HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » I-1000 Turns in Signatures

HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » I-1000 Turns in Signatures
While I support the I-1000 , I am also worried that it could be misused to interfere in the existing process of allowing patients to die.

Death of the terminally ill is not a simple matter of waiting for the spirit to depart. Decisions need to be made that balance a person's pain, psychological state, wishes (what Buddhism calls attachement), viability, and the feelings of their family.

If someone is near death but very agitated, do you give them tranquilizers that make it easier to accept death?

If someone in in great pain but pain drugs make other body functions less able, to you allieve pain?

If a person has said they do not want to be resuscitated but you know that they have a good chance of living later do you resuscitate anyway?

If a family is tightly tied to the person, maybe to the point of believing the existence of a soul in what is clinically a dead person, who decides then?

All of these are very real questions. Currently such issues are answered ina very informal way that depends on the trust of the patient, the family and the physicians.

Is this trust ever abused? Would Swedish' CCU work harder to keep Daddy Gates alive then keeping some down and out drig user alive?

I suspect abuse occurs, but I also believe that intrusion of our legal system into these immensely personal decision would make matters much worse.

So, SJ's concern is that in an effort to legalize suicide, we might grease the slippery slope leading to an expensive and personally harmful change in how folks dies now.