Involuntary Euthanasia

Have you heard about the growing popularity of involuntary euthanasia? It seems to mainly happen in Holland/Netherlands. Belgium, and Luxembourg also have legalized euthanasia. Washington, Oregon and Montana have passed euthanasia friendly laws.

I heard about this last night on the radio from a guy pimping a book he wrote on the subject. I found an article on NIH.gov from 2011 that substantiates what the guy was claiming.
In 2011 “…more than 500 people in the Netherlands are euthanized involuntarily every year.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070710/

I’m surprised the Eugenicists aren’t pushing this harder, yet.

Your statement “…Oregon and Montana have passed euthanasia friendly laws…” is misleading. Those states have passed Patient Assisted Suicide laws. Euthenasia is termination of life by a third party, not suicide. The northern European countries cited have legalized euthenasia und specific conditions.

Gotta say, this is one of more f’ed up subjects to hit IDO.

Dutchboy wrote:

Gotta say, this is one of more f’ed up subjects to hit IDO.

Ditto!

catmando wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Dutchboy wrote:</div>
Gotta say, this is one of more f’ed up subjects to hit IDO.

Ditto!

I was hoping no one would even respond.

Let’s drop it and move on.I think this would bring up politics,the church and who know’s what, and we all know where that will end up.

Dutchboy wrote:

Gotta say, this is one of more f’ed up subjects to hit IDO.

Almost as f’d up as you Lindsay Lohan rant years ago..

And from out of the darkness comes Targaman!! LOL!

Involuntary euthanasia is the death penalty. You might have heard that involuntary euthanasia is legal here in the U.S.

Non—voluntary euthanasia is when a person can’t give consent but likely would. That is probably what you’re trying to reference here.

Can’t you find a chat board somewhere else for this kind of stuff?

I thought this was the “General Discussion” forum? How does this topic not qualify as general discussion?

Man, there are a lot of Sallies on this site that don’t seem to contribute much more than complaining about thread topics and/or length.

No hair off my azz….I’ve got plenty of in-depth pieces I was going to post as topics in the Mille Lacs forum but apparently these same members prefer seeing it having only a new topic, maybe two, go up weekly. I’m sure this must be really beneficial for a forum—less content—that’s what grows traffic.

As far as this topic goes, I’m all for euthanasia. When your mind is dead you are dead. There are way too many dead people who have living bodies artificially kept alive in this country. If someone’s extreme-elderly parent is brain dead from Alzheimer’s or dememtia, or any other loved one from severe brain trauma, they should be able to let their body pass on. Any argument stating this is playing God, or disrespectful to God, are being hypocrites since keeping their body alive artificially is the real abomination. Their number was already called up. Let them go.

I agree with joneser.

It’s a General Discussion board.
If you don’t like the topic, don’t click on it and move on.

No different than any other board topic.

I also agree with his euthanasia opinion for that matter.

I’ll post an interesting excerpt from the journal article under the “Voluntary, Written Consent” section:

————–
“In Belgium, the rate of involuntary and non-voluntary euthanasia deaths (that is, without explicit consent) is 3 times higher than it is in the Netherlands. (“Involuntary euthanasia” refers to a situation in which a person possesses the capacity but has not provided consent, and “non-voluntary euthanasia,” to a situation in which a person is unable to provide consent for reasons such as severe dementia or coma). A recent study found that in the Flemish part of Belgium, 66 of 208 cases of “euthanasia” (32%) occurred in the absence of request or consent. The reasons for not discussing the decision to end the person’s life and not obtaining consent were that patients were comatose (70% of cases) or had dementia (21% of cases). In 17% of cases, the physicians proceeded without consent because they felt that euthanasia was “clearly in the patient’s best interest” and, in 8% of cases, that discussing it with the patient would have been harmful to that patient. Those findings accord with the results of a previous study in which 25 of 1644 non-sudden deaths had been the result of euthanasia without explicit consent.

Some proponents of euthanasia contend that the foregoing figures are misrepresentative, because many people may have at some time in their lives expressed a wish for or support of euthanasia, albeit not formally.”
——————

In regards to consent, ‘informal’ patient wishes are often those relayed to the medical team by the family in the absence of a POLST or advanced directive. Families make the decisions to transition their loved one from aggressive cares to comfort cares (hospice) routinely. In other words, the medical team allows the patient to die comfortably without the incapacitated patient ever giving written or verbal consent to pursue hospice cares. Family can make that decision in many cases, without ever having been granted medical power of attorney.

I’m also in agreement with Joneser on euthanasia. Take a walk through an LTACH and you’d see why.

70% comatose, 22% dementia, 17% physician’s determination of clearly being in best interest, and 8% discussion would’ve been harmful to patient—I’m not sure why the proponents need to argue those numbers as being misrepresentative, I don’t see them as casting a negative light on non-voluntarty euthanasia. They’re very supportive in my opinion. I don’t see them suggesting any malfeasance whatsoever.

Doctors and nurses don’t need to take the hippocratic oath to show they care for their patients. No one does all the schooling, residency, training, to be able to work in the field without having real empathy and compassion for people. The ones that aren’t cut out for it get weeded out long before they’d ever be in the position to make the call on whether or not to pull the plug. If there’s any doubt they’re going to error on the side of keeping someone alive. I think if anything, they do that too much.

I’ve told my family members numerous times over the years that if I ever suffer a traumatic brain injury where the person I am is gone without any hope of coming back to make sure I die. If somehow my mindless body is wheeled out of a hospital and I’m drooling instead of talking and someone is needing to change my diapers? End it. End it as fast as possible without any hesitation. Take me over to Cuyuna SRA and while we’re fishing the old trout pits have my wheelchair “malfunction” and roll off the bow platform of my boat with the anchor rope somehow having been wrapped around my leg. My body has no mind so I’m sure it’ll do weird stuff like twirl anchor ropes around it’s legs.

There are things worse than death. Having someone change my diapers as a grown azz man would certainly be one of them.

The point I’m making is that I’d definitely fall into the category of someone who had expressed a wish for euthanasia but not formally. God bless any doctor, nurse, or caregiver that would do the right thing despite me not going, “Please euthanize me.”

If I had enough faculties to form that thought and communicate it that directly I’d most likely want to live. The fact that I couldn’t do that is why I pray to God they’d do the right thing and let me leave this world with some dignity.

Thanks for sharing the excerpts from that article Bass Thumb. It makes me feel even more confident on my stance in regards to this issue.

Part of my job involves drawing blood at the nursing home. It is heartbreaking to have to make some old lady cry, when she does not know who she is or where she is at, just to check her cholesterol every 6 months. You also hear cries coming from rooms with only the patient in them.

Please be involved in your parents health care so that they aren’t subjected to stuff that would go against their wishes when they were able to express them. Make your own wishes known.

disco bobber wrote:

Part of my job involves drawing blood at the nursing home. It is heartbreaking to have to make some old lady cry, when she does not know who she is or where she is at, just to check her cholesterol every 6 months. You also hear cries coming from rooms with only the patient in them.

Please be involved in your parents health care so that they aren’t subjected to stuff that would go against their wishes when they were able to express them. Make your own wishes known.

I’ve dodged this entire topic altogether until now. This couldn’t be more true ^

PLEASE talk with your parents, spouse, and children and have everyone on the same page with written details.

This also is a great time to mention the cliche saying of “live your life”. It goes by faster and faster with each day. Enjoy it, see the people you love, visit relatives and friends. The end of life is a giant unknown and is unfortunately not always peaceful as it should be.