A Good Question

(Before It's News)

This article by the British cook, writer and entrepreneur, Prue Leith, on the death of her brother is a harrowing read, but it is a reminder of the suffering that those such as Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley (a key opponent of the recent Massachusetts ballot initiative on assisted suicide) insist on imposing on others.

Here’s an extract:

In the end, David, determined to end the pain, refused any more antibiotics, so allowing the next dose of pneumonia to kill him. Dying of pneumonia is a horrible death. Basically you drown, slowly and painfully, as your lungs fill with mucus and you cannot breathe. David’s family had to endure the sound of laboured breathing for the last five days, a constant loud “death rattle”. They had to bear the sight of their father and husband, thick green discharge running from mouth and nose, veering from semi-coma to excruciating pain.

Death is always distressing, but in 2012, with all our talk of respect and consideration for others, how can it be that a wife ends up praying for her husband to please, please, just die?

Surely all that is needed is something like a hospital protocol that if the patient and the next of kin want to end the misery, and two doctors agree that the patient will be dead in a month anyway, they can increase the dose of drugs to the level sufficient to alleviate the pain, even at the risk of death.

If that is a step too far, can we not at least accept Lord Joffe’s proposed Bill, which would allow, if not “mercy killing”, at least “assisted suicide”? This would make it lawful for doctors to prescribe, though not to administer, a drug that would cause death. The patient would have to request it, and take it while still capable of doing so.

The present state of affairs is monstrous. With 80 per cent of the [British] population in favour of assisted dying, what are they waiting for?

Good question.

• Desford, Leicestershire-12th January 2013
• Laverstock, Salisbury-1990-ish
• Wolverhampton-1997
• Sky Sounds Over Ontario, Canada
• Subliminal Messages and High Frequency Signals Influencing Reactions
• The North Dakota Town Where A One-Bedroom Apartment Rents For $2,100 A Month
• Study: Streaming Video Viewers Lose Patience After 2 Seconds
• Almost Half Of All Food Produced Is Thrown Away
• Are You Asleep In Stasis and Awake in the Matrix? or asleep in both stasis and the matrix
• Teotihuacans Exhumed Their Dead And Dignified Them With Make-Up