Friday, September 19, 2008
Baroness Warnock: "The demented have a 'duty to die'"
From The Telegraph
The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.
She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.
The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.
[snip]
Lady Warnock said: "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives – your family's lives – and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service.
"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.
"Actually I've just written an article called 'A Duty to Die?' for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself."
She went on: "If you've an advance directive, appointing someone else to act on your behalf, if you become incapacitated, then I think there is a hope that your advocate may say that you would not wish to live in this condition so please try to help her die.
"I think that's the way the future will go, putting it rather brutally, you'd be licensing people to put others down."
The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.
She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.
The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.
[snip]
Lady Warnock said: "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives – your family's lives – and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service.
"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.
"Actually I've just written an article called 'A Duty to Die?' for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself."
She went on: "If you've an advance directive, appointing someone else to act on your behalf, if you become incapacitated, then I think there is a hope that your advocate may say that you would not wish to live in this condition so please try to help her die.
"I think that's the way the future will go, putting it rather brutally, you'd be licensing people to put others down."
Labels: euthanasia
Monday, December 18, 2006
Is Dr Welby's Case in Italy Really About Euthanasia?
From Daily Telegraph
AN Italian court has overnight rejected a request by a paralysed, terminally ill man who wants doctors to take him off life support in a case that has split the predominantly Catholic country, where euthanasia is illegal.Italian court rejects euthanasia appeal
The pale, listless face of Piergiorgio Welby, 60, who suffers from advanced muscular dystrophy and is confined to bed but is lucid, has become one of the most recognised in Italy.
Speaking via a computer that interprets his eye movements, Mr Welby has appeared on news programmes and written to Italy's president asking to be taken off the respirator that keeps him alive so he can "find peace for my tortured and shattered body".
But in a 15-page verdict underscoring the legal complexity of the case, a Rome judge said that while Mr Welby had a right to have the respirator removed, that right was not "concretely safeguarded" by Italian law.
In general I don't consider shutting off a respirator euthanasia. The problem here is that the right-to-die supporters of Dr Welby intend to use this case to apply to other situations where life sustaining treatment can be legally removed. This law currently seems unfair. However Terri Schiavo never would have died at her husband's hand had she been in Italy.
My solution would be to configure the computer technology that allows Dr Welby to communicate to give him control of the power switch for his own respirator. Had nature been allowed to take its course he would have died long ago. I can't see this as suicide.
AN Italian court has overnight rejected a request by a paralysed, terminally ill man who wants doctors to take him off life support in a case that has split the predominantly Catholic country, where euthanasia is illegal.Italian court rejects euthanasia appeal
The pale, listless face of Piergiorgio Welby, 60, who suffers from advanced muscular dystrophy and is confined to bed but is lucid, has become one of the most recognised in Italy.
Speaking via a computer that interprets his eye movements, Mr Welby has appeared on news programmes and written to Italy's president asking to be taken off the respirator that keeps him alive so he can "find peace for my tortured and shattered body".
But in a 15-page verdict underscoring the legal complexity of the case, a Rome judge said that while Mr Welby had a right to have the respirator removed, that right was not "concretely safeguarded" by Italian law.
In general I don't consider shutting off a respirator euthanasia. The problem here is that the right-to-die supporters of Dr Welby intend to use this case to apply to other situations where life sustaining treatment can be legally removed. This law currently seems unfair. However Terri Schiavo never would have died at her husband's hand had she been in Italy.
My solution would be to configure the computer technology that allows Dr Welby to communicate to give him control of the power switch for his own respirator. Had nature been allowed to take its course he would have died long ago. I can't see this as suicide.
Labels: euthanasia