Federal Court Upholds Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law, It's About Time.

The BBQ Pit
#1

I ask forgiveness for anyone I’m about to offend in advance, but this is a very emotional subject for me.

No one should have to suffer the indignities of a fatal, long, drawn-out, painful illness.

No one.

If a person, suffering from a debilitating, and ultimately fatal disease wishes to choose to “premptively” end the agony, as it were, who are any of us to tell them no?

For crissakes, we treat our fucking PETS with more humanity than that.

I watched my grandmother go from a healthy, extremely active woman (she played on a local softball team until she was 67, for reference) to a completely defeated woman who died in some of the most brutal agony I have ever seen a human suffer, in less than a year, due to inoperative breast cancer (it had already spread too far, too fast to help her…it spread to her lungs before they could even get her into the hospital).

She spent the last weeks of her life alternatively screaming as best as her extremely weakened body would allow from the agony, or doped to her eyeballs, to the point she didn’t recognize anyone, up to and including her husband of 55 years.

I swear to all that is sacred and holy, I’d eat a fucking bullet before I died the type of death my grandmother died.

And if my grandmother had been allowed to die with her dignity and mind still intact, before the disease ravaged her body and mind, destroying everything that was “Grandma”, so help me gods, I’d have been the first one sitting at her side, holding her hand as she ended it.

Fuck anyone who doesn’t think people have the right to die with dignity. You wouldn’t let your fucking DOG suffer the death my grandmother did.

There’s no excuse, NONE, for forcing a human being to endure it.

I fully expect this to go before the Supreme Court before it’s solidified, and I’m not wishing for a federal right-to-suicide, but to let the states determine whether or not they’d allow it (with the proviso that out-of-state terminal patients would be allowed to seek suicide within states that allow it, even if it is not their resident state), but it’s really, truly gratifying to see people actually start to care about this issue beyond a morbid Kevorkian-fascination.

#2

Sorry, I was so worked up thinking about my grandmother, I completely forgot to post the link. :frowning:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/17/oregon.assisted.suicide/

#3

I agree with you as far as this being an issue for the states - I do not agree that state-sanctioned suicide is a wise policy, but that’s an issue for Oregonians to grapple with, not me. So I think the feds reached the right result here.

  • Rick
#4

I agree with everything you said Cerri, the only proviso being that there is some kind of mechanism to ensure that the person in question is acting entirely of their own personal volition and isn’t being pressured into it.

Sorry that your Grandma (and family) had to go through all that pain.

#5

I’m 100% for it. Shame on any legislator who lets religion guide him in keeping the cruel “gotta die a horrible death” laws on the books.

#6

Great to see Ashcroft get smacked down like that.

Sorry to hear Cerri’s Grandmother. My grandfather died of lung cancer a couple years ago. Fortunately he did not appear to experience the suffering your Grandmother did.

#7

I completely agree with the sentiments expressed in the OP, and with the court’s decision, but…

You do realize that the CNN story is over two years old?

#8

Here is a more recent article.

#9

Thanks for the update.

#10

This is just one of the problems with Ashcroft and others who think they hear the voice of God. They know what is best for you and they believe they have a God given right to impose their beliefs, in spite of your own wishes. I sincerely believe that Ashcroft is more dangerous than Bush and Bush absolutely terrifies me.

#11

I was really glad to see that the 9th came down on the side of Oregon. Perhaps it is because I live here, but I have always believed that no one should force someone to suffer excruciating pain and the indignity of being kept alive by machines when you do not want to just because some religious leaders say you should. Why is it that Bush and company are all for states rights except when a state chooses to deviate from the path of righteousness that is defined by the current administration? :rolleyes:

Mjolner

#12

Whoops, sorry, I’d linked the wrong article, after forgetting to link the correct one in the first please sigh…I was a bit overwrought at the time. =/

I see CaveMike covered me though, thanks Mike. =)

#13

With all due respect, there are two distinct issues here: the wisdom of a state permitting legal assisted suicide, and the propriety of the federal government encroaching on the states’ ability to legislate in this area.

As to the former, I’ve already posted my agreement in the result: the feds were out of line to try to thwart Oregon’s efforts in this regard.

However, several posters above have suggested that the right result was reached because the laws are wise. This is irrelevant. If we apply that method of analysis every time such a conflict comes along, we essentially concede the federal government’s power to intervene when a state’s decision is deemed unwise, and restrain the feds from changing a wise state legislative decision.

That is not the role of state and federal government. Each has its sphere of influence. It’s not a question of wise and unwise. It’s a question of who has the power to legislate in the area in question.

Right?

  • Rick
#14

Bricker, the thread is going to turn into a discussion about the more immediately compelling subject matter.

For most people, that’s going to be the wisdom of the state permitting legal assisted suicide. There’s no real way around that.

For what it’s worth, I’ve never understood how people could have no problem whatsoever with humanely putting a pet down when they’re suffering but scream bloody murder (literally) at the very idea of doing the same for a human.

I just don’t get it.

#15

I don’t get it, either, lezlers.

The thing that mystifies me the most is when groups of (or representing) disabled people get up in arms over the euthanasia issue. They claim that allowing AS is a slippery slope that will lead to “eliminating” people who are disabled or terminally ill. These groups were very vocal during the Sue Rodriguez case. It always infuriated me to hear them on CBC, because they completely missed the point. Proponents of legal AS are not advocating killing anyone against their will. AS is about the exact opposite - allowing a person to control their own life and death. It does not involve an outside agent deciding who lives and who dies. The only person who makes the choice is the person whose life it is in the first place.

It makes me wonder if those groups, which claim to be speaking for the disabled, actually have another agenda. Are people really that thick?

#16

I agree with Bricker. Also with the OP. I just wanted to say that it was great to see “Federal Court Rebukes Ashcroft” on the cover of the New York Times.

–p

#17

I agree with that, albeit much more generally. And Cerri, that was a great rant. I’m so sorry about your grandmother.