Euthanasia

In a case when someone is comatose, and can’t express their wishes, then a living will should prevail. Failing that, a combination of law and a physicians’ consensus prognosis should decide when to pull the plug. If you force someone to stay alive against their will, that is torture, a crime I consider more serious than murder. If there are any capital offenses, torture should be on that list.

Nobody wants anyone killed against their wishes. I am furious with meddling religious fruitcakes accusing people like me of wanting to kill people who don’t want to die, especially the disabled or mentally retarded. I am in favour of freedom. I don’t approve of coercion in these matters either to force people to die or to stay alive.

The whole conception of Sin is one which I find very puzzling, doubtless owing to my sinful nature. If Sin consisted in causing needless suffering, I could understand; but on the contrary, sin often consists in avoiding needless suffering. Some years ago, in the English House of Lords, a bill was introduced to legalize euthanasia in cases of painful and incurable disease. The patient’s consent was to be necessary, as well as several medical certificates. To me, in my simplicity, it would seem natural to require the patient’s consent, but the late Archbishop of Canterbury, the English official expert on Sin, explained the erroneousness of such a view. The patient’s consent turns euthanasia into suicide, and suicide is sin. Their Lordships listened to the voice of authority, and rejected the bill. Consequently, to please the Archbishop — and his God, if reports truly — victims of cancer still have to endure months of wholly useless agony, unless their doctors or nurses are sufficiently humane to risk a charge of murder. I find difficulty in the conception of a God who gets pleasure from contemplating such tortures; and if there were a God capable of such wanton cruelty, I should certainly not think Him worthy of worship. But that only proves how sunk I am in moral depravity.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) An Outline Of Intellectual Rubbish

Definitions

The KRTLS (Kelowna Right To Life Society) believe in blocking the morning after pill and blocking the right to die when end-of-life suffering has become unbearable. They are motivated by religion and religious sadism. They want to impose their religion on others. In Canada we are supposed to have freedom of religion. The means freedom from the other guy’s religion. They believe in souls/ghosts inhabiting eggs at conception. That is why they hold the strange position that a single cell is equivalent to an adult human even though it is less complex at that stage than a microscopic spec of pond scum. Monty Python spoofed them in a song Every Sperm Is Sacred. They believe in a cruel god Jehovah who will torment people for eternity if they escape end-of-life suffering. They believe their superstition justifies torturing strangers for a few weeks or months to stop them from committing suicide or seeking help committing suicide. The KRTLS are nuts, and they must be prevented from harming others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

These are how I use these terms in this essay. Be warned, not everyone agrees on these definitions. Some debaters even deliberately switch definitions in mid flight in a fit of debating legerdemain to make their opponents look ridiculous.

euthanasia

Euthanasia has several meanings:

1. Literally good death, any peaceful death.
2. Using an injection of seconal to kill a pet when it becomes homeless, old, sick or feeble.
3. Hitler decided to remove certain groups from the gene pool by killing homosexuals, Jews, gypsies and mentally retarded people. Euthanasia was the Nazi euphemism.
4. Killing a patient at the request of the family. The patient is brain dead, comatose or otherwise incapable of letting it be known if he or she would prefer to live or die.
5. Mercy killing.
6. Physician-assisted suicide, when a doctor provides medication to gently end life.
7. Physician-attended suicide, a physician killing a terminally ill person at their request, perhaps by injection or IV.

I use the term euthanasia only in senses (6) and (7) in this essay. When other people debate about euthanasia they could well be using it in senses (1) through (5), or with some other definition. Unfortunately, in English, we use the same word for seven different things.

mercy killing

Killing someone to put them out of their suffering. The killer may or may not have the informed consent of the person killed. I, personally, use the term mercy killing only when there is no consent. Legally, mercy killing is usually treated as murder.

murder

Intentionally killing someone in an unlawful way. There are two kinds of murder.

1. The murderer has the informed consent of the person killed.
2. The murderer does not have the informed consent of the person killed.

In most parts of the world, types (1) and (2) murder are treated identically. In other parts, type (1) murder is excusable under certain special circumstances, in which case it ceases to be considered murder. Murder is by definition unlawful. It is a legal term not a moral one. Whether euthanasia is murder or not is a simple question for lawyers — Will you go to jail for doing it or won’t you? Whether euthanasia should be considered murder or not is a matter for legislators. Whether euthanasia is good or bad is a deep question for the individual citizen. A right to die and a pro life proponent could both agree "euthanasia is murder", meaning you will go to jail if you are caught doing it, but the right to die person would add, "but under certain circumstances, it should not be, just as it is not considered murder now in the Netherlands.".

palliative care

The active relief of suffering in a terminally-ill individual and although there are occasions when treatment may shorten life, this is not the intended or anticipated result. It is simply a side effect or complication of therapy.

physician-attended suicide

Physician-Activated Patient-Requested Death. This is just like physician-assisted suicide, however, on a signal from the patient, the physician turns on the gas, thus actively killing the patient. The law usually treats this as murder. People do not necessarily match on whether they approve of physician-attended and physician-assisted suicide. For example, my mother, for religious reasons, believed that it was morally acceptable for her to request physician-attended suicide, but not physician-assisted suicide. To her, suicide was a sin, but requesting someone else to kill you was not. Her logic escapes me. Some terminally ill people feel they could not deal with the terrible moment of a physician-assisted suicide, but feel they could possibly confront that same moment in a physician-activated one. That is why some people include physician-attended suicide as part of the right to die. I have coined this odd term because the term euthanasia has too many meanings, which leads to confusing debate.

physician-assisted suicide

Physician-Assisted Patient-Activated Suicide. The physician provides materials useful in suicide to a patient who requests them. The physician might for example drag in a cylinder of gas, hook up the mask, but the patient would have to turn on the gas himself. It also counts as assisted suicide if patient uses a computer supplied by a physician to turn on the gas, using whatever remaining abilities he has to communicate with the computer. The right to a physician-assisted suicide is the most debated right to die.

pro life

The view that it is never justified to take one’s own or anyone else’s life under any circumstances. It refers to the religious, moral and legal stance.

right to die

The right to refuse medical treatment, even if that refusal would result in death. This right is less controversial. Also the right to assistance from a physician for the terminally ill in committing a pain-free suicide, i.e. physician-assisted suicide, or physician-assisted suicide. Some people also include the right for the terminally ill to have a doctor turn on the gas for the patient, to actually kill the patient, not just set up for a suicide. I personally don’t include physician-attended suicide when I use the term "right to die".

right to life

You might think this refers to the right of someone so severely disabled or so ill or so destitute that they cannot contribute in any way to society to receive the necessary care to keep him alive. But it does not. It refers to the right of people other than a terminally ill patient to keep him alive against his wishes. It means denying his right to die. It is a deliberately deceptive and dishonest term to trick people who support a true right to life into signing on for denying people’s right to die.

suicide

When a person kills himself without help. If a patient dies of a drug overdose, that would count as physician-assisted suicide only if the physician gave the drug with the intention it be used for suicide.

What Are The Terminally Ill Asking For?

If your primary goal in dealing with someone suicidal is preventing them from committing suicide, you will most likely do more harm than good. Religious people often attempt to guilt trip or frighten the person into avoiding suicide. This just makes them more miserable than ever. Sometimes religious people use force. This just convinces the depressed person the world is a bullying uncaring place. Some try to browbeat the terminally ill into enduring unendurable suffering. This is unconscionable meddling. Instead, explain that suicide is usually a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Point out the ways in which the situation could change all by itself or with a little help from the outside. Don’t tell them to buck up and stop making a mountain out of a molehill. Let them do most of the talking. Don’t bully them, arrogantly assuming you know more about their situation, just how it feels and the best course than they do.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

Though I speak with the royal we, what I am about to say is my personal opinion. If you want a wider perspective check out these links further down to various groups concerned with the issue.

We ask for the right to assistance to die when life becomes unbearable. We ask for the right to determine for ourselves what unbearable means. Since suffering is subjective, how can any one but the patient decide just how much suffering is too much? It is the arrogant to think you can make that decision for someone else. It is heartless to think you can make up a rule that says no amount of suffering is too much. If you are not the one doing the suffering, you have no right to enforce such a rule. If you want to enforce merciless penance on yourself, you are welcome.

We ask that doctors or others who help us be free from prosecution. Such assistance is sporadically prosecuted now in Canada.

We ask that there be a formal legal procedure to request assistance in suicide. The intent is to allow a cooling off period, to bring in counselors, to alert the family, to summon treatment for depression, and when the suffering cannot be sufficiently alleviated, a quiet and dignified death, surrounded by family and friends.

We demand physician-assisted suicide, and request physician-attended suicide.

At the bare minimum, we ask that family and friends who come to be with us at that very difficult and frightening time when we elect to die at our own hand, will not be prosecuted for murder or assisting a suicide.

What Aren’t The Terminally Ill Asking For?

• That doctors who are opposed to euthanasia be forced to help patients die.
• That people have the right to suicide on demand, without delay.
• That anyone have the power to request that somebody else’s life be terminated. Euthanasia is purely something your request for yourself.

Arguments Against Euthanasia Rights

Pretend as they will to ethical credentials, the anti-euthanasia propagandists are always religiously motivated even if they try to buy credibility by concealing the fact.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65) mirroring Richard Dawkins’ observation about anti-evolution propagandists.

The Oregon Experience

Gloria Taylor had ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), an incurable disease. My friend Geoff Sirois died of it on 2001-08-19. It is one of the most horrible ways to die. Gradually your muscles stop working so you can’t move, cannot eat, cannot speak and finally cannot breathe. It is like being buried alive. My friends at the BC Civil Liberties Association and three others in a similar boat to Ms. Taylor sued and overturned the law in Canada making physician assisted suicide illegal. The judge declared it inconsistent with the constitution. If parliament does not fix the law within an year, it will become invalid.

This has brought on a firestorm from meddling Christians who wanted to make sure Ms. Taylor did not miss a microsecond of the suffering they believe their god Jehovah was inflicting on her. This is as insane as insisting she have her appendix out without anaesthesia. They wanted to force their religion, complete with unsubstantiated superstitions about suffering, death, bodies possessed by souls, and after death torture on non-believers. Christians like Will Johnston refuse to respect the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, which includes the right to reject Christianity.

Back in 1990, I comforted my friend David Lewis as he ended his life to avoid the final stages of AIDS. At the time Christians meddled outrageously as well. I wrote an essay about it.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65) source

Oregon has had a physician assisted suicide law since 1998. There have been no reported abuses. It takes two physicians to prescribe a dose of fatal drugs. Only one in six people is accepted. The rest are routed to various alternate therapies such as symptom control or treatment for depression. These people might previously have attempted suicide on their own, and would have received no treatment. One in ten who applies actually gets and uses a prescription. It often acts as insurance against some horrible death, such as slow suffocation from ALS.

The Advantage to Pro-Lifers

Christians who managed to impose their religion on the general population by making physician-assisted suicide illegal, end up forcing people into premature suicide. When someone is dying of a degenerative disease like ALS or Huntingtons, they have to be careful not to postpone their suicide too late, or they could not do it without assistance. So they must err on the side of doing it too early.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

Did you know that the way things are now, in British Columbia, if you don’t provide a specific living will, a hospital can put a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order on you without your consent! Today, euthanasia is effectively happening, under the table, both to people who want it and to those who don’t want it.

By requiring a formal procedure to request euthanasia, it would be much harder to slip euthanasia by with a nudge nudge, wink wink the way it happens now.

Why Do I Care?

On 2012-06-12 the BC Supreme Court struck down a ban on physician-assisted suicide. The argument was peculiar — equality. Severely ill or disabled people cannot kill themselves as able-bodied people can. Denying them the right to die is denying them equality. I would have used a freedom of religion argument, that Christians do not have the right to impose their religious dogma on others, but all’s well that ends well.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

I am HIV +. I have been since the summer of 1985. Over that time my health as dipped up and down. Most of my friends have died of AIDS, some with excruciating deaths.

I get extremely angry at busy-body Catholics poking their nose into what I consider a most personal of issues. They have some very warped ideas about what the creator expects of us, and like medieval torturers are willing to put people through extreme pain to save their souls. As I said on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), "It is none of their damn business!"

I think it should be my decision when suffering is too much. To retain that control I will be forced to kill myself early, while I still have enough strength to handle the suicide totally unaided. I have been quite sick of late, and I have been making preparations. This is ironic. Meddling Christians are pushing me into premature suicide. If they would simply mind their own bloody business, I could in all probability safely postpone that suicide indefinitely and enjoy a natural death.

The conviction of Dr. Kevorkian for murder shows the public are bloody fools, and can’t tell the difference between an axe murder and mercy. The sanctimonious A&E biography of Dr. Kevorkian reiterates that blindness. Nobody cares a fig about the person begging to die. The victim of euthanasia is the only seriously interested party, and he is the only party given no say in the debate. He is presumed incompetent simply because he can no longer stand the suffering. The selfishness of the meddling Christians and their superstitious arguments makes me nauseous. Christians pretend the suffering does not exist because it conflicts with their superstitious beliefs.

The judge who sentenced Kevorkian chastised him as if he were a serial axe murderer. She refused to see the difference.

I get furious at Christians forcing their crazy superstitions about death down the throats of those who want no part of them. Why should a man with ALS and a month to live have to put up with the final hours of slowly suffocating to death? Someone who helps is merciful. Someone who turns away is a Nazi.

Consider also those who are not terminally ill, but who have had some dreadful accident, such as burns to 90% of the body or a broken spinal chord so they are paralysed from the neck down. No matter how much they might scream I want to die. Please somebody kill me! they are trapped with no means of escape no matter how utterly intolerable their existence is. This is Christian mercy solidified into law.

Imagine the outcry if some religious group were able to push through legislation to also outlaw euthanasia for animals. No matter how horribly injured your pet were, you had no option but to sit by and watch him suffer and slowly die. We would consider it sadistic. Why do we have more compassion for our pets than our loved ones?

Mind You Own Business!

Perhaps we could compose some slogans for the anti-euthanasia folk:
Jehovah gets off on your suffering. You’ll be sorry if he doesn’t ejaculate.
Suffer for Jesus.
Death bed is the best time for conversion. (The johns are too weak to resist. They cannot recant. They cannot take legal action).
Hell Fire works best on children and the elderly.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

I find the anti-choice folk a meddling bunch of busybodies. Most of the time, they are fabulously healthy, deeply religious, and have no inkling of what it is like to be terminally ill. They think they know better than the terminally ill what is in their best interest. The terminally ill are overwhelmingly pro-choice. The terminally ill are only physically incapacitated. They still have their marbles. They are the ones who have to endure the end of life trials. Surely, who is more qualified than they to make such important decisions? I’d say, if you are not terminally ill, you have no business forcing your opinions on those who are. You have not been there. You don’t know what you are talking about. Unfortunately, the terminally ill have no energy to make their voices heard politically. The have no political clout since they will unlikely ever vote again. So they are at the mercy of energetic fundamentalist busybodies.

Pro choice means just that, that you want the option to die left open for you and others. You don’t want to close off all possibility of early death no matter how intolerable life becomes. The non-terminally ill have this right naturally, and just like most terminally ill people, elect to keep on living. It is unfair to take this right away from the terminally ill, at the very time it is most reassuring that there exists an escape should life get too terrible.

Mr. Novakowski has been pontificating on the Robert Latimer case. He has a daughter disabled with cerebral palsy, which he considers makes his situation identical with that Latimer found himself in. The situations are completely different. Novakowski’s daughter is healthy and happy. There is utterly no reason to help her die. Latimer’s daughter was screaming in pain. Novakowski says euthanasia is not the answer in his case. Of course! Nobody said it was! The right to die is about letting people choose to escape suffering, not bumping them off because caretakers are fed up with caring for them. When Novakowski talks of the slippery slope he is projecting his own desires on the pro-euthanasia camp. He is the only one who feels tempted to bump off his daughter. Nobody in the pro-euthanasia camp is willing to let him get away with that. Novakowski imagines taking away the right to die somehow increases respect for the individual. It is the very opposite. He wants the government to meddle and bully where it has no business.

Christian Compassion

A rep from the Sally Jesse Raphael (a talk show host) once phoned me up and asked me to come on her show to talk about euthanasia. They asked if I could guarantee I would cry. I said no. They then decided I was not a suitable guest.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

People supposedly motivated by Christian compassion do things literally like this: cut a hole in an elderly woman’s chest without her consent to insert a feeding tube. In seeing it is not working, they allowed her to slowly starve to death. The women had Alzheimers. If they did it to a dog, they would be reported to the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).

Active vs Passive Euthanasia

Christians are motivated by religious superstition, but they have learned that people laugh in their faces when they present arguments based on such superstitions. So instead, they make up bogus arguments they imagine might fly. So, for example, in a euthanasia debate, they will usually avoid telling you that they believe the god Jehovah owns you and you have no right to evade the suffering he imposes. Instead they make up highly improbable scenarios about a Hitler murdering crippled children as a result of terminally ill people being given the right to choose the time of their deaths.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

One of the smarmiest, lawyerly, cowardly and cruel notions Christians have foist on the world, is passive euthanasia. In their view, it somehow does not count as killing you merely starve or dehydrate someone to death, never mind that dehydration is a crueler way to die that being eaten alive by lions.

I say this is bloody nonsense. What counts is your intent and the result. If your intent is to kill and the result is death, it does not matter what your means it, it is still killing.

Consider that if you kill an infant by neglect or a beating, it is still murder. If a kidnapper kills his victim by starvation or a gun, it is still murder. Why should killing a patient actively or passively be any different?

If you are going to euthanise someone, be at least as kind as you would to a beloved pet dog when you put it down. Use a method that is painless and quick such as a shot of seconal.

It is monstrous to hold out only the torture of passive euthanasia to someone terminally ill in such pain they cannot bear any more. It is downright sadistic. It is similarly monstrous to euthanise someone that way who is not able to protest. If there is a hell, I hope all Christians who try to fob passive euthanasia by dehydration off on others spend eternity there, suffering exactly as they made others suffer.

Signs of Common Sense

According to Dr. Eike Kluge, professor of ethic at the University of Victoria, in a hospice, if the caretakers, even at the request of the patient, oversedate him causing death or withhold medication or treatment causing death, or if they select a treatment that would shorten life relative to some other treatment, even if that other treatment would cause excruciating pain, the caregivers are technically guilty of first degree murder. This is insane, but that is the law. Members of parliament are afraid of outraging the Catholics and other anti-euthanasia advocates.

However, in practice, sanity often prevails. There is something called prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutors don’t have to take the caretakers to trial, especially if they think a jury would ignore the law and refuse to convict them. So in practice, if you are suffering great pain or nausea that cannot be controlled by drugs, often caretakers will at your request oversedate you and allow you to die in peace. If they are prosecuted, usually they will be charged only with administering a noxious substance. If convicted, they would usually only get probation or a requirement their work be supervised. Unlike for murder, there is no minimum sentence. The caretakers would not lose they right to practice medicine. Of course, if the Catholics get wind of this and butt in, all bets are off what will happen.

The other piece of good news is that you have the right to refuse any medical procedure, including resuscitation. If your doctor ignores your request, he can be changed with assault. The catch is, if you are considered mentally incompetent, you lose that right. All you need do is make your wishes clear on an advance directive card in your wallet.

Mark Pickup

Kill me, you fucking fool!
~ Kingsley Amis (born: 1922-04-16 died: 1995-10-22 at age: 73), to his son.

Mark Pickup is an anti-euthanasia advocate. He has multiple sclerosis. Be became depressed and wanted to die. He was not in physical pain, and he was not paralysed, but felt worthless. He was well enough kill himself, but did not actually attempt suicide. He wants to keep assisted suicide illegal because he fears had it been available, he might be dead now. This is a groundless fear. Had he applied for help with his suicide, he would have been treated for his depression and for his delusions of worthlessness. As it was, his problems with severe depression went untreated. He would have been in less danger of rash suicide had he applied for help dying. All assisted suicide programs have an assessment and waiting period. It is not death on demand.

Pickup also argues that the terminally ill person has no right to choose when to die. He should stay alive to please those around him no matter how intense the pain. This is insane, considering postponing grief of more importance than avoiding torture. Pickup imagines modern medicine can always manage pain. I have only once been near death, but I have been seriously ill many times in which modern medicine could in no way begin to manage the pain. Try a passing a kidney or gallstone, or being so nauseous you threw up continuously for 30 minutes. Then imagine that level of pain bedeviling you for the rest of your days without letup.

What gives people like Mr. Pickup who have never felt serious pain, the right to tell others who have, how much pain is unbearable? How much pain is too much is a highly subjective thing, and it is not something you can decide for someone else. Just because I can bear a particular pain does not mean someone else is equally insensitive to it. My sister prefers to have dental work done without anaesthesia. However, that is no reason to demand everyone do it.

Pickup also expressed worry that people might bump themselves off because they felt too much of a burden. I look at it this way. If somebody finds being a burden even more awful than death, then who am I to condemn them to a fate they consider worse than death? I likely would not feel tortured in that situation, but obviously they do. The compassionate solution is not to force them to suffer by cutting off their only escape route, but to help them over their guilt about being cared for.

Marie of Montréal

A rep from the Sally Jesse Raphael (a talk show host) once phoned me up and asked me to come on her show to talk about euthanasia. They asked if I could guarantee I would cry. I said no. They then decided I was not a suitable guest.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

This women’s dishonest and irrational way of debating suggests she is a member of some church and she is simply parroting the views of the church. She believes her church to have an exclusive hold on absolute truth, hence everyone should adopt those views. What she is doing has little to do with euthanasia and a lot to do with proselytising. Whether someone’s views are rational or not has nothing whatsoever to do with their right to lobby for them. Most of the people against euthanasia are meddling religious busybodies who think they have a right to interfere in other people’s most personal choices. It is cosmically unfair that those most affected by euthanasia legislation have little energy to promote their views, and those with least interest and maximal nuttiness have the loudest voices.

Gordon Brown

The whole conception of Sin is one which I find very puzzling, doubtless owing to my sinful nature. If Sin consisted in causing needless suffering, I could understand; but on the contrary, sin often consists in avoiding needless suffering. Some years ago, in the English House of Lords, a bill was introduced to legalize euthanasia in cases of painful and incurable disease. The patient’s consent was to be necessary, as well as several medical certificates. To me, in my simplicity, it would seem natural to require the patient’s consent, but the late Archbishop of Canterbury, the English official expert on Sin, explained the erroneousness of such a view. The patient’s consent turns euthanasia into suicide, and suicide is sin. Their Lordships listened to the voice of authority, and rejected the bill. Consequently, to please the Archbishop — and his God, if reports truly — victims of cancer still have to endure months of wholly useless agony, unless their doctors or nurses are sufficiently humane to risk a charge of murder. I find difficulty in the conception of a God who gets pleasure from contemplating such tortures; and if there were a God capable of such wanton cruelty, I should certainly not think Him worthy of worship. But that only proves how sunk I am in moral depravity.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) An Outline Of Intellectual Rubbish

Gordon Brown was the Prime Minister of UK. was is adamantly opposed to physician-assisted suicide on the grounds, if it were permitted, families would pressure their elderly into committing suicide. I find this argument invalid on four grounds.

1. Simply being elderly surely would not be sufficient grounds to grant physician-assisted suicide. You would need some sort of severe suffering, physical or mental.
2. If I were a terminally ill person, and my family and friends had abandoned me, what point would there be in dragging on a few more months? Why insist I suffer that additional onslaught? Should it not be my decision? Who else’s business is it anyway?
3. If I were a terminally ill person, and my family were so heartless as to tell me that the world would be better off if I were dead, there is no reason I have to humour them. They have no legal power over me. I can tell them to take a flying leap at the moon. In fact, because there are third parties involved investigating, it is much harder for relatives to pressure me into suicide than the way it is now.
4. If I were a terminally ill person, and my family were so were so eager for their inheritances they started heavily pressuring me to kill myself, the whole matter would come to light as soon as I applied for physician-assisted suicide. I would then have an advocate to help me get my cruel family off my back and help me find some alternate emotional support. The way it is now, my suicide would be completely hushed up.

Gordon Brown’s policy could be compared with a mandatory automobile passenger restraint device, presumed by its inventors to be beneficial, but never tested scientifically, that was excruciatingly painful for a sizable proportion of people.

Recent Developments

The terminally ill almost all want the right to physician assisted suicide. Religious bigots deny it to them claiming they want to protect them. Should not those affected be the ones to decide what sort of protection they want rather than meddling busybodies who have absolutely nothing to do with the situation, who know nothing about the situation, and who are motivated solely by iron age religious superstitions?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

On 2011-11-14 and 2011-11-15 the CBC Radio 1 aired discussion of euthanasia, and allowed phone-in callers. Unlike previous such shows, there was no mention of hell, god, and Jehovah being the slaveowner of all human bodies. Instead the lines were swamped with callers all saying the exact same thing, namely that legal euthanasia was a plot to encourage elder abuse and extorting them of their worldly goods. There was almost no input from the opposing view.

The anti-euthanasia people are primarily motivated by a desire to impose their religious beliefs on others. They discovered such arguments would not fly, so are now pushing a bogus argument that legal euthanasia will lead to increased elder abuse. Nonsense! Obviously there is much more unbiased scrutiny of legal euthanasia than illegal. Further, people rashly attempting suicide will be much less likely to carry through if they go the legal euthanasia route which would necessitate reevaluation and talking it over with a trained counselor.

What it boils down to is, who is in a better position to make wise decisions about my end of life, me or Dr. Will Johnston, (the B.C. spokesman for EPC (Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Canada)). Who has more at stake? Dr. Johnson or me? Whose business is it anyway? How arrogant he is to claim he knows better than I just how bearable my suffering is. Suffering is multi-dimensional and subjective. Nobody else can possibly know as well as I just how bearable my existence is. Jonstnon is motivated by religious dogma, but he carefully hides that. He relies almost exclusively on straw man arguments, pretending the debate is about some Hitlerian purge of the disabled without their consent. He advocates under-the-table euthanasia accidental overmedication without any formal consent, since in his legalistic mind the god Jehovah would not count this as murder. Yet he claims a formal procedure to bring physicial-assisted suicide out into the light of day will increase abuse. The man is nuts.

This notion that all pain is manageable is ridiculous. Have these meddlesome busybodies never had an infected tooth, a kidney stone or HIV-induced nausea? In my experience, pain laughs at any analgesic modern medicine can throw at it.

Good Life, Gentle Death. David Lewis’s Suicide

On 2012-06-12 the BC Supreme Court struck down a ban on physician-assisted suicide. The argument was peculiar — equality. Severely ill or disabled people cannot kill themselves as able-bodied people can. Denying them the right to die is denying them equality. I would have used a freedom of religion argument, that Christians do not have the right to impose their religious dogma on others, but all’s well that ends well.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

I was present when David Lewis took his life in 1990 to avoid the final stages of AIDS. So many people wrote to the newspapers to pontificate on the event. They had absolutely no clue what it was like. After several weeks of lobbying, the newspapers finally let me tell what actually happened. What follows is what I wrote based on an essay I wrote the night he died:

In recent weeks pundits have pontificated on TV and in the press over David Lewis’s decision to commit suicide rather than face a lingering death. None of these men ever even met David. I was present the night David died. Here is what really happened Friday night 1990-08-24.

In some eyes, David is a coward and a sinner and I am a murderer for not interfering. If you were present, I think you would see it differently.

Before, when I heard people talk of death as a natural and even beautiful part of life, I thought them ghoulish. I still hate death, but now I can at least understand that point of view.

I know that the way David chose is the way I wish to die as well, eventually.

David was terminally ill with AIDS. He had a stroke so one side of his body was paralyzed, he was partially deaf and partially blind. He was incontinent. He could not eat any food without immediately throwing it up. He had a rapidly growing painful brain tumor, He had toxoplasmosis — a festering of the brain. He complained of the nausea and the pain of the brain tumor. He was expected to die within days or weeks.

David did not want to die. He enjoyed his life immensely, even to the very last second. Unfortunately, living was not one of the options. Two of the choices were:

1. Go into palliative care, go on higher doses of morphine, die naturally with tube up his nose in a hospital, become demented gaga to use his term, probably alone. He would be too weak to take charge of ending of his life no matter how intense the suffering.
2. Face the ultimate terror — death, surrounded with the comfort of his friends, in his home, with flowers, music, and gentle readings. He could say his last good-byes properly with full emotion. He would have to sacrifice a few days or weeks of suffering. He would have to face the moment of truth when he switched the IV that would eventually kill him.

The press have been phoning every few hours over the last week to ask Is he dead yet? The seven men and three women David chose to be with him do not want to be named. They wish to avoid media hassles and the potential of legal action. David wanted his death to have a greater meaning. He hopes his death will make it possible for other terminally ill people to die gently.

David held a barbecue last Sunday. Friends, sexual buddies and relatives came to say goodbye. We laughed and joked, and David told ribald stories of the distant and recent past and how one of his medications made him very horny.

The Friday night was much more subdued. David already had the IV in his arm that he put there himself. It was dripping harmless saline solution.

David kept asking, "What’s going to happen to me after I die? I don’t know, I just don’t know. I’m so scared. Probably nothing. Probably nothing at all — just poof."

I told him about all the myths I knew, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Tibetan etc. One person suggested that perhaps he would meet his lover Jimmy who died of AIDS last year. I wanted so badly for those myths to be true.

We joked that perhaps, like an Egyptian, he should take a small gold cat with him, or some change. Because of the Social Credit policy of making all experimental drugs free except those for AIDS patients, David detested Premier Vander Zalm right to the end. BC is the only province to attempt to reduce its NDP-voting gay population by charging $425 per month for drugs. If possible, David will haunt the premier’s theme park, Fantasy Gardens.

David talked of his experience, many years ago, when he was dead for a short time on the operating table, and how he did not want to come back to life then.

I told David, "Look, you have set up this theatrical event here. You don’t have to go through with it just because we all came. I think you are doing this too soon. I will not interfere. I want this to be 100% your decision. Don’t let anybody rush you. If you want to call this all off, or stall, it is fine with us. "

Other people said similar things, though with more heart. I nearly always sound like a robot.

One guy said, You know this already David. I don’t want you to go. Please stay. Then he just started to cry and cry. We all cried.

David has a huge bed. We sat around it and in it. Someone wiped his forehead. Another massaged his foot. Another held his hand. He rested his head on one of the women’s breasts. David told us how frightened he was. Someone would say, You don’t have to do this. Then he would firmly snap "But I have to! The alternative is too terrible."

We sat in silence. We would cry. David would tell a little joke and we would all giggle. Finally David said, I want you to leave the room. We each hugged him for the last time. David sobbed and clung to us. "I love you so much. I miss you all so much. I hate to leave all this love, but I have to" were his last words.

A few stayed behind. They read from Steven Levine’s Who Dies page 243. Louis Armstrong sang on a tape It’s a Wonderful World. David changed the bag from saline to a sleeping potion. A while later he went peacefully to sleep. A while later he stopped breathing.

David was always the clown. I never saw him sentimental in the twenty years I knew him till that night. David died supremely happy, at first frightened, then peaceful.

David felt unconditionally loved. He received it before, but never felt it inside. When he threw up, no one batted an eyelid. He was still just as lovable. We adored him the way parents adore a new baby. David felt his own love for his friends more deeply then ever before at any time in his life. He made a proper and fitting farewell.

Outside during all this, a beautiful family of strangers stood a candlelight vigil. They held a sign Your life is precious to us, we care, David. In his last hours David talked of his gratitude at the kindness of complete strangers who had sent good wishes or various unusual offers of comfort.

Some of us cleaned him up, put on fresh sheets and clothes. We all came downstairs. Mz. Brutus (his enormous basset hound) jumped up on the bed. David had asked that we allow Mz. Brutus to lick his face. She made snoring noises. I could not help but think David — this is another of your practical jokes. You are not really dead. I can hear you snoring. It was like being five years old waiting as your sibling played dead — holding the breath. I held his arm. It felt cold, but it felt cold ever since the stroke. I felt his forehead. It was very cool. It took a long time for it to sink in that David really was dead. This body was not David. It looked like a respectable middle aged man — not the outrageous David I knew.

Then I began to feel joy. It was as if David was saying to me I’ve escaped. I’m free of the suffering. I feel sorry you guys trapped in your bodies. The real David, if he was anywhere at all, was somewhere else. The corpse seemed like a giant wax puppet, of no further importance.

David had asked that we toast him with Champagne. Nobody felt festive. Eventually we followed orders and toasted David. I took a glass down to him and put a few drops in his mouth. The gesture was irreverent, so I knew David would approve.

Love Roedy

Random Thoughts

Why are Christians so intent on avoiding death, even when they are in unbearable pain, and why are they so intent on preventing others from using suicide to avoid the last ghastly weeks of life? Because they believe in a vengeful, crazy god, Jehovah who will torture them for eternity if they do. Further they are trying to procrastinate the beginning of their torment for other minor sins. They are trying to force this bizarre notion on others, no matter how much pain they cause.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)source

The anti-euthanasia people are primarily motivated by a desire to impose their religious beliefs on others. They discovered such arguments would not fly, so are now pushing a bogus argument that legal euthanasia will lead to increased elder abuse. Nonsense! Obviously there is much more unbiased scrutiny of legal euthanasia than illegal. People rashly attempting suicide will be much less likely to carry through if they go the legal euthanasia route which would necessitate reevaluation and talking it over with a trained counselor.

What it boils down to is, who is in a better position to make wise decisions about my end of life, me or Dr. Will Johnston, (the B.C. spokesman for the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Canada). Who has more at stake? Dr. Johnson or me? Whose business is it anyway? How arrogant he is to claim he knows better than I just how bearable my suffering is. Suffering is multi-dimensional and subjective. Nobody else can possibly know as well as I how bearable my existence is.

This notion that all pain is manageable is ridiculous. Have these meddlesome busybodies never had an infected tooth, a kidney stone or HIV-induced nausea? In my experience, pain laughs at any analgesic modern medicine can throw at them.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

Gloria Taylor was a woman with ALS and the only person in Canada currently with a legal right to physician-assisted suicide. The KRTLS is trying to take that right away from her. The KRTLS argues that taking the life of a human being is not an act of compassion.

Of course, taking a life is not an act of compassion, but that is not what was happening in the Gloria Taylor case. If the KRTLS has right on their side, why are they lying about something so basic? Christians are trying to ensure she suffered long after she has found life unbearable. That is far from a compassionate act.

Christians are doing this for sadistic-religious reasons. Christians have a warped S&M (Sadism & Masochism) view of suffering. They enjoy contemplating of their enemies being roasted alive for eternity.

In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful and that they may give to God more copious thanks for it, they are permitted perfectly to behold the sufferings of the damned… The saints will rejoice in the punishment of the damned.
~ St. Thomas Aquinas (born: 1225 died: 1274-03-07 at age: 48)

Mother Theresa refused to give pain killers to people dying of extremely painful diseases like pancreas cancer. She would tell them they should enjoy the pain as Jesus’s kisses.

Christian women titillate themselves contemplating the suffering of the near naked Christ. Christian men in some cultures whip themselves bloody in emulation of the suffering of Christ. Nuns and priests torment themselves in penance hoping to placate the god Jehovah. The point is Christians have a rather unhealthy relationship with suffering, especially the suffering of others. They see it as a Good Thing™.

In this case, busybody Christians are trying to pretend they knew more than Gloria Taylor if/when her life was unbearable. They are sadists trying to force their nutty religious views on her when she is at her weakest. It is absolutely none of their concern. If Christians want to impale themselves on the altar of their cruel imaginary god Jehovah, they are welcome to it, but please leave Gloria, me and everyone else alone.

My biggest nightmare is on my deathbed to fall into the clutches of arrogant, meddling Christians like those in the KRTLS.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

Even though the church officially condemns suicide, its meddling forces terminally ill people into premature suicide. The churches have successfully lobbied to make it illegal assist a suicide. Therefore someone with ALS, Huntingdon’s, pancreas cancer etc. has to do it prematurely, just to avoid procrastinating so long he could not do it on his own.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

The argument that physician assisted suicide must not be legal to protect people from being forced into it is bogus. The way things are now everyone does a nudge nudge wink wink. If it were legal a counselor and a couple of doctors would interview the patient. They could detect coercion. Further there would be a waiting period. It would not be possible to rush things through as now. Christians use this argument as a smokescreen to disguise their real motivation — to force Christian superstitions about euthanasia on non-Christians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

If you ask a Christian, especially a Catholic, to butt out of other people’s end-of-life decisions (e.g. suicide or physician assisted suicide), their most passionate argument is You can’t. It is not your body. God owns you. If you die prematurely you will be extremely sorry. God will be very angry with you for destroying his property. He will torment you for eternity. Any amount of suffering here on earth is worth it to avoid that. I have to forcibly prevent you from making such a big mistake. This of course is a religious argument. You would think freedom of religion would protect me from such a fanatic forcing his religion on me, but it does not. Christians have managed to get their superstitions embedded in law.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

If your primary goal in dealing with someone suicidal is preventing them from committing suicide, you will most likely do more harm than good. Religious people often attempt to guilt trip or frighten the person into avoiding suicide. This just makes them more miserable than ever. Sometimes religious people use force. This just convinces the depressed person the world is a bullying uncaring place. Some try to browbeat the terminally ill into enduring unendurable suffering. This is unconscionable meddling. Instead, explain that suicide is usually a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Point out the ways in which the situation could change all by itself or with a little help from the outside. Don’t tell them to buck up and stop making a mountain out of a molehill. Let them do most of the talking. Don’t bully them, arrogantly assuming you know more about their situation, just how it feels and the best course than they do.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

The argument that physician assisted suicide must not be legal to protect people from being forced into it is bogus. The way things are now everyone does a nudge nudge wink wink. If it were legal a counselor and a couple of doctors would interview the patient. They could detect coercion. Further there would be a waiting period. It would not be possible to rush things through as now. Christians use this argument as a smokescreen to disguise their real motivation — to force Christian superstitions about euthanasia on non-Christians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

The Catholic position on this question [physician assisted suicide being legal] is clear, human life is a gift from God. Therefore, as taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2280, We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.
~ Richard W. Smith (born: 1959-04-28 age: 54), Archbishop of Edmonton, head of the CCCB (Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops)

Smith freely admits his motivation is purely religious. He wants to force the Catholic catechism on non-believers. Surely the constitution grants me freedom of religion and the freedom to reject his religion.

The KRTLS believe in blocking the morning after pill and blocking the right to die when end-of-life suffering has become unbearable. They are motivated by religion and religious sadism. They want to impose their religion on others. In Canada we are supposed to have freedom of religion. The means freedom from the other guy’s religion. They believe in souls/ghosts inhabiting eggs at conception. That is why they hold the strange position that a single cell is equivalent to an adult human even though it is less complex at that stage than a microscopic spec of pond scum. Monty Python spoofed them in a song Every Sperm Is Sacred. They believe in a cruel god Jehovah who will torment people for eternity if they escape end-of-life suffering. They believe their superstition justifies torturing strangers for a few weeks or months to stop them from committing suicide or seeking help committing suicide. The KRTLS are nuts, and they must be prevented from harming others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 65)

Books

	recommend book⇒Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying, third edition
	by	Derek Humphry	978-0-385-33653-6	paperback
	birth	1930-04-29 age: 83	978-0-9606030-3-9	hardcover
	publisher	Delta	B004TGU1VY	kindle
	published	2002-11-26
abe books anz abe books.co.uk amazon.cn amazon.co.uk abe books.de abe books.ca amazon.de amazon.ca amazon.es Chapters Indigo iberlibro.com abe books.com abe books.fr amazon.com amazon.fr Barnes & Noble abe books.it Google play amazon.it O’Reilly Safari junglee.com Powells Kobo Sony eBooks other stores
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder.

Rings

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