http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/298...uty-to-die.html

It came up in our Elderly thread and then this morning I saw this blurb and I am still digesting it , in fact a bit with the whole thing.

This has been one of those things I have never given much thought , except to hope and pray that I do not become a burden to my own family in my advanced years AND Pratchett's recent diagnosis broke my heart.

So read the article , digest and discuss , is she saying what is hidden in the deep dark recesses of everyone's mind ? Is she over the top ?

And who determines what if this sort of thing comes to fruition ?

I am appalled. But I'm not surprised.

We've been on a slippery slope for years such that human life has become valued less and less. The thinking seeming to be that if you're not contributing, you're worthless. The elderly, in this country, are pushed into retirement homes/care facilities and pretty much forgotten about by their families (there are certainly exceptions to this).

In the local paper today, there was a big story about federal funding for food banks (they get cash and food donations or buy food, then distribute it to low-income households who otherwise wouldn't have a basic necessity, like food) being cut. Meaning that senior citizens at two local care facilities would no longer be receiving groceries. Several of the people they interviewed made statements that came across as "it makes us feel worthless".

I hope this woman (I will not give her the privilege of a title) is ignored. I hope that this isn't another step on the way to "Logan's Run".

More than angry, I'm sad. Sad that she values her life and the lives of other so little. Sad that she feels she can abuse the privilege of her position to promote legalized homicide. Sad that there are others who will think she's making a good point. Sad that she feels it necessary to select a group that cannot defend itself and, in fact, as few active defenders.

Life is a gift, an experience, and it belongs to each of us. It should not even be a consideration that the state has a right to end it, absent other instructions from the individual, on some random, sliding-scale criteria.

How would she feel if someone promoted euthanasia of the titled?

I feel sick.

It already has -- it's just not talked about much. My step-grandmother was incontinent and raving, smearing feces on the wall and saying vile things about her son, in whose house she lived -- it was not her, it was the Altzheimer's. She had to be taken to a care facility, and she said to her son, "Let me go!" and refused to eat or drink. She may have lasted a few more years if they could have kept her at home, but they could not. She refused to bathe or wipe her nose -- for some reason her nose ran lke a faucet when she got older. It would just drip down the front of her shirt. She'd get mad if my mother tried to change her or wipe her nose. My mother ruined her back and tore her rotator cuff lifting my grandmother to change her and wrestling her to dress her every day. Anyway, when she asked to be let go, they turned her morphine drip up and let her go.

I have a living will and Do Not Resuscitate orders filed with my primary care physician. I don't want to live crazy, unable to recognize anyone or remember anything, or in a coma or life support, needing to be changed and fed. So I understand that other people would not want to live that way either. I think we should have the freedom to end our lives or make arrangements to have our lives ended IF we want to.

I myself would want to be euthanized if I became demented. At that point, to me my life would be worthless, and I would prefer to be dead. I wish this option were currently possible - I hope some day it is.

That said, I would not want it to be legal to euthanize anyone against their wishes who became demented - that is homicide.

It is a dangerous slippery slope to maneuver. There is a big gigantic difference between someone else being "in charge" of doing the deed vs. doing it one's self.
Look what's happened to the economy when others were "in charge". Corruption, greed,
the smell of acquisition, the power of contro...These things happen when we put
others "in charge". There is always potential bounty, or ego, to be gained.
It's a slippery, cavernous slope.
Believe me, I've witnessed.

That about sums it up for me as well.

I'm not in favor of assisted suicide or, as this individual recommends, bumping off people who are a "drain" to others. What a repugnant position. "Britain's leading moral philosopher," eh?

I've admitted people with this kind of behavior/problems, and for the most part, they can be managed with medication- it just takes a caring and aware MD and enough nursing staff to monitor behavior and administer meds. Its such a shame that the family let it get to this point- but I often get involved when the family is at the breaking point, suffered injuries, etc. Its very hard for family members to accept that they need professional help- that they can't handle the care involved and they can't caregive 24/7. We really need more support for families with geriatric members, but that will cost money and many people oppose any kind of government involvement in health care. I think we are at the breaking point, we have a broken system, at least from what I see at my job.

excellent replies all and food for thought as well.

I am still digesting this , pondering it , and I think I have hit the tip of the iceburg of why this is chilling me so , its how she phrases it as DUTY to DIE , eh ? So thats it then ? We struggle and struggle all our life , give to our family and to our community and then , poof , worthless ?


the other thing eating me is this .... if all goes pear shaped for her own health is she going to be so keen sign on for what she proposes?



But the one thing that will leave me blanching about this is where will it stop? It's a rabbit hole , no? If society embraces the Duty to Die if one is deemed worthless credo , who is next ?

It's pretty clear that Lady Warnock (great name!) is limiting her suggestion to people who have already made it clear that, should they become incapacitated in this way, they would rather die than live -- and I think that is totally their decision, and totally reasonable. What we're talking about here is assisted suicide, essentially, and I'm in favor of it.

The tricky part comes when someone who would have wanted to end their lives passes the point of mental capacity to do it -- what then? Then you can't "help" someone die, because they have passed the point of being able to express that they want to. Then it's a killing, I guess.

She was taking Aricept and anything else they could think of to give her. She was 96. Unless you mean tranking her out. Now, that's scary to me (meaning I cringe at the idea that I could be demented and then tranquilized/sedated so I wouldn't be any trouble).

No need to cringe at this - they do this to me at work all the time.


Humor aside, I saw two grandmothers pass from dementia/alzheimers and don't care to watch any more live like that. Is there a duty to die? I don't think there is. But I should say that I wonder how much of this is from isolation. I don't think you can leave people alone and unengaged for long stretches and expect them to remain lucid. While my grandmother spiraled downward, her older sister remained sharp as a tack, and the big difference was how they filled their days. If anything, we have a mutual duty to keep everyone involved, engaged, and socially active.

BTW - IMHO, mandatory (age-based) retirement should be abolished.

A friend of mine took care of his father, through all stages of his Alzheimer's.


Once my friend came home to find his father, standing in the bathroom stark naked, staring at himself intently in the mirror.


His father: "Son, who is that feller in our house?"

Son: "Why, that's YOU, Dad! You're looking at a reflection of yourself in the mirror."

His father stares some more, long pause, then says, completely seriously: "He seems like an awful nice-lookin' feller... We oughtta invite him over to dinner one of these days."

Our system for dealing with the elderly needs serious fixing. And I hope we do it before I get to the point where I can no longer care for myself. I took care of my mother who had senile dementia (not specifically Alzheimer's), for a number of years until it got to the point, for me, where murder was beginning to seem like a reasonable option. At that point she went first to adult daycare, then to assisted living, and finally to a nursing home where she died peacefully and unexpectedly in her sleep. She received some form of institutional care for about 6 years. This was horribly expensive. Fortunately, my mother had enough money to pay for excellent care. Not everyone is that fortunate. Over the years that my mother was in the nursing home, I saw a number of other residents die. Generally, with the families' approval, when the person became so incapacitated that there was no chance for recovery, they were simply kept "comfortable" and allowed to expire. Even then, it wasn't pretty. I stopped to say goodbye to a few people with whom I'd developed relationships, and every time I thought to myself how much I don't ever want to be like that. This is scary stuff. And as was said earlier, when the person involved is no longer competent to ease their own way out, what do we do? I don't know.

Slippery slope indeed. This is one of those discussions where every word has to be exact, and every word has to be carefully understood.

I have no problem with this statement (bolding and underlining mine): "I'm absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there's a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they're a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they too should be allowed to die."

"Wants" and "allows" are the all-important words here. This says we should not stand in the way of someone who -- out of their own free will and their own conscious thought -- chooses to end their own life. The suffering person should be given the means to act on their own choice. Under those very distinct conditions, I totally agree with this. It enrages me that governments reserve the right to kill you if it's their decision, but they make it illegal if it's your decision.

But this statement: "Duty to die?" makes me profoundly uncomfortable. Adding the word "duty" implies "hey, you might not agree, but if you're a burden to the rest of us, you're a cad if you don't do the right thing and get rid of yourself." That I'm completely opposed to.

So her two statements are making very different points. If she really believes the first statement, she's ruining her case by making the second statement.

What does "allowed to expire" mean here? Removed from a respirator, or withholding food and water, or something else?

I'm not familiar with the medical details in any case, but from what I could tell, when the person refused food or water, none was forced on them. This particular nursing home did not deal with respirators. That was the province of the hospital or another facility. I do know that oxygen (canulas or masks) was used to ease breathing, and I assume that meds were administered as required. Keep in mind that this was a nursing home, not a hospice or facility for people with, for example, cancer or chronic disease. These were elderly people whose bodies were simply shutting down. Almost all of them suffered from some form of advanced dementia which ultimately leads to death.

When my 92-year-old grandmother was in the last days of her life, suffering from a multiplex of disorders, they simply gave her bigger and bigger doses of morphine until.... she departed.

I dunno what you'd call that... Does it abide by the Hippocratic Oath?

This makes sense to me. If someone is conscious and doesn't want to eat or drink anymore because they know their end is near, that seems natural.

I completely agree wants and allows  are the key. I will only add that people need to think seriously about this and make their wishes known before they become incapacitated.