backwards step for australia

[Asguard]

i do agree that he is wrong in this case, taking the NT legislation as a modal there is no way in HELL this person could make that decision themself. However i have never agreed with the slipery slope argument. Especially as the fact is that depressed people kill themselves on a daily basis with no help at all. They dont need it, they tend to have access to quite successfull drugs and more vilont means if they wish to do it (im only here to debate this issue because i was stupid and picked the wrong drug after all)

In the end i belive in choice but im not stupid enough to belive that choice is always verbalised by that pt. As i said my grandfather never signed or even sighted the DNR and he was well and truly capable to make that decision himself if he so chose. My aunt also had a DNR put on her without her concent. In that case it was by my mother who had power of guardianship on her because she DID have Alzheimer's.

Think about that bells (forget this case for 1 second) we have people currently who are authorised by the goverment to refuse life saving measures. Im sorry but i have NEVER seen a distintion between active and passive ethanasia even while studying it in ethics EXCEPT for one thing. That is that passive means are slower and more cruel than active means are.

Take an example

two people (in the US), one brutally rapes and kills 10 children and the other is screaming in pain as his bones slowly desolve and reform as cancer

One person gets a quick exit by the needle, the other is given medaz and morphine which cause his death to last up to a week as the morphine slows and eventually stops his breathing. He may even wake up from time to time to have a smoke (this actually happens, the drugs wear off and people in these coma's wake up). Whats almost worse his partner of 50 years is forced to watch this death, waiting for the cesation of breath, every time he exhales thinking is this the end?

Who benifits from this?

we treat our ANIMALS better than that, a women was recently procicuted under the cuelty to animals act for NOT putting down an animal who was in this sort of pain because she couldnt handle being responcable for her cat of 14 (i think) years death.

I watched my aunt forget who everyone she knew was, the worst was when the fog temperarly lifted and she was crying for the state she was in. Most Alzheimer's suffers actually die from malnutricion rather than from there illness. They litterally STAVE to death.

Bells i have no idea how many murder cases have crossed your desk but i can say i have seen in the deaths of at least 10 people both personally and as part of my degree. The guy who came off his bike was probably one of the luckiest in that he died instantly. I have personally seen 3 people die with Alzheimer's and i dont concider it any better death than cancer. One of those 9 died of a PE in his sleep after telling his daughter that he had done everything he wanted to do in life. He had lost his wife with Alzheimer's the year before.

I watched another person die as his face rotted off from his brain tumor. He was under a palitive care order and it took years for him to die.

I watched another (one of my closest mentors) die from enphasima. He was at home and the fire service wouldnt even lission to either his wife OR his doctor who was on the phone SCREAMING at them to just let him die. Before his death he was on O2 constantly, couldnt even get out of a chair. After giving so much to his community his end was not only long and painful for himself but his death also traumitised his wife because the emergency services simply refused to lission to her and his doctor.

Do i respect palitive care in this country?
I respect the people who do it but as an organisation with the current legislation governing it i see it as nothing more than insitutionalised TORCHER

 

[Bells]

i do agree that he is wrong in this case, taking the NT legislation as a modal there is no way in HELL this person could make that decision themself. However i have never agreed with the slipery slope argument. Especially as the fact is that depressed people kill themselves on a daily basis with no help at all. They dont need it, they tend to have access to quite successfull drugs and more vilont means if they wish to do it (im only here to debate this issue because i was stupid and picked the wrong drug after all)

That's the thing though. Euthanasia is a slippery slope.

This particular case is a perfect example of that. We have a doctor, who is a firm advocate of euthanasia, who saw this poor man as a perfect vehicle to further his own agenda and knowingly failed in his duty to ensure the patient was of sound mind to make that decision. And we have a woman, the patient's partner, who sought, through means of deceit, to benefit from the patient's death and then went ahead and administered the drugs to end his life. Knowing he was unable to consent to it.

In the end i belive in choice but im not stupid enough to belive that choice is always verbalised by that pt. As i said my grandfather never signed or even sighted the DNR and he was well and truly capable to make that decision himself if he so chose. My aunt also had a DNR put on her without her concent. In that case it was by my mother who had power of guardianship on her because she DID have Alzheimer's.

Choice is not always verbalised by the patient. In such cases, there should be a team of doctors and specialist to decide, along with the family, on the next course of action. In your aunt's case, it was your mother who faced the unenviable decision to place the DNR on her medical file. In my uncle's case, it was up to his wife, his children and my father (his brother) to make that decision after consulting my uncle's doctors and other specialists about the state of his heart and whether he would be able to survive another resuscitation attempt. In this case, nothing of the sort was done. In this case, we have a doctor with his own agenda to pursue, who knowingly ignored the fact that the patient was not of sound mind and recommended he travel to Europe to have his life terminated, even after strong recommendations from Dignitas that his mental status had to be properly evaluated to ensure he knew and understood what he was about to undertake. Then we have the defacto, who lied in the week leading up to his death to have his will changed, leaving her with the bulk of his estate to the detriment of his own children (his children were never consulted on the matter of his will or of his imminent termination from what I understood), paid a friend to travel overseas to buy the drugs and then administered it without the patient's consent or understanding. The independent evaluation that was done reported he was not of sound mind to understand, let alone make that decision. So the people who would have benefited from the cause and his death did so. It is ethically disgusting in my opinion. And it is not anywhere near the same as what happened to your relatives or mine. She did not seek independent help. Instead she sought the help of the one man she knew would agree with her because he had his own cause and would have benefited from the plight of the patient. In this, they acted selfishly.

The actions of Dr Nitschke and the patient's defacto have done the euthanasia debate no justice at all. They have instead moved the cause backwards instead of forwards.

 

[Asguard]

bells i dont dissagree with you on the will. I know exactly what happens when the guardianship board takes over a persons estate and its not pritty but in this case he had a will and if she felt that she was under repersented she should have challagened it in court.

However that doesnt automatically make it equivlant to walking into a bank and shooting a young parent (which is what murder IS after all), or assinating a pollie or anything else that murder is legislated to cover.

nor is it equivlant to manslaughter which is where somone is killed through a concivable action a person SHOULD have seen, ie driving recklessly (though in most cases this section has been replaced), workplace greed (again something that SHOULD be replaced) or a fight with a person.

How would you view this case if what she had done was put him under a DNR without his childrens concent? After all it was not my fathers decision if his father was placed under a DNR, it was his fathers or his mothers as next of kin.

Take a hypothetical case where i find out PB has cancer. She doesnt have life insurance so i lie about that cancer and take a policy out on her. She is now terminal and i place her on a DNR. Is that murder?

HELL NO, its FRAUD because i defrauded the insurance company. However this action doesnt change wether i have the right to make that decision for her or wether that action is the right thing to do.

He was mentally incapacitate so the power defaults to either 1) someone with medical power of attorny 2) his next of kin which i hate to tell you IS his defacto NOT his children or 3) the guardianship board

Just because his children didnt get consulted or agree doesnt strip that power from her. Look at that poor woman whos parents tried to overrule the husband and keep the women alive in a PERSISTANT VEGITIVE STATE. The courts finnally ruled that he had to make that decision after being dragged through the courts for what gain?

My feels are the courts (apart from the guardianship board) should stay out of end of life because they are apaling BAD at it.

What about the case in england where the women wrote to the DPP seeking an assurance that her husband wouldnt be proicuted for helping her end her life. She ended up being dragged through the courts right up to the Eroupian court of human rights. She was denied and ended up dying of her illness before she could carry out her will but that irrelivent. It was felt that the law (and the cinic in me, informed by yourself says that the DPP saw an easy win) is more important than choice. HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN???????? the law is ment to be FOR the people not the other way around.

 

[Bells]

Power of attorney does not give one the right to end someone's life in a case such as this one, Asguard. Especially when the individual holding that power is set to gain from the death of the other after lying about his mental capacity so that the bulk of his estate left to her.

Would your opinions differ if she was not his defacto, but a hired nurse, for example? Lets just say she was a woman hired to care for him in his advanced stage of his disease, she then lies to his solicitor to have his will changed so that the bulk of it is left to her. Would you view her actions as being wrong?

She stood to gain a lot from his death. Had his will been changed in the years leading up to his death, I doubt she would have been found guilty. After all, she was his defacto and most would view that fact as being fair in that she should not be left destitute upon his death. But to change it a week before she administered the drugs to end his life? To lie and deceive to have his will changed in such a fashion, and then to kill him a week later with the drugs paid her friend to acquire in Mexico? Come on Asguard, what she did was wrong. And even you admit that. She did not put a DNR on his file. She paid someone to acquire the drugs from Mexico, she then lied about his mental capacity to his solicitor and had his will changed to her benefit and then a week later, she gave him the drugs that ended his life. That is basically the crux of her actions. Her actions showed a premeditation.. she planned it out so that she would be left with the bulk of his estate upon his death and then a week later, she ended his life. Lying to an insurance company and then putting a DNR on your partner's hospital file does not even come close to this case. Unless you take out the insurance on your partner, then lie to have her will changed when she's in a coma before her death and then you administer her with the drugs that will end her life, it's not even in the same league as what this woman has done.

Her being found guilty is not a backward step for Australia in regards to euthanasia. Her actions, as well as that of Dr Nitschke, goes to show just how it can go wrong and how tightly it needs to be legislated if it is ever legalised in this country. If anything is a backward step for Australia and euthanasia, it was her actions and that of the good Dr who have set the cause back. It's not the law that is wrong in this particular instance. It was she and Dr Nitschke who lied about his true mental status, her for monetary gain and him, to further his own cause.

 

[Asguard]

bells it does actually give her the right to end his life (BTW sorry if i said power of attorny, i ment to say MEDICAL POA). You dont see a DNR as a decision to end life but i do because that is the end result. The ONLY difference is how long it takes the person to die and HOW they die.

I sperate the finantial actions from the medical (for want of a better word) onces. You admit that she didnt deserve to be left destitute and so do i. I also agree with you that they way she did it was as wrong as a company exec stealing from his company (ie fraud) and that DOES deserve proicution. She should have taken the risk and thrown his will to the courts.

This however has NOTHING to do with the fact that he died. If she had put a DNR on him you what would you be saying was her crime? In ethics a DNR is refered to as involentry passive eutanasia (when its done by a proxy, otherwise its volentry). However the end result is the intended death of the person as quickly as possable. I dont say it like this because i dont agree with palitive care but to show you that in ETHICS there is no real difference between an active means to cause death and a passive one.

There was a hypothetical we were taught. 2 people want to kill there cousin because he is ritch and they will make alot of money from there deaths. The first walks in on his cousin in the bath and drowns him. The second walks in to do the same but the cousin slips and knocks himself out falling under the water. They just watch the cousin die.

In ethics the argument goes these actions are equivlant.

As for the nurse argument no i wouldnt excuse her actions because the finantial benifit was a delibrate action to gain finantial resorces they are not intilted to. That is a clear conflict of proffessional ethics (the same if it was a doctor, or any other health care worker). However a spouse is SURPOSED to be finantially cared for by the death of there partner. Hell even I would make a FORTUNE if PB dies, so would my mother if dad died. That doesnt mean that if PB or my father died on a bus im (or my mother) automatically guilty of murder. That might be a reason for the police to INVESTIGATE the case with me being a suspect but the cause of death being a truck which smashed through the bus means its HIGHLY unlikly that i did it. In this case the guy was going to die anyway, he was going to die of stavation or pnemonia probably as he lost the ability to do even simple things. Or maybe it would have been a car acident as he walked off and under a car because he didnt know what he was doing anymore.

I know i would rather my partner put a bullet through my head than slowly lose all cognitive funtion.