3 ms·
And yet in the US you're pretty much stuck with refusal of treatment which inevitably means dying slowly of dehydration. The outcome is the same and everyone kn
by jonathankoren 11y ago
And yet in the US you're pretty much stuck with refusal of treatment which inevitably means dying slowly of dehydration. The outcome is the same and everyone knows it. After all, that's the point. It's just needlessly barbaric. We don't even treat animals that way.
- lostlogin 11y agoIt is strange. Allowing the state to take a life but not allowing the individual the same right over their own life.
- wbillingsley 11y agoLimiting the options to "palliative care" instead of active euthanasia is partly a bulwark against there ever being social-pressure-to-die. And given many societies aren't very good at identifying or dealing with elder abuse as it is, it seems a reasonable bulwark to have.
- BatFastard 11y agoHow about the incredible social-pressure-to-live!, not only social pressure but legal pressure. In my father's last few weeks of life I would see him wake up each day asking "why am I still here". Because you have NO choice.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- carbocation 11y agoWe absolutely treat pain and air hunger with opioids in the US, if it is consistent with the patient's wishes.
- brashrat 11y agoThat's not actually true in practice in the US: the morphine dosage used to treat pain for advanced cancers is given knowing full well it's a fatal dose. That it hastens death in addition to numbing the pain is something not much talked about outside the medical profession, but that is what is going on.