| We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Euthanasia | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: May 10 2008, 09:22 AM (706 Views) | |
| Sayf Udeen Ismaeel | May 18 2009, 08:42 AM Post #31 |
Icon by meagan_chelsea @ LJ
|
Joanne Dunn says her son Mark Leigep, who has spent three years in a coma, should be allowed to die
JOANNE Dunn wants her son to die in her arms. Mark Leigep, 34, has been in a vegetative state for more than three years. His mother wants the right to "put him to sleep" humanely using morphine, AdelaideNow reports. "So he can die in our arms and we can all be there when he passes away," Ms Dunn said. "Mark isn't coming back. "He's my baby and they should let my baby go." Mr Leigep, father to Kaitlyn, 7, suffered major head injuries in a car crash in Elizabeth in 2006. Euthanasia is illegal in South Australia and his situation sparked a right-to-life debate at the time of him entering a coma. Health Minister John Hill this month urged families to have "serious debate" about the services terminally ill people want and need in the "last days of their lives" – but did not advocate euthanasia. Doctors removed Mr Leigep's feeding tube twice in 2006, but it was replaced following family disagreements that year. The tube was then removed by doctors again in the same year, but Royal Adelaide Hospital administration ordered the tube be replaced. After spending more than a year at the RAH, Mr Leigep is now at the Julia Farr Centre. Ms Dunn sought legal advice to help end her son's life about June, 2006, but her eldest son, Mark's brother Brian, was Mark's guardian and wanted him kept alive. Brian, however, has now changed his mind and also wants Mark to die peacefully. "When all of this happened it was pretty chaotic . . . we couldn't make the right decision back then," he said. "You do cling on to them because you love them and you want to give them any chance possible. But they don't wake up. This is not life anymore. "My best outcome would be for Mark to just go as quickly as possible with the least amount of pain and the least amount of suffering." It is possible the family could stop feeding Mr Leigep, but Ms Dunn said they did not want to starve him to death. "I just want the Government to realise that technology says Mark's not coming back. He's brain dead," she said. "I want them to let him go peacefully and humanely with his family around him, so we can have our closure and so Mark's not dying on his own." Ms Dunn lives in Venus Bay and no longer visits Mr Leigep. She says it is too distressing. "The room smells like death. It's just the worst smell," she said. "When I go into that room, it might sound crazy, but I get the feeling he's screaming at me: `What are you doing, Mum? Why am I still here? What's going on?". Anyone who helps Mr Leigep die now would be guilty of non-voluntary euthanasia. The South Australian Voluntary Euthanasia Society emphasised the distinction between voluntary euthanasia (which is when someone has expressed their wish to die as a "last resort" when they are suffering) and non-voluntary euthanasia (which is when someone is not capable of making that choice so it is made for them). There are currently two voluntary euthanasia Bills before State Parliament, one by Independent MP Dr Bob Such and one by the Greens. Neither of them advocate non-voluntary euthanasia. Ms Dunn says she and her son often discussed what should happen if he was critically injured, and he was clear about his wishes to die rather than live as a vegetable. "Mark talked about it all the time. He said pull the plug," she said. "He never wanted to be like that. He's too active." http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25498807-421,00.html |
 |
 
|
| queen of hearts | Jun 8 2009, 07:56 PM Post #32 |
|
i have mixed feelings on this, its a tricky one |
|
|
|
| gingerwitch28 | Jun 9 2009, 08:31 AM Post #33 |
twenty-first century ennui
|
My friends and I were discussing it today, in the context of our aging population. I would personally feel bad about living past 80 or 85 or so, because i wouldn't feel like I was contributing anything to society, and if my current health/my genetics are anything to go by, I wouldn't be enjoying a full quality of life anyway. I'd feel like 'taking a holiday to Switzerland' would be a better service to my community than mooching off taxpayers. |
|
|
|
| Sayf Udeen Ismaeel | Jun 9 2009, 12:13 PM Post #34 |
|
Icon by meagan_chelsea @ LJ
|
To quote Scrubs, that's all medical treatments do. They keep people alive that should have been dead a long, long time ago. [Just wanted to throw that one in.] Now to the reason I'm replying to this thread:
Just curious, what does the Belgian policy on Euthanasia involve? |
|
|
|
| queen of hearts | Jun 11 2009, 08:57 PM Post #35 |
|
some of those places in switzerland are disgusting and dont offer a very dignified way to die. there have been documentaries on the tv , it has been filmed the state of these places and how they give you a concotion of drugs and leave you in a room to simply poison yourself. what isnt said is you dont die straight away and suffer somewhat. im not saying all those places are like that as im sure they arent. id rather not leave this life that way |
|
|
|
| Sayf Udeen Ismaeel | Oct 29 2009, 06:06 AM Post #36 |
|
Icon by meagan_chelsea @ LJ
|
Euthanasia 'a matter of when, not if' in SA SOUTH Australia's parliament has moved closer than ever before to legalising voluntary euthanasia. A voluntary euthanasia bill passed the SA Upper House early today, with its author saying the proposal will become law - it's just a matter of when. Greens MLC Mark Parnell's voluntary euthanasia bill passed a second reading in the Upper House 11 votes to 10 in a conscience vote about 1am (CDT) today. "The important symbolic thing is that a House of a state parliament has passed, at the second reading, a bill for voluntary euthanasia," Mr Parnell said. "It's as far as any bill has ever got (in South Australia). "But the final hurdle will be a difficult one. It's the committee stage of the debate - we have to, as a parliament, agree clause by clause." If passed, the bill then goes to the state's Lower House for a vote to determine if it becomes law. Mr Parnell's bill stretches existing laws on medical treatment rather than create new stand-alone regulations. The bill creates a five-person board, featuring medical and palliative care experts, to give final approval before a physician could perform voluntary euthanasia. But that board appears to be a sticking point with Independent MLC Anne Bressington signalling she would vote against the bill if amendments weren't made. "She has a fair bit of nervousness around that so I am going to spend the next two weeks talking to her about how I think that can and should work," Mr Parnell said. "What I need to determine is whether there is amendments I can make to the bill that still honour the intent of the bill, which is to give citizens a choice in relation to those horrible and difficult final days of someone's life." http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26275806-29277,00.html |
|
|
|
| gingerwitch28 | Oct 29 2009, 07:03 AM Post #37 |
|
twenty-first century ennui
|
*waves liberal flag around* 
|
|
|
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · Current Issues in Society · Next Topic » |
5:43 PM Nov 30
