-Caveat Lector-
On Thu, 12 Aug 1999, Prudence L. Kuhn wrote:
>
>You're right. It could get out of hand.
As do abuses in nursing homes....
>mentally deficient. There have to be controls. Still, I recall my father's
>last weeks, and I wouldn't put an animal through what he went through.
As I stated in my other post, for some reason we subject our loved ones
to something that we'd deem 'cruel' to subject our pets to...strange...
I remember a few days before my Dutch grandfather died, he'd gestured to
my mother (his daughter), because he was then incapable of speaking,
other than gasping a word or two -- he gestured for her to get his gun
and shoot him; needless to say, my mother didn't...but how much more
dignified for my dying grandfather if his doctor could have given him an
injection to 'put him to sleep' BEFORE my grandfather had gotten to the
point where he no longer wnated to take another breath...
You could see it in his eyes, that he thought continuing on this level of
existence was beyond his endurance, and more than he wanted to bear...or
subject his family to...
BTW, when my mother shook her head 'no' to her father's gesture, he
gathered enough strength to speak -- I think perhaps he thought she
hadn't understood -- and gasped his request, finishing with the word
'burden'...he wanted to die at that moment so that he wouldn't be a
burden (which he had often stated, when he was well, was something he
considered a fate worse than death)...
He died two days later, suffering not only physical pain but emotional
agony...how I wish something could have been done way before then, to
make his passing less painful on BOTH levels for him...
My grandfather was more a father to me than my own father...I loved him
deeply, and my desire to 'hasten' his passing had nothing to do with
inheriting anything he left behind...to this day, I wish he was alive.
But BECAUSE I love him so dearly, I wish we could have given him the same
injection my mother gave a dog in the same condition, because it's
considered KIND to put a dog to sleep when it's suffering...
>It is
>only right that doctors be authorized to allow those for whom there is only
>suffering to slip away quietly.
There HAS been a law in the Netherlands for years, which allowed those
who were suffering from terminal illnesses to sign a contract with their
doctors, authorizing the doctor to euthanize them at a certain point in
the future....it was always up to the patient and the doctor, never the
family members.
I think what the furor is currently about is an ALTERATION in that law,
which will now allow doctors to make that decision even if there hasn't
been a prior contract with the patient...
But voluntary euthanasia is NOT something new to the Dutch...it's been a
fact of life for over a decade...
June ;-)
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Kite
So many things you want to see
And as you ask I'll set you free
But as you fly
You'll touch the sky
And touch the heart
Within me
Fly away.
-- Bob Childs
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