Right-to-die issues divide Americans

[babylonsister]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070529/ap_on_re_us/ap_poll_right_to_die;_ylt=AsvOqzWNDp9mVC912HY6YvvMWM0F

Right-to-die issues divide Americans

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer Tue May 29, 1:50 PM ET

NEW YORK - More than two-thirds of Americans believe there are circumstances in which a patient should be allowed to die, but they are closely divided on whether it should be legal for a doctor to help terminally ill patients end their own lives by prescribing fatal drugs, a new AP-Ipsos poll finds.

The results were released Tuesday, just days before Dr. Jack Kevorkian is freed from a Michigan prison after serving more than eight years for second-degree murder in the poisoning of a man with Lou Gehrig's disease.

Kevorkian's defiant assisted suicide campaign, which he waged for years before his conviction, fueled nationwide debate about patients' right to die and the role that physicians should play.

Though demonized by his critics as a callous killer, Kevorkian — who is to be released Friday — maintains relatively strong public support. The AP-Ipsos poll found that 53 percent of those surveyed thought he should not have been jailed; 40 percent supported his imprisonment. The results were similar to an ABC News poll in 1999 that found 55 percent disagreeing with his conviction.

The new AP-Ipsos poll asked whether it should be legal for doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to help terminally ill patients end their own lives — a practice currently allowed in Oregon but in no other states. Forty-eight percent said it should be legal; 44 percent said it should be illegal.

More broadly, 68 percent said there are circumstances when a patient should be allowed to die, while 30 percent said doctors and nurses, in all circumstances, should do everything possible to save the life of a patient.

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[NC_Nurse]

1. Thank God this poor man is getting out.

What a crime it is that people are not allowed to end their own suffering, with the help of a caring physician.

Even the RW nurses I know who have seen the suffering of the terminally ill don't buy into this complete BULLSHIT. They
know they would rather die peacefully.

It amazes me that religion is allowed to play such a big role in a supposed secular society.

[notadmblnd]

2. Kevorkian get released Friday

Think he'll take up where he left off?

[babylonsister]

4. I don't know, but I hear he's very ill. nt

[KamaAina]

3. That whole, big article did not use the word "disability" once

Most major national disability rights organizations oppose physician-assisted suicide. Their belief is that, for people with significant disabilities, the "right to die" will become a "duty to die".

http://www.dredf.org/assisted_suicide/assisted_suicide.shtml

In 1999, faced with a bill in the California legislature to legalize assisted suicide, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) joined ten other nationally prominent disability organizations in adopting a position against the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

On its face assisted suicide seems like a sensible and humane policy. But on closer inspection, legalization is a serious mistake for many reasons that are not always immediately evident. Supporters often focus solely on issues of choice and self-determination, but we think it is crucial to look deeper.

It is imperative to separate our private wishes for what we each may hope to have available for ourselves some day from the significant dangers of legalizing assisted suicide as public policy. Assisted suicide would have many unintended consequences in a society that promotes cost cutting in health care, devalues the lives of many with disabilities, and fails to provide adequate personal assistance so people with disabilities can live in their communities rather than in institutions.

And yet Assemblywoman Berg claims that "it faces tough opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, some conservative Protestant churches, and the California Medical Association." Not a peep about disability. "Out of sight, out of mind"...

[Nikia]

5. That is my big concern about right to die

Saving on health care costs has become a priority and people who are very sick or disabled are expensive. By legally allowing right to die, euthanasia becomes a cheap alternative.

[blues90]

6. I don't see where it's anyones business

If a person is so ill that life in not life for them then life becomes a form of a death sentence for them . The only one who should decide is the person who is suffering .

If I were in this situation I certainly would not want someone elses morals deciding my fate .

If people want to focus on saving a life then there are lives that can be saved that have hope like starving children where these moral disrupters ignore .