fatal overdose of barbiturates because she was terminally ill with brain cancer. After the diagnosis, she and her husband moved to Washington State Oregon, one of five states in the U.S. that allow assisted suicide. The best account of her short life was given by People magazine, and is ineffably sad.
Here’s a video about Brittany. She helped found the Brittany Maynard Fund at Compassion and Choices, and you can donate to help expand the choices available to people at the end of their lives.
This is the final message Brittany wrote and posted on Facebook the day she died. If it doesn’t make you tear up, you’re not sentient:
“Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me … but would have taken so much more,” she wrote on Facebook. “The world is a beautiful place, travel has been my greatest teacher, my close friends and folks are the greatest givers. I even have a ring of support around my bed as I type … Goodbye world. Spread good energy. Pay it forward!”
The states that allow assisted dying in the U.S. are only these: Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Montana and Vermont. Why not the others? Opposition by religion, in the main—especially by the Roman Catholic Church, which actually sees the suffering at the end of life as a “good”, enabling one to experience the sufferings of Jesus. The Catholic Declaration on Euthanasia (from 1980) contains these chilling words:
According to Christian teaching, however, suffering, especially suffering during the last moments of life, has a special place in God’s saving plan; it is in fact a sharing in Christ’s passion and a union with the redeeming sacrifice which He offered in obedience to the Father’s will.
That’s just ridiculous. Brittany, with the help of others, “put herself to sleep” with an overdose of drugs, just as we do to our suffering pets. Why do we allow our animals this mercy but prohibit it for members of our own species? Chalk up that heartless attitude to religion.
RIP, Brittany, a brave and articulate woman, a pioneer, and an inspiration. May her death help convince others that there are rational and moral alternatives to dying in horrible torment. She paid it forward.
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RIP, Brittany, you suffer no longer.
Ms Brittany soooo DID, indeed, pay it forward, didn’t she ?
Blue
Good on her.
I totally support the choice to die with dignity, but it isn’t only religious groups that oppose assisted suicide. Disability advocates can also be strong opponents because they fear that disabled persons will be pressured to end their lives if assisted suicide becomes available. I’ve clashed with a number of Atheists who take the conservative stance on this issue.
it always strikes me as a bizaare argument e.g. if someone might misuse it, then no one can have it ever. But disability advocates never insist that opiates be banned.
Whenever I hear this kind of argument, I point out that it also applies to hospital surgical wards. Imagine granting someone the right to put you under general anesthesia and then cut you open. What an opportunity for fraud and abuse!
I’ve heard those arguments from representatives of disabled groups as well. However, there are checks and balances built into euthanasia (the person must make the decision & must express this decision to their medical care givers themselves and they must do this repeatedly). Wherever euthanasia is legal, the abuse to kill off disabled people has never come up. Honestly, I understand that they feel threatened, but who would want to do such a thing besides some maniacal dictator who would do vicious things regardless of euthanasia laws?
The arguments have more force when applied to permanent illnesses that do not directly cause death. For example, some neurodegenerative diseases cause a person to slowly lose cognitive, motor and/or sensory functions over a period of years. These diseases may not directly cause death, but they may steadily increase the risk of accidents, choking, suffocation, etc, so they could be called disabilities instead of terminal diseases. People with these conditions may feel guilty about the high cost of their care and the burden placed on their families, and may choose assisted suicide as a result of this indirect social pressure.
They may but in Canada we have universal health care. The cost may instead be a burden on loved ones. Such could be the case but if the person wants to end the all around suffering, I think they should have the ability to do that safely and peacefully.
I have never heard this argument before. Sounds less likely than proposing that Judas Priest or Ozzy cause suicide…which is insane.
I may have found these arguments worth considering 25 years ago, but we have a generation of evidence from countries which have enacted various death with dignity laws. We don’t need to talk about hypothetical cases, we can look at the evidence and it does not show that disabled people are being pushed into suicide.
That said, there was a case here in British Columbia recently where a woman killed herself and wrote a series of blog posts explaining her reasoning. She was suffering from dementia and found it unconscionable that she should be a emotional and financial drain on her family and society. She saw the loss of her mind as akin to death so it would be better for everyone (including herself) if the body would die as long as the mind. So maybe this is a case of someone feeling pressured to kill themselves lest they become a burden? I don’t know. For myself, having seen people go through dementia and lose their memories and personalities, I think she has a point – not saying I totally agree, but I can see how she would believe that. Who am I to say she’s wrong? If someone believes so strongly that they are becoming a burden and that this would make life for them intolerable, who are we to tell them they’re wrong?
And what about the people who are pressured to languish and suffer, where is the concern for them?
I agree wholeheartedly, especially with your last paragraph. Quality of life is something we each judge for ourselves. If I find myself in that situation, the last thing I want is some disability activist telling me I need an attitude adjustment.
I agree. They should be allowed this choice. It’s no one else’s to make. There is a good Facts & Arguments section on the Dying with Dignity Canada website. They respond to this question this way:
<blockquote
This concern has proven groundless in places where medically-assisted death is legal. It’s even less likely to occur in Canada, because citizens here have access to universal healthcare; this means that physicians must provide care to anyone who needs it. At the same time, it’s essential to keep in mind that aid in dying is not something a physician would recommend or initiate out of the belief that a patient needs it. The choice is, in every case, the patient’s to make. Requests of this nature must be repeated and consistent over time. Hence, if legalized, the choice to receive a hastened death would be entirely voluntary and would never be used as a way to ration healthcare expenditures. (This is further guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the principles of medical ethics.)
Oops blockquote fail.
Here is also a good reply from the same site:
If I remember previous articles correctly, Brittany moved to Oregon to end her life with dignity. I commend Brittany for bravely choosing the path she thought best for her at the end of her life, and to her family and friends for supporting her lovingly in her choice. No one should be made to suffer beyond what they can bear, especially due state or church controls. I’d prefer that no one suffer, but I think the Catholic church should view such end of life suffering as a choice by the most devout Catholics, not for everyone. My sincere condolences to Brittany’s family.
Yes, she moved to Oregon, not Washington.
derek humphry (founder of the hemlock society, author of final exit, and an important right-to-die activist) has a lot of good information on his site, assisted-dying.org.
he reports today:
Brittany Maynard took her life on the day she had predicted, Saturday, November 1, 2014.
A brave person who faced up realistically to the tragedy in her life. Her story has had an impact.
About 70 terminal residents every year in Oregon use this law to hasten their ends.
I have just read some of the comments posted below that People article. Some of them, purporting to be from “kind, loving Christians” are just, not to put too fine a point on it, evil.
Just one example:
“She was a weak selfish coward who only cared about herself. If she cared about the people who cared for her she would of [sic] hung on. I hope they find a good treatment or cure for her disease and then her husband spits on her grave for giving up.”
Egads. Not sure that religion would be necessary for that one.
I’d also expect similar insensitivity/cluelessness from the alt med crowd (“she would have lived if she’d simply started eating natural and saw an energy healer!”)
” . . . If she just would have just tried an all raw vegan diet . . . ”
Religion does not, sadly, have the insensitivity market cornered on this issue.
What a kind, Christian comment.
Sometimes I think there really ought to be a hell. Reserved for people who make asinine and vicious comments like that.
(of course it could just be a drive-by troll…)
Anyone who argues that the opposition is not primarily religious, just needs to skim Facebook comments when a big news outlet posts a story about this wonderful woman. Some of the comments by our less secular friends are cruelly depraved.
So much for not casting the first stone… The condemnation by the religious (admittadley behind the relative annonimitoy of the internet) is intense
Yes, that is true. I agree with Sastra that the objections are not entirely religious, but the majority of the criticism is expressly christian.
What is odious is Brittany felt their condemnation and she even tried to separate her decision to end her life with the term “suicide”, saying in the people article:
Suicide is seen is evil and she can’t even use the term because of its stigmatism.
Another quote from the Catholic Declaration on Euthanasia:
“Intentionally causing one’s own death, or suicide, is therefore equally as wrong as murder; such an action on the part of a person is to be considered as a rejection of God’s sovereignty and loving plan.”
Exactly! I emphatically reject the theistic claim to God’s sovereignty over my life and my death. I refuse to become a serf or slave of God. I am the owner of my life and of my death.
Catholics say they believe in (dualistic) free will, but I’m sure they are fighting the the right of everyone, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, to exercise their choice to reject God’s sovereignty.
Cancer is part of God’s loving plan? If God were to exist he would be one sick fuck.
A few years ago I read, and saw a picture, of a young couple, holding their small child, in anguish from having to have their child’s two cancerous eyes removed in order to save the child’s life.
If I had some bloody cosmic power to keep that from happening, I would.
…and a person who thinks that God exists and brain cancer is part of God’s loving plan is one sick … well, the person is does believe in an imaginary deity after all.
The cancer that’s preventable is called religion. On the issue of euthanasia the religious, particularly, the Catholics, disgust me.
Yet, handling snakes is good Christian fun. And, if bitten, refusing medical intervention is protected religious freedom, not suicide. Isn’t that right?
Perhaps Brittany should have described her actions as a show of faith in her all powerful, omni-compassionate God, who would demonstrate his love for her by not allowing the overdose drugs to work.
Now that is something those lovely Christian commenters could get behind.
We euthanize our pets because we recognize and empathize with their suffering; it seems like we should extend that to ourselves as well, as long as it’s the individual’s choice, of course.
Sam Harris once argued that belief in an afterlife is essentially denial, born of an inability to properly grieve and fear of out own mortality.
I think it might be apt to say the same thing is going on here, at least in part. Somehow it’s ok to face facts when dealing with pets, but a family member? Or friend? Or by extension any other human? Bring on the denial. That cure is right around the corner, donchaknow? (Yes, there are other, more explicitly religious factors as well.)
This young lady should be an inspiration to all of us. Most doctors know that something needs to be done about this problem in the United States but again….it is mostly Religion that makes it this way.
Please refer to Christopher Hitchens book, The Missionary Position and Mother Teresa. A good amount of unnecessary suffering and poverty is good for the faith.
I had nothing but rude words when they gave the obligatory catholic position over the radio.
Very sad; but at least she got to go her way.
I will be retiring to WA. This is one more good reason. We figured we’d have to cross the border to OR for this; but now it’s come to WA as well (along with legalized pot! 🙂 )
thank you Brittany. You showed that there is no glory in suffering for no reason.
to think that a god needs suffering is sad. to have a god that demands it or you go to hell is worse.
Indeed.
What is a dictate that you must endure the suffering of such a prognosis if not torture?
The place with the lowest health care costs in the US is La Crosse, Wisconsin, very near where I live.
A while back, a initiative was started, basically by one doctor, to talk to every patient about their end of life wishes, and to ask them to create and sign an advanced directive. Eventually, it became part of local culture to have one.
So, when the end of life is coming, they don’t use heroic (and expensive) measures where they don’t make sense (most cases). The doctor found that if asked specifically about situations regarding end of life, the vast majority of people wanted to be allowed to die (and kept comfortable).
I think most opposition to such sensible programs and actions comes from religion. We’re supposed to let “God” decide (for some reason). Bollocks.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/03/05/286126451/living-wills-are-the-talk-of-the-town-in-la-crosse-wis
I wrote about this today as well and what forced me into writing about it was all the nasty comments I read on a Fox News article on Facebook which announced Brittany’s suicide. Christians called her selfish, said she was in hell and so forth and this wasn’t trolling, their actual names were next to those words.
I took a look into Canada’s laws and a really good site is Dying with Dignity Canada as they have FAQs and are closely watching a court challenge for the right to die in the the case of Gloria Taylor, also known as the Carter case. The BC Supreme court ruled in Taylor’s favour and we are currently waiting for the decision from the BC Court of Appeal. The losing side intends to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada so these laws will soon be challenged nationally.
What I found particularly interesting is, despite what Christians are spewing forth on Fox News Facebook sites, the majority of Christians (including Catholics, who are the majority in Canada) support euthanasia/medically assisted dying. Here is a link to an infographic from an Ipsos-Reid Survey. You can read about the survey & its results on this site as well.
I can only imagine the level of distress and courage it would take to resolve such an informed decision. Anyone who thinks this woman is a “coward” has not contemplated the degree of their own blunted psychology.
Thanks for posting the list of states where sanity prevails on this matter. It’s somewhat of a relief to know that one of those states borders the one I live in.
I think there are also some hospice providers who “get it” and who will prescribe “adequate” doses of painkillers to those in need. Of course, such wouldn’t be available to those such as Brittany who don’t suffer enough for the sick bastards of the Church….
b&
While a handful of states are slightly better than others, I don’t think any US state has sane laws on the issue. As far as I know, assisted suicide is only allowed in very limited circumstances, when death is imminent.
It doesn’t help people who are not about to die but nonetheless face protracted suffering. For example, people with locked-in syndrome probably suffer even more than those with terminal cancer, since at least the latter can still participate in the joys life has to offer and their suffering has an end date. But the law allows no relief for people with locked-in syndrome since it isn’t a terminal illness, so all they have to look forward to is decades of paralysis and soul-crushing boredom. They can’t even take the matter into their own hands, and if manage to they convince someone to help them die, they’ll be charged with murder.
There’s still a lot of work to be done to change attitudes towards suicide.
I’m afraid I can’t reference the article, because I read it maybe a year ago (New Scientist?), but I seem to recall that – at least once they find a way to communicate (which is kind of logical, since we wouldn’t know if they hadn’t found one) – not all patients with locked-in syndrome are as keen to end their lives as one might imagine. This is not an argument against the right to die, and a quick Google search shows that there are plenty of cases of people with locked-in syndrome seeking that right, but simply a curious observation. I suppose it could be that the condition is not terminal, and therefore affords some hope of a sudden recovery, which does occasionally occur.
I have experienced pain. Swelling so bad, my doctor waived his fee because he wanted to do more for me but couldn’t. Level 9 on the pain scale–pain so bad that breathing was difficult. 6 months of coughing so violent, I had a constant headache and a pulled rib muscle that felt like daggers in my chest and temple with every cough. Pain that prevented sleep, and a surgeon who wouldn’t do the surgery because the risk of death was too high. I am not describing one illness, but four completely separate times in my life..
Through all that, I knew I would recover. I was never terminal. There would always be an escape from the pain once I recovered. A person with a terminal illness doesn’t have that comfort.
There is zero compassion in forcing a terminally ill person in serious pain to remain alive. It is self-serving at best to take that decision away from the one person qualified to know how much is too much suffering.
True compassion is supporting people like Britney who are in unenviable situations that require such horrible choices.
True that. Several years ago when riding my (recumbent) bicycle, I got rear-ended at full speed by an SUV. Beat up really bad, but the worst of it was “merely” a completely dislocated shoulder.
The physical therapy can only be described as torture. Had I secrets to tell, I would have told them. But I put up with it, even in a sense sought it out, because it was my only hope of using my arm again. (And that and the surgery and yet more therapy did its job: my arm is fully healed, and even feels a lot better than the other arm that was never injured.)
My mom had her big back surgery on Friday. The surgeon was impressed that she had been able to function at all with the pain she must have been feeling — and, yet, she was still frequently in the garden tending plants and sweeping up after chickens and the like. She got to feel similar torture, only maybe worse, on Saturday when she got up the first time and took her first shuffling steps. Today, she’s out of bed and sitting and making full laps around the floor. She could probably come home today, but she’ll be less anxious with another night there and will almost certainly be back home tomorrow.
In either case, if there were no hope for recovery…well, you did see me use the word, “torture,” right? Who wants to literally be tortured to death? Who, if in the clutches of the archetypal Nazi villain, wouldn’t choose a quick death over months or years of constant torture?
So why the fuck do we put our dearest family and friends through what even the Nazis couldn’t dream of?
b&
Best wishes for your Mom.
Long story short, my Father-In-Law lived with a broken jaw the last 6 months as he deteriorated from cancer. Thanksgiving dinner, and he is wincing in pain trying to eat the puréed turkey and vegetables. Puréed.
In his final days, a minister was trying to comfort my Mother-In-Law, his wife of 50+ years, “What are you praying for?” “That God doesn’t let him suffer so much.” The minister sounded so compassionate, “Don’t you see, Jesus is right there for him.” I had to excuse myself to check his morphine drip. This mentality shouldn’t be within 50 miles of a hospital or anyone even slightly sick.
Regarding Nazi torture, read the recently-released, Christianity Is Not Great How Faith Fails. The chapters on the Inquisition and the Witch Hunts will provide you with a new standard-bearer for torture.
Or even Hitchen’s accounts of Mother Teresa, denying pain meds to patients because their pain would bring them closer to God.
I’ve met people that will refuse pain meds of any kind because it’s morally wrong somehow and one hit of any drug will instantly make you an addict. So they suffer and they spend their time consumed by the pain, able to think of nothing else. It’s horrible how the healthy and pain-free will moralize and lecture the sick and suffering, as if pain was a choice or a sign of a weak will.
And don’t you hate it when someone declares, with an heir of superiority, “I don’t take medication”. Ok dumb ass let me hit you with a hammer. Let’s see how stoic you are then.
@ Diana
+1
🙂
I’m very fortunate in that I’ve mostly managed to avoid medication…but there’s a good chance I’d be dead or crippled now were it not for various prescriptions I’ve had over the years (thankfully all for very limited durations).
It’s always a good idea to question the need for a medication and consider the consequences of both taking it and not taking it — hearkening back to our discussion on freedom willies — and seriously considering the “not” option. But there are absolutely situations where you’d be a bloody fool to not take the drugs, and criticizing people in those situations is rude and insulting.
b&
Pain is a terrible thing. When I had daily migraines for two years that included the tensing of my shoulders and neck and the pain in the face and eyes while commuting 2 hours a day I didn’t care if the medicine I was taking would kill me. I had to express this very strongly to my neurologist. There are doctors who just don’t recognize pain unless you are screaming & tearing your hair out.
I fully support anyone that wants to end their life because pain cannot be managed even if they are not terminal because the pain & agony is terminal.
If faced with a terminal disease accompanied by
serious pain I shall certainly do what Brittany Maynard did. Fortunately I live in Washington.
People underestimate pain. Having suffered migraines, I know how it can feel to be brought to your knees with unrelenting pain that goes on for days (fortunately I have medicine that prevent that – yay science! yay drugs!) but my dad knew a guy who got bad headaches (from the description, they sounded like cluster headaches to me) & he kept a gun in his desk for when the pain got too bad.
That’s horrible!
Is it a question of there not being any drugs to deal with it or the Tough on Drugs Squad preventing sufferers from getting access to the drugs with sufficient potency or quantity to deal with the pain? Naively, I would assume that a stiffish dose of opiates would either make the pain go away or put you into enough of a haze that it wouldn’t matter.
I honestly think it was the doctors just didn’t think I was in pain even though I told them the same thing I wrote here. They figures because I wasn’t hysterical, I want really suffering.
Perhaps I should have been more specific in my case. I had to take chemical treatment for a serious (nevertheless asymptomatic) cancer and face the prospect of making the aforementioned decisions at some point. The treatment was uncomfortable indeed. Fortunately everything went very very well so that eventuality has been abated. All that Christian crap about God’s love and need for us to die in pain makes me want to puke.
I was raised to be stoic as well. I actually would hold off taking medication because I thought I could overcome the pain myself. I have no idea where this crazy thinking came from but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were cultural heritage from religion.
When I was in the hospital with a severe almost amputated foot taking strong pain medicine every hour, a young farmer was in the same room with a damaged knee. His doctor asked why he had refused anesthetics. He said in a kind of John Wayne voice: Just get me a shot of whiskey, shucks, I’ll be alright. And they did. And he was. I think religion may have had something to do with his position, and quite a bit of romantic machismo.
My mother was a “stoic”. She didn’t like novocaine “I don’t believe in it” she would say, and let the dentist carry on drilling away with no anesthetic . Not me!! Fortunately I don’t get headaches and the aches of old age I do have are quite bearable for the moment. A quadriceps strain acquired while clamming was relieved by a physical therapist in a few months. Lucky me.
Yeah my mom is still pissed off that the hospital gave her an epidural when she had me. I’m all about feeling no pain. For some reason, it is hard to numb me up enough at the dentist and I sometimes endure it but not before convincing the dentists to shoot me up as much as possible, more if I can get it.
Right. What sane, reasonable person wishes to be a masochist?
Lefort 1 osteostomy in 1994 and a bilateral condylotomy in 2013. Suffering is overrated. Trust me.
Those last words did not bring tears to my eyes. For me they were words of joy and affirmation. Parts of the video were very sad, however, especially the words and feelings expressed by her mother.
Just a few details about her illness: it seems she was initially diagnosed with Astrocytoma on the basis of the brain scan, but the subsequent tissue diagnosis after the surgery was Glioblastoma Multiforme, which reduced her life expectancy from years to months. The pictures show that she actually put on some weight during the course of her illness, which is the reverse of what you would expect. This would almost certainly have been the result of high doses of corticosteroids given to relieve her headaches by reducing brain swelling.
I will play the video again now. She is an inspiration for anyone facing a terminal illness, not only for her final actions but for they way she spent the final months of her life surrounded by her husband, family, and friends and doing the things she loved with those she loved.
Yes, the medication had the side effects of weight gain. She also had some surgery – a partial craniotomy and a partial resection of her temporal lobe before receiving the glioblastoma diagnosis. She spoke of how she was suffering while traveling to take in as much of life as she could:
How people can judge her choice really bothers me. There was even one cold hearted remark on that Fox News FB page that said something to the effect of she wasn’t that selfish because she didn’t have children but that’s not the best gift to give her husband; the person who wrote that ended their heartless remark with an “lol”. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with people? She was in horrible pain & experiencing awful seizures!
People cease to amaze me.
Yes, the steroids are to blame for the “weight gain.” My wife died of glioblastoma, and in the final months her poor face ballooned up as if she weighed 300 lbs. But those steroids did their job. With the right dosage she seemed to have no great head pain. Unlike Brittany Maynard, she also had no seizures. She just slept more and more and more over time…
Brittany actually had seizures, some quite severe.
Oh wait, you know that. I have a hard time seeing small words like “no” on a screen sometimes. :/
So sad. Such bravery. With time hopefully our species will grow up and ignore the prejudice born of religion. I was unaware New Mexico allows assisted suicide. Good for them.
Since I haven’t seen it mentioned in this thread, let me recommend “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End” by Atul Gawande. It is a long, engaging and poignant look at how people approach the end of their lives. There’s only a small discussion about suicide (or death with dignity) but he takes the position that a stronger palliative care system and better elder care would alleviate many people’s desire to take their own life. I think it also shows that there are some values that we hold which are more important than mere existence – autonomy, for instance. Each person will have their own values which will make life worth living, and with some care many of us can preserve this for a long time.
But cases like this, where the person is young and facing a debilitating terminal disease, I can easily see why she would make this decision. I hope I don’t have to, but it would be an immeasurable relief to know that I had the option.
Brittany didn’t move to Washington. She moved to Oregon, the first state to legalize assisted suicide.
Marion
Informed choice. It matters.
I’m sad that such a young woman, with so much ahead, died so young and grateful to her for what she taught me about life and dying.
As an Oregonian, I endured the dozens of letters to the editor from opponents to the Death with Dignity Act who weighed in on this woman’s personal decisions.
It occurs to me that part of the problem is that Christianity (most of the opponents we’ve encountered here) is based on a model of ‘suffering as noble self-sacrifice’ from Jesus on down. Only through suffering can, x y or z be achieved. The more quietly one suffers the more Jesus-like they are. It’s a perversion.
In 25 years of medicine, one of the things I learned was that there is nothing noble about unnecessary suffering and that there really are some fates worse than death.
I read on someone’s FB post discussing this case:
I’m speechless & I think the suffering thing you write is correct. Think of Job.
The idea that martyrdom is noble – even if in the service of no cause or selfless convictions at all – is one of the most disgusting aspects of the Abrahamic religions.
Jesus, who (if he existed and the stories were true, ha!) suffered for a few HOURS and was dead for TWO DAYS, then got better. What a frickin’ crybaby. Not noble. Only technically ‘self-sacrifice’ because he was apparently sacrificed to himself to placate his anger at his botched creation.
The religious angle is stunning. One more reason to despise the RCC. Although, I probably shouldn’t spend to much of my precious time on earth worrying about that.
As a believer I was against assisted suicide. I looked at fatal disease as a test of faith. As much as it now shames me to say I actually prayed to be tested like that. As an atheist my main concern is allowing people like Brittany Maynard the freedom to end their suffering.
Some religions, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, prohibit blood transfusions even when it will save lives; this could be considered a form of suicide since they could prevent their death but don’t. If we believe life must be prolonged as long as possible, shall we force the JWs to accept transfusions? If you allow people to opt out, then some people who want them may feel pressured to refuse.
Using christ as an example of suffering is monumentally bogus. Other than the the fact that the story is is just that, a story that didn’t happen, if it did it is irrelevant to real people.
Really, Jesus was just playing a silly god game, with no real suffering.
He was god. He chose it. He knew when it would end. He did it on purpose.
Mostly though, he was magic and could easily have blocked any pain.
The whole Jesus story myth is so full of holes but the christians continue to impact us with their monumental stupidity.
I consider it shameful that there are so few places in the so-called civilised world where one can choose to have a doctor assist if necessary in ending ones life.
I’m biassed, my mother was always in favour of voluntary euthanasia (when the topic came up, which wasn’t often). She died of cancer of the throat, which choked her to death. The hospital did everything they could to ease her condition, except end her life as she repeatedly demanded, which of course would have got them charged with murder. (I would like to imagine that someone quietly OD’d her on painkillers but I doubt it). For years I felt guilty for not having the knowledge or the guts to do it for her.
Voluntary euthanasia still isn’t legal in NZ even though a majority favour it, probably because the opposition is organised and vocal and politicians are afraid of them.
I reserve my ultimate contempt for weaselly dishonest slippery-slope opposing arguments about people being ‘coerced’ into euthanasia. People who make arguments like that, and this is my heartfelt wish, should all die slowly of some agonizing disease and have their pleas to be put out of their misery refused. In the spirit of fair play, you understand.
I wonder why christians always try to impose their beliefs on atheists and members of other religions. As long as euthanasia/PAS is not mandatary, any christian patient can suffer to the end if he wishes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if its their more authoritarian nature. If you are so used to bowing down to an all powerful god, it makes sense that you expect the same hierarchy on earth.
“I wonder why christians always try to impose their beliefs on atheists and members of other religions.”
It’s in the very nature of their religion – it’s built into monotheism from the get-go. If there’s only one deity then logically there’s only one way of going about things, one set of rules. Anything else, anything outside of this, is simply wrong. The monotheistic religions are particularly adept at saying their way and only their way is the one right and true way.
All mutually contradictory and mututally exclusive, of course.
At least she isn’t suffering any more. I’d be terrified to have to make the same choice myself, but she chose wisely, I think, and I salute her.
It’s a shame Brittany is exceptional. Too many people with a painful and terminal illness either have to travel to another country/state to euthanize themselves, or they’re left to die slowly in acute agony. It’s nonsensical, authoritarian in the worst sense, and inhumane, and people who argue against it repeatedly reveal themselves as dogmatists more interested in their puritanical ideologies than in real people.
My dad, in his 70s, told me that he’d euthanize my mom or me if we were in pain and he could do the jail time. It seems ludicrous that they’d jail an old guy like that but there have been cases in Canada where they have thrown people in jail for murder under similar circumstances. I wonder if the laws are changed, if those people could be released. It sickens me that they are in jail for being compassionate.
In some states in the US they’d doubtless execute you. But only if you were perfectly healthy and didn’t want to die, of course…
May her memory be a blessing.
Perhaps we should start a Cleopatra Society. Death by handling snakes – self-induced and protected as a religious freedom.
Snakebite is a particularly unpleasant way to go. Make it a stuffed toy snake with morphine-filled syringes for fangs, and I’d endorse it.
b&
Besides, I wouldn’t endorse cruelty to snakes, and I’m sure they would get mishandled and abused, if only to make them bite…
Yup. That’s probably the worst thing about the Christian snake handlers. Everything that real herpetologists do to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the snakes themselves…the Christians don’t….
b&
Here’s the Vatican’s reaction:
“Vatican Official Condemns Brittany Maynard’s Assisted Suicide:
The Vatican’s top bioethics official calls ‘reprehensible’ the suicide of an American woman suffering terminal brain cancer who stated she wanted to die with dignity.
Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told the ANSA news agency on Tuesday that ‘dignity is something other than putting an end to one’s own life.’
Brittany Maynard’s suicide in Oregon on Saturday, following a public declaration of her motives aimed at sparking political action on the issue, has stirred debate over assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
Carrasco de Paula said ‘Brittany Maynard’s act is in itself reprehensible, but what happened in the consciousness we do not know.’
He cautioned that he was not judging individuals ‘but the gesture in and of itself should be condemned.'”
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/04/vatican-assisted-suicide_n_6100378.html
When I read something like this, my feeling towards those theologians is not very far away from hate.
Hopefully, their followers start the feel annoyed with this stance. Already, in Canada, ~80% of Catholics surveyed are for medically assisted suicide.
Suicide in many countries is no longer a criminal offence nor automatic disgrace, yet WITHOUT MEDICAL AID it is not easy to achieve. De-criminalising humane ASSISTED TERMINATIONS, (unless strong contrary beliefs preclude), is both rational, overdue and, I am sure, is inevitable. Importantly, though few people at any one time will want A-S as a solution, many/most of us will face serious end-of-life problems: this then is NOT a minority issue.
We in England await with interest the next step for Lord Faulkener’s Assisted Suicide Bill (Committee Stage) on this Friday 7th Nov. in our House of Lords. Labelled “slippery slope” by its (still many) opposers it is a tentative step up the ascent towards more humane attitudes to modern death-experience. De-criminalisation of suicide comes at the base of a hill rather than above a cliff.
If/when wider availability for A-S follows, e.g. for the desperately chronically disabled but not yet medically “terminally ill”, then that increase in A-S will mean some more merciful deaths and further reduction in hopeless, pointless suffering. This poses no especial threat to disabled persons who may, at present, be the opposite of suicidal -and hopefully will remain so for many years with many activities and people to live for. But theirs is a situation is not guaranteed and some do find their life burdensome, unendurable and pointless, -notwithstanding (sometimes even because of) the best medical efforts. It is for such depressing/degrading circumstances that access to a legal means of obtaining an easier death would be a boon: inevitably some of those would be disabled people.
As for “old andvulnerable people” who will feel “pressured”: I will quote a contemporary of mine: Lady Mary Warnock who said during the Assisted Dying Bill 2nd Reading:
“It is somehow thought to be wrong that people who are approaching death and are terminally ill should take into account the suffering, expense and misery they are causing…” and “For all of one’s life up to that stage, altruism is regarded as rather a good thing, a virtue. If one sacrifices oneself in a modest way for one’s family, that is also thought virtuous. I do not understand why one should not be allowed to exercise that virtue at the very end of one’s life, or have it assumed that this is an idea that has been put into one’s head by somebody else.”
(see 18 July 2014, Lord’s Hansard
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldhansrd/text/140718-0002.htm#14071854000536
or
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldhansrd/lhan28.pdf for the full reporting of 135 speeches -lasting from 10am to about 5pm- made that day.)
I originally formed my opinions in 1993 and joined the then Voluntary Euthanasia Society (UK) and have been a paid-up member since. I am now 93 and still face an uncertain death-experience. I do have an Advanced Directive and although my Doctor has his own beliefs he knows and respects my convictions.
+100
Excellently put, both yours and Lady Mary’s.