Voluntary Euthanasia On The Rise

Remember in the runup to passing Obamacare, there was all this talk about "death panels" and such? With the easing of laws allowing for voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill, the rate of people deciding to end their life is rising. This isn't the standard "pulling the plug" on a patient who is unconscious and only being kept alive on machines.

Just recently a story hit the media about Norma Bauerschmidt, a 91 year old Michigan woman who opted to forgo cancer treatment for her uterine cancer to travel the country with her son. It is an inspiring story of facing reality and making the best of what time one has left - LINK. This is rationally deciding to forgo painful, and often very expensive treatment for a terminal disease for which there is really no hope of survival. And then there is the decision to actively to end your life with the assistance of medical professionals for the same reason as on young woman did who was diagnosed with late-stage terminal cancer.

But other stories I have read over the years are disturbing for the opposite reason. One includes a woman who's baby was born with only a brain stem and not a full brain. The brain stem allowed the the heart to pump to keep the organs functioning with the help of machines, but nothing else. The mother insisted beyond all reason to keep her child "alive" for 5 years in a bed in a hospital convinced that her child was responding to her even though the child did not have a brain for which to do that and no doctor could convince her otherwise. By the way, all the bills were paid courtesy of Medicaid. I feel for this mother, however this flies in the face of all reality.

I am not opposed to ending the life of hopeless cases like this. We humans have a very unhealthy relationship with death. Sometimes we keep our family members alive on machines because we cannot face the grieving and possible guilt of letting them go. I come from a family of doctors who are confronted with this issue on a daily basis and it is frustrating.

However, around the same time Mrs. Bauerschmidt's story hit the boards, this story was making the media rounds. A Dutch doctor along with the family, decided it was just too much trouble to deal with Grandma's advanced dementia. She was in an appropriate care facility, but has become increasingly "hard to handle", so the good Doc decided it was time to drug her morning coffee and euthanize elderly woman. Unfortunately the Doc miscalculated the knock-out dose in her coffee and the woman woke up mid-euthanization. The doctor then asked family members to help hold her down as she was screaming she didn't want to die, while the Doc administered the lethal dose - Dutch Doctor "Euthanized Elderly Dementia Patient. The doctor was cleared (LINK), because the woman had made it clear in her more lucid moments, she would not want to live with dementia.

Just so you know, the Netherlands legalized voluntary euthanasia in 1984 with strict guidelines. Since that time, over 5,500 people have volunteered for various reasons to end their lives. There is process one must go through including medical verification and certification, but there it is. As a matter of fact, the Netherlands has become the #1 leader in "euthanasia-tourism" in Europe. Add that Dr. Ezekial Emanuel, oncologist, architect of the ACA and brother of Rahm, published an article in Atlantic Magazine LINK in 2014 advocating for voluntary euthanasia once one reaches the age of 75 years old because one is no longer of any use to society after that age. And since the time of Dr. Kavorkian, the US has softened it's stance on voluntary euthanasia, but this is a very slippery slope the world is going down. Are we really moving down the road where we are devaluing human life to the point we are going to decide who gets to live and who will die because they are just an inconvenience?

Does anyone remember the movie "Logan's Run" from 1976 where no one was allowed to live past the age of 30? Yeah, is that where we're headed? I know that in the Hippie days of the '60's, it was famously declared that no should trust anyone over 30, but let's not go there.

Comments?

As an endnote: I know that death is an uncomfortable subject, but it is the one thing that we all have in common - rich or poor - that we will all throw off this mortal coil. It is the one thing that truly makes us equal. And as a public service, I admonish all to make your end of life wishes known in writing and/or by having honest, open conversations with your family. Don't leave it to a Dutch doctor to drug your coffee because you become an inconvenience or (as I have often threatened my parents) if you oversleep one day. Certainly don't leave this as an unanswered question to grieving family members.