Yeah, but a lot of people use the same word for assisted suicide and any form of assisted death before naturally occurring death.

I anted to give the people who interpret the word that way the option.

Agree SOOO much! I’ve been a cardiac nurse, an ICU nurse and now I’m getting my DNP in anesthesia. I’ve seen so much unnecessary suffering due to unclear or absent living wills, family members and so forth. Euthanasia would make such a huge difference. Thanks for your contribution!

Thanks for your contribution. Please don’t forget nurses. Doctors do their very important part. Nurses were probably the ones who delivered the morphine, Rubinol, Lorazepam that made that death smooth after a doctor, an NP or a PA placed the palliative care or hospice orders. Nurses kept your parents clean and turned them often to prevent their skin from rotting, and they bathed them and provided all the care in the trenches.

Also, what you refer to is not euthanasia. I’m super glad palliative and hospice care exist and are allowed by American law. You’ve had the openmindedness and intelligence to make the right call for your parents and see how modern medicine can improve end of life. Euthanasia is similar to what you experienced. Your parents where very near the end of their life. Euthanasia would allow someone that has a terminal disease to terminate their life much before their mental and physical decline. Now alll they are allowed to do is either get treatment or refuse treatment and receive hospice care. But they may have to live receiving hospice care for many months. Nobody can order a lethal dose of anything for them. Their relatives may have to witness their mental functions decline, not being recognized when visiting, witness their suffering a physical decay, or their personality change and be faced with a person they don’t even recognize. Euthanasia is a third option. So people could choose treatment, hospice (no treatment but pain meds and so forth), or euthanasia. Currently, no doctor can order a lethal dose of anything unless the patient is hours or at the most days away from death, intubated and brain dead, unresponsive...

It may look like a trivial difference for people that don’t work in helathcare, but it would have a revolutionary impact on freedom and our capacity to make end of life decisions. Your parents died of old age. I’ve seen people forced to live with a cancer devouring their guts, puke blood, suffer so much... They didn’t want that, they were begging for mercy, but had no other option. I have PTSD from the stuff I witnessed and had no power to help. Euthanasia would change all that. Not everyone has the luck of dying of old age. ?

@Lucignolo I get your points and yes, the nurses who cared for my parents were wonderful. My father actually had terminal cancer and was only 67. I am not going to refute your information, but I was in the room when both of my parents were given morphine and that is all I am saying.

That’s a good point. Hadn’t thought about the possible implications of institutionalized suidice and possible abuse

Yeah... That’s also my take. In an ideal world people should NOT be forced to live or commit suicide and be found rotting or desfigured