A column well worth reading about Dr Nitschke.
A couple of days ago The Age gave front page publicity to a terminally ill woman who committed suicide with the help of Nitschke's Exit organisation, but gave a lengthy interview to be used to promote changes to euthanasia laws.
As usual, this is an area where it feels too much like tempting fate if one sounds too critical. I watched some of her interview, and she talked about having widespread secondary cancers in her bones, and how this caused much pain.
Yet, at the time of the interview, she clearly was not in any substantial pain, and to all appearances, looked well. (She had no gaunt appearance, for example.)
I do not doubt that bone cancer must be one of the worst ways to die, but to be honest, given the example of Nancy Crick, it would always be good to have independent verification of an illness when it is someone in the Exit publicity machine.
And really, if they do want to make a more compelling case for suicide, can't they at least pick people who look very ill in the videos?
Meanwhile, over in England, a new study suggests that euthanasia as a concept is not so popular amongst their doctors. It is interesting to note that the Dutch medical profession are different in this regard:
The fundamental difference of opinion is important, says Seale, because governments who have passed laws to enable assisted dying have only done so with the support of the medical profession, as happened in the Netherlands.
"The Dutch medical association in the late 1980s and 90s was moving towards the view that euthanasia was an acceptable way of dealing with certain forms of suffering," he said. "Dutch medical opinion was influential with the government."
3 comments:
Doctors all over the world, most particularly in developed countries already practice euthanasia, without any rules and without anyone's permission, least of all the patient's.
People with a terminal illness don't always do the audience the favor of looking skeletal and pale. I've known numerous dying people who could walk down the street and no one would think there was anything wrong with them. They still died in short time though.
And hey Steve, the "clearly not in any substantial pain" line is a cheap shot. How would you know?
I know elderly people in perpetual pain, chronic, unrelenting, but not dying. They go about their lives as best they can, all without groaning and ouching as they walk around supermarket isles or go out with friends. When they get home they might want to weep and collapse, but they put on a brave face when interacting and holding conversations with people. What else can a person in pain possibly do?
I've got a stupid foot thing, a nerve problem, which can send me into agony, but no one would know, I still have to get on with it.
Dying isn't one never ending cliche. Well, it is, only more so.
Caz, past experience shows you have to be careful before accepting the self serving testimony of a euthanasia advocate.
It seemed to me that, in the first part of her video, she was not even necessarily saying she was in constant pain, although she talked of having had (at some times), pain over the scale of 10. She also talked of medication that takes 35 minutes to cut the pain to something bearable.
But in a second video I just watched, she seemed to be claiming to be taking large amounts of morphine (sounding as if it was constantly needed.) But surely she couldn't have been under the influence of a large amount of morphine in these interviews, could she? I mean, a large dose makes the mind at least rather foggy, does it not? Not lucid and laughing like this person.
Now it may be that, at the later time she took the drug, she had been in unbearable pain for a period. But on the basis of these interviews, I don't care what you say about people sucking it up, I doubt she was in significant pain to a degree where people would say she looks like a good candidate for euthanasia, at least at that time.
My post was about the PR tactics, after all.
This isn't the first post where I have questioned the self defeating PR tactics of Nitschke and his Exit group. He acknowledges himself that his expansive views of who should have an easy suicide is controversial even within the euthanasia movement.
OK, from a strictly PR point of view, anything to do with Dr Nitschke is PR poison.
I think with these things there is a human inclination to believe that people should tough it out until they are reduced to skin and bone and are taking so much morphine that they can't do anything other than drool.
But therein we have the problem: people often want to forgo that end, cutting things a few months short, while they are still in charge of their bodies and minds.
So, to that extent, by your implied criteria, there is no such thing as the ideal poster-patient for euthanasia!
My thought is that these little videos are pointless, meaningless as a persuader of anything. They're certainly never going to change or influence policy by making these pre-death pleas. I'm not even sure I understand what they hope to achieve in making these videos. What's the legacy meant to be?
BTW - large amounts of morphine does render people lethargic and generally they sleep a lot, or they become comatose at high enough doses (which is how most die, unconscious for days) , so perky conversation is not usually on the agenda. However, drug usage can change from week to week. Depending on treatments being provided (radio therapy, chemo, blood transfusions, steroids) a person can rebound and be off constant morphine, a sudden, yet very temporary improvement in quality of live. It's can be such a positive turn that it makes relatives absurdly optimistic. So, the woman in this case would not have been lying about her situation or the care being provided, sounds very much par of the course, depending on the nature of the cancer.
Of course, people have terminal illnesses that are not cancer. Cancer just gets all the publicity. Sometimes it's easy to forget that most people die from heart attacks or strokes and that there are a myriad of medical conditions, common and uncommon, that inevitably lead to death, other than cancer.
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