I couldn't remember if we had discussed this here yet...did a search and couldn't find anything. Those of you who know me, know that I believe our laws should be changed regarding the right to die with dignity...that I believe if we are terminally ill with no hope for recovery we should have the choice about how long we plan to suffer.

There was a small article in yesterdays' paper about a case in Rome.

An Italian judge rejected a paralyzed man's request to be removed from a respirator Saturday, ruling that the law does not permit the denial of lifesaving care and urging lawmakers to confront the issue.

Piergiorgio Welby, 60, whose body has been devastated by muscular dystrophy, had pleaded repeatedly to be allowed to die of his disease, and his case has divided politicians and doctors in Italy. The Roman Catholic Church, which wields significant moral and political influence in Italy, teaches that life should reach its "natural end."

Gradually paralyzed by the condition diagnosed when he was a teenager, Welby has been confined to bed for years and now can barely move his lips and eyebrows. He receives nourishment through a tube, breathes with a respirator and communicates through a voice synthesizer.

What's natural about receiving nourishment through a tube, breathing with a repirator and using a voice synthesizer?

No, I'm not against heroic life-saving measures. I had to once make a snap decision to resuscitate my sister...it wasn't easy, and I was not expecting it because they hadn't told us yet at that point that she would be dead before Christmas (this was the day before Thanksgiving). But if a person really wants to end the suffering they are going through, I say that's their choice, not mine.

Obviously we all have our own opinions on the subject.

I think it makes a living will something we should all think about for the sake of loved ones and not so loved ones.

As I tried to post earlier to this topic... it seemed the boards went down and I got a bit frustrated but I saved the link I found that seemed interesting...
http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/pas.html
I find this topic interesting too. I thought about it this morning when I had trouble sleeping and wondered if there is a clear-cut opinion on the matter. In my opinion, it depends on the situation. However, the site lists pros and cons of arguments. I studied assisted suicide and euthanasia during a Religion class I took during the Terri Schavo case. We discussed it in class and it seems like the arguments we discussed are the exact same as the website. And a little "FYI" most people don't know, Oregon is the only state in the US that DOES allow legalized Physician-assisted suicide (PAS). I remember there being very specific criteria/factors involved that must be met or else it can't be done (such as being cognitively capable).

This topic touches me close to home because I often wondered what my mother thought of this during her long battle with cancer. I wondered if she had thought of it or even discussed it with my father, her sister, or best friend. I know she was on heavy doses of serious pain killers but... I wonder now whether she dabbled with the idea, and would I approve. I know that I would definitely not approve if it happened then instead of the way it did, but now looking back 8 years later and much older, I think that I may slightly think it better for her not having suffered and me to have all those memories of her screaming in agony. But then again... it depends. She wanted to be there for us, and that was important too. So I dont think there is a clear way to solve terminal illness. I think that it should be definitely clear though, before it is done- if that is even possible.

That's a very interesting link Wish, thank you for posting it.

I'm sure that you remember we have the monster cancer in both our memory banks...your Mom and my brother. I wanted to put a pillow over his face to end his suffering but of course, I did not.

I found an interesting article by Patty Fischer, San Jose Mercury News, 11/29/06

"Aid in dying" a kinder image than suicide

The folks in the right-to-die movement would prefer we not use the S-word when talking about their cause.

Call it "death with dignity" or "aid in dying" they say.

Just don't call it "physician-assisted suicide". Too violent and tragic. Not at all what they have in mind.

"We're not talking about suicide, when a depressed person or a mentally ill person ends a life that could go on," said the Rev John Brooke. "A person who is terminally ill is already in the dying process."

Brooke, 75, is a United Church of Christ minister who got into what I'll call the aid-in-dying movement nearly 20 years ago, after watching a good friend die slowly and painfully from AIDS. I first got to know him in 1992 when he was pastor of Congregational Church of Belmont and campaigning for a "death with dignity" ballot measure in California. We talked for hours then about how technology aimed at prolonging life was actually prolonging death and about the right of the terminally ill to end their suffering.

I struggled with the issue and eventually wrote a wish-washy column in which I came out for the cause but against the ballot measure. I said it didn't include enough safeguards to assure that malevolent family members wouldn't use it to bump off their defenseless relatives.

The initiative would have made California the first state to legalize physician aid in dying, but it failed. In those days, crackpot Jack Kevorkian was the public face of the right-to-die movement. And powerful opponents like the Roman Catholic Church and the California Medical Association campaigned aggressively against it.

Two years later, Oregon passed a similiar law - but with more safeguards - and it took effect in 1997. this year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it despite the Bush administration's efforts to kill it.

Oregon's law has worked as Brooke and others hoped it would. Some people who are near death - 64 of them in 2005 - get lethal prescriptions from their doctors, and about half of those die from their diseases without ever taking the pills.

Last year, I heard from Brooke again. He'd retired from his Belmont church but not from his cause. The California Legislature was considering AB 651, a new death-with-dignity bill, and he was pushing it. By that time, Terri Schiavo had replaced Kevorkian as the issue's public face. Polls showed that 70 percent of Californians supported the right to die.

The Mercury News editorial board and several other major papers in the state supported the bill. Although opponents killed it agian, I figured it was only a matter of time before California followed Oregon's lead.

So when I heard from Brooke the other day, I was surprised that he wasn't pushing yet another bill. He just wanted to talk semantics.

In an age of marketing slogans and sound bites, he's alarmed that "physician-assisted suicide" is the most common term for his cause.

The workd 'suicide' is such a pejorative term," he said. "It makes a lot of difference in the public perception."

His allies have watched conservatives define what it means to be a patriot and a Christian. they have seen abortion-rights advocates struggle to prove they weren't pro-abortion or anti-life. Now the aid-in-dying forces have gone on the offensive.

In Oregon, the advocacy group Compassion & Choices recently persuaded the state to remove the word "suicide" from all references to the Death With Dignity law. Others have appealed to the Associated Press to make "aid in dying" the preferred term in its stylebook.

Death by any other name is still death. It's hard to look at, hard to talk about. Leaders of the death-with-dignity movement have forced us to talk about the importance of giving dying people comfort and, in the end, the right to end their pain.

And now they've given us the words we need.

I had to make the no heroic measure decision with my grandmother years ago. She was 87 going on 88. It was a horrible time for my mother after my father being murdered, her heart attack and subsequent quintuple bypass and the trial of the man who killed him. My aunt called and asked me to please make the decision because she couldn't and couldn't ask my mom either. I cried a lot about it but came to the conclusion that all that was left was the vessel that held her and not Nanny herself.

I've told everybody under the sun that will sit still long enough to listen to me that I do not want to be kept alive artificially. I do love the "aid in dying" reference as opposed to "assisted suicide". The article of the man in Rome was pointed out to me by Robert who read it on the back of the page I was reading in the newspaper. It led to a long discussion with him. He's so wise for a twelve year old.

From ExitInternational

More discussion from different sites worldwide out of NZ site. http://www.ves.org.nz/newslnks.htm

"death with dignity"

Our pets are given death with dignity, Our pets are given pain medicine without question.

I hate to say it BUT I know for a fact that my dog that I had to put down almost a year ago got better pain management than I do. And most people I know with debilitating conditions do not get the proper treatment.

I am a firm believer in assisted siucide!

My Aunt had terminal cancer and hoarded her meds for about 3 weeks. She did so so that she could take them all at once and end it.

I was the only one that knew. She and I had talked at length about her wishes when she was first diagnosed. I guess I helped her. I am proud that I was able to assist her. She left us when she was ready...Not when her body was ravished by her disease.

I'm glad your Aunt had you to talk to Dottie and that you had the courage to help.

The laws should be changed so our own physicians could prescribe those drugs for us without fear of being arrested.

There are compassionate drs. out there, not all of them. I had one dr. talk to me about the "joy of agony"....he didn't "get it" for sure!!

Lara....National Day of Shame. I so agree but then I am often "out of step" with the rest of the world. I pray that someday we get better on this life journey and will let people "off" when the time is right.

I read yesterday in the paper where a doctor did remove his breathing tube and let him die. I will try to find it online.