- 3,807
- 11
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2006
Should be mandatory for lazy people.
Euthanasia: Your Thoughts?
- Thread in 'General' Thread starter Started by boys noize,
- Start date
- 5,215
- 118
- Joined
- May 18, 2009
[size=+3][/size]
[size=+3]Live and Let Die[/size]
[size=+1]Should a rational person who chooses death be forced to "soldier on"?[/size]
By ROD USHER
amon Sampedro was a live head on a dead body. That's a brutaldescription of full paralysis, but it's the way he saw it.Ramon's brain worked better than most people's and his wit wasas quick as his smile was warm, but from the neck down he waslimp flesh, capable of no more than involuntary spasms. He livedthis mind-body limbo for 29 of his 55 years. As a young man fullof vigor he had jumped into the sea from rocks near his home, afishing village in the northern Spanish region of Galicia.Misjudging the water's depth, he struck his head on the bottom.
Tucked up at home in a high bed, his window framing greencountryside and in the distance the Atlantic coast that crippledhim, Ramon Sampedro might never have been heard of again afterthe accident three decades ago. But when he died last week fewof his countrymen did not know of him, and his face had beenseen on television in Holland, the United States, as far away asAustralia.
Ramon's farming family cared for him, a labor of loveencompassing the minutiae of total immobility. When I met himthree years ago his sister-in-law was finishing feeding himlunch. Then she lit his cigarette, managed its ash, stubbed itout, put on his glasses.... Ramon said after she left the roomthat his family members were "physical and psychological slaves"to his quadriplegia, a view they did not share.
With time, Ramon's mind had become as fit as his body wasflaccid. He read Swift, Wilde and Flaubert, and he talked. Youcould ring him direct via a mouth-operated device he designed toanswer the phone. But many years ago Ramon decided he could nolonger bear the life of a tuned mind atop an insensate body,dependent from teeth to toenails and each pore and sphincter inbetween.
So he opted for death. He didn't proselytize; he agreed thatothers similarly afflicted might lead fulfilled lives, but herejected the claims of church and state that he must not chooseto die. His problem was that while his mind was made up, he wasphysically incapable of killing himself. For five years hesought legal approval to have someone help him, preferably hislocal doctor, Carlos Peon Fernandez, a sympathetic man whoregards life as "private property" but who obeys the law.
Ramon tried Spain's lower courts, its higher courts, even theEuropean Commission on Human Rights in Strasbourg. He met wallsof procedure and prohibition, or legal vacuum. He talked ofsomehow getting to Holland, where assisting voluntary death isnot legal, but doctors are not prosecuted.
In countries less practical than Holland it is common for peoplesuffering in their last stages to be quietly overdosed withpainkillers, the act camouflaged by the nicety that what countsin many penal codes is whether the lethal amount was given toalleviate pain or to kill. Intent is a slippery fish.
Faint hopes of a statutory right to die were raised in 1966 whenAustralia's remote Northern Territory became the first place tolegalize voluntary euthanasia. This enabled four terminally illpeople to end their lives using a computer linked to a lethalinjection. The law was overturned last year by Australia'sFederal Parliament.
Ramon would not have been covered by similar legislation. He wasnot terminally ill. He was terminally sad. He might have fastedto death but did not see why he should have to, and he knew thetrauma it would mean for his religious, pro-life family. It waswith them in mind, it seems, that two months ago he had friendstake him from the farm at Porto do Son to an apartment about 30km away. They also took over his daily care.
Early last week one of the friends reported to police that Ramonwas dead in his bed. Given that he was rarely ill, had somebodyat last helped him to do what he most wanted from life--to leaveit? The answer came on Wednesday; the autopsy revealed traces ofcyanide in his blood and stomach. It remains to be seen ifanybody will be charged with the offense of assisting suicide.His family doesn't want anyone prosecuted.
There was a big crowd at the home-town funeral. A lot of peopleare going to miss Ramon. But for him life had more sting thandeath. As he put it in a poem he wrote years ago, "The dream hasbecome a nightmare."
Society required that he keep living that nightmare, that he"soldier on" for perhaps another 40 years--his father Joaquin is92. Such is our collective fear of "surrendering" to death. Wenegate death to the point that a gentle man is forced tostruggle without the use of arms or legs to devise a way toobtain and ingest cyanide. At night. Away from home. Illegally.
Ramon Sampedro was denied what Camus called "a happy death." Buthe did pry open a taboo, quietly arguing that quality ratherthan quantity was his measure of a happy life. Right now I liketo think RIP has a small new meaning. Ramon in Peace.
- 5,215
- 118
- Joined
- May 18, 2009
[size=+3][/size]
[size=+3]Live and Let Die[/size]
[size=+1]Should a rational person who chooses death be forced to "soldier on"?[/size]
By ROD USHER
amon Sampedro was a live head on a dead body. That's a brutaldescription of full paralysis, but it's the way he saw it.Ramon's brain worked better than most people's and his wit wasas quick as his smile was warm, but from the neck down he waslimp flesh, capable of no more than involuntary spasms. He livedthis mind-body limbo for 29 of his 55 years. As a young man fullof vigor he had jumped into the sea from rocks near his home, afishing village in the northern Spanish region of Galicia.Misjudging the water's depth, he struck his head on the bottom.
Tucked up at home in a high bed, his window framing greencountryside and in the distance the Atlantic coast that crippledhim, Ramon Sampedro might never have been heard of again afterthe accident three decades ago. But when he died last week fewof his countrymen did not know of him, and his face had beenseen on television in Holland, the United States, as far away asAustralia.
Ramon's farming family cared for him, a labor of loveencompassing the minutiae of total immobility. When I met himthree years ago his sister-in-law was finishing feeding himlunch. Then she lit his cigarette, managed its ash, stubbed itout, put on his glasses.... Ramon said after she left the roomthat his family members were "physical and psychological slaves"to his quadriplegia, a view they did not share.
With time, Ramon's mind had become as fit as his body wasflaccid. He read Swift, Wilde and Flaubert, and he talked. Youcould ring him direct via a mouth-operated device he designed toanswer the phone. But many years ago Ramon decided he could nolonger bear the life of a tuned mind atop an insensate body,dependent from teeth to toenails and each pore and sphincter inbetween.
So he opted for death. He didn't proselytize; he agreed thatothers similarly afflicted might lead fulfilled lives, but herejected the claims of church and state that he must not chooseto die. His problem was that while his mind was made up, he wasphysically incapable of killing himself. For five years hesought legal approval to have someone help him, preferably hislocal doctor, Carlos Peon Fernandez, a sympathetic man whoregards life as "private property" but who obeys the law.
Ramon tried Spain's lower courts, its higher courts, even theEuropean Commission on Human Rights in Strasbourg. He met wallsof procedure and prohibition, or legal vacuum. He talked ofsomehow getting to Holland, where assisting voluntary death isnot legal, but doctors are not prosecuted.
In countries less practical than Holland it is common for peoplesuffering in their last stages to be quietly overdosed withpainkillers, the act camouflaged by the nicety that what countsin many penal codes is whether the lethal amount was given toalleviate pain or to kill. Intent is a slippery fish.
Faint hopes of a statutory right to die were raised in 1966 whenAustralia's remote Northern Territory became the first place tolegalize voluntary euthanasia. This enabled four terminally illpeople to end their lives using a computer linked to a lethalinjection. The law was overturned last year by Australia'sFederal Parliament.
Ramon would not have been covered by similar legislation. He wasnot terminally ill. He was terminally sad. He might have fastedto death but did not see why he should have to, and he knew thetrauma it would mean for his religious, pro-life family. It waswith them in mind, it seems, that two months ago he had friendstake him from the farm at Porto do Son to an apartment about 30km away. They also took over his daily care.
Early last week one of the friends reported to police that Ramonwas dead in his bed. Given that he was rarely ill, had somebodyat last helped him to do what he most wanted from life--to leaveit? The answer came on Wednesday; the autopsy revealed traces ofcyanide in his blood and stomach. It remains to be seen ifanybody will be charged with the offense of assisting suicide.His family doesn't want anyone prosecuted.
There was a big crowd at the home-town funeral. A lot of peopleare going to miss Ramon. But for him life had more sting thandeath. As he put it in a poem he wrote years ago, "The dream hasbecome a nightmare."
Society required that he keep living that nightmare, that he"soldier on" for perhaps another 40 years--his father Joaquin is92. Such is our collective fear of "surrendering" to death. Wenegate death to the point that a gentle man is forced tostruggle without the use of arms or legs to devise a way toobtain and ingest cyanide. At night. Away from home. Illegally.
Ramon Sampedro was denied what Camus called "a happy death." Buthe did pry open a taboo, quietly arguing that quality ratherthan quantity was his measure of a happy life. Right now I liketo think RIP has a small new meaning. Ramon in Peace.
- 13,328
- 11,551
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2009
I agree.
- 13,328
- 11,551
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2009
I agree.
- 87,768
- 50,183
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2007
He's a quadriplegic, if he didn't have a nurse helping him or some type of prosthetic limbs he could've still chin-moved to a flight of stairs and tumble off. He could've indirectly gotten help by telling friends to buy him something that could kill him that they weren't aware of, etc.
Outside of being paralyzed from the eye down and not being able to speak or convey your opinion on the matter there's always a way to commit suicide on your own
- 87,768
- 50,183
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2007
He's a quadriplegic, if he didn't have a nurse helping him or some type of prosthetic limbs he could've still chin-moved to a flight of stairs and tumble off. He could've indirectly gotten help by telling friends to buy him something that could kill him that they weren't aware of, etc.
Outside of being paralyzed from the eye down and not being able to speak or convey your opinion on the matter there's always a way to commit suicide on your own
- 2,115
- 28
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2005
I'm for it. There was a story on this guy named Dax Cowart (sp?) who suffered MAJOR burns. The treatment was a nightmare and extremely painful for him (i think chlorine baths? or something like that). He fought for his rights to end his life, but the doctors refused and made the decision to continue treatment. After the treatments, his face was severely burnt and life was just not worth it to him. He decided to devote the rest of his life fighting for patient rights.
Also, if your grandmother was in a vegetative state for months and even years, wouldn't you want the best for her and end treatment?
Also, if your grandmother was in a vegetative state for months and even years, wouldn't you want the best for her and end treatment?
- 2,115
- 28
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2005
I'm for it. There was a story on this guy named Dax Cowart (sp?) who suffered MAJOR burns. The treatment was a nightmare and extremely painful for him (i think chlorine baths? or something like that). He fought for his rights to end his life, but the doctors refused and made the decision to continue treatment. After the treatments, his face was severely burnt and life was just not worth it to him. He decided to devote the rest of his life fighting for patient rights.
Also, if your grandmother was in a vegetative state for months and even years, wouldn't you want the best for her and end treatment?
Also, if your grandmother was in a vegetative state for months and even years, wouldn't you want the best for her and end treatment?
- 4,612
- 52
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2008
It depends on the situation. I'm against suicide, but if someone is sufferin' from serious pain to a point of no recovery, !$%* it.
- 4,612
- 52
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2008
It depends on the situation. I'm against suicide, but if someone is sufferin' from serious pain to a point of no recovery, !$%* it.
- 659
- 10
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2008
Im for it. I bet people's opinion on this would be the same for abortion, maybe im wrong tho
- 659
- 10
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2008
Im for it. I bet people's opinion on this would be the same for abortion, maybe im wrong tho
- 8,065
- 118
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2005
I'm also for it. A person should be able to decide to end their life in a painless and humane way. I don't know how this will work, though. I already have very little trust in the "health care" industry.
- 8,065
- 118
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2005
I'm also for it. A person should be able to decide to end their life in a painless and humane way. I don't know how this will work, though. I already have very little trust in the "health care" industry.
- 3,134
- 10
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2008
i'm for it 100%
- 3,134
- 10
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2008
i'm for it 100%
- 1,850
- 10
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2004
Im all for youthinasia
- 1,850
- 10
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2004
Im all for youthinasia
- 883
- 10
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2009
For..dont make them suffer
- 883
- 10
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2009
For..dont make them suffer
- 1,759
- 10
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2006
Chin-moved? Are you serious? First of all, how does a person "chin-move" out of bed? If there is a door in between them and a flight of stairs, do they chin-open the door?
My grandfather suffered from quadriplegia so I've seen first-hand how mentally and emotionally painful it can be. His will to live was strong, but I can see why a person wouldn't want to live like that. Why does it matter if a person receives tools? The result is the same.
And what does a comletely paralyzed person who can't speak do? Do they just "ride it out" like you say?
- 1,759
- 10
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2006
Chin-moved? Are you serious? First of all, how does a person "chin-move" out of bed? If there is a door in between them and a flight of stairs, do they chin-open the door?
My grandfather suffered from quadriplegia so I've seen first-hand how mentally and emotionally painful it can be. His will to live was strong, but I can see why a person wouldn't want to live like that. Why does it matter if a person receives tools? The result is the same.
And what does a comletely paralyzed person who can't speak do? Do they just "ride it out" like you say?
- 1,759
- 10
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2006
Chin-moved? Are you serious? First of all, how does a person "chin-move" out of bed? If there is a door in between them and a flight of stairs, do they chin-open the door?
My grandfather suffered from quadriplegia so I've seen first-hand how mentally and emotionally painful it can be. His will to live was strong, but I can see why a person wouldn't want to live like that. Why does it matter if a person receives tools? The result is the same.
And what does a comletely paralyzed person who can't speak do? Do they just "ride it out" like you say?
- 1,759
- 10
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2006
Chin-moved? Are you serious? First of all, how does a person "chin-move" out of bed? If there is a door in between them and a flight of stairs, do they chin-open the door?
My grandfather suffered from quadriplegia so I've seen first-hand how mentally and emotionally painful it can be. His will to live was strong, but I can see why a person wouldn't want to live like that. Why does it matter if a person receives tools? The result is the same.
And what does a comletely paralyzed person who can't speak do? Do they just "ride it out" like you say?