Colorado right-to-die legislation announced

We're really in trouble if the good citizens and residents of Colorado don't already know that they already have the right to die by their own hand at any time of their choosing or that the dignity of their passing is in any way tied to whether or not they can legally have a physician actively participate in committing an act of homicide.

PrintSmith wrote: We're really in trouble if the good citizens and residents of Colorado don't already know that they already have the right to die by their own hand at any time of their choosing or that the dignity of their passing is in any way tied to whether or not they can legally have a physician actively participate in committing an act of homicide.

So. When someone is a vegetable laying in a bed in the hospital and the family makes a decision to remove the person from life support, are you saying the doctors and nurses and all the other medical personal is "actively participate in committing an act of homicide?" Have you ever been in a hospital room when someone is disconnected? The family doesn't just start pulling plugs, tubes, masks and and grabbing the patients personal belongings.

The doctor and medical personal does it.

If you were a doctor would you want to be the one who signs off on pulling the plug? Traditionally you are supposed to be the healer, not the executioner. Maybe time to up date the code to include ending their pain.

I'm cool with the concept of "right to die", but I think that pales in comparison to the "right to live".

Reverend Revelant wrote:

PrintSmith wrote: We're really in trouble if the good citizens and residents of Colorado don't already know that they already have the right to die by their own hand at any time of their choosing or that the dignity of their passing is in any way tied to whether or not they can legally have a physician actively participate in committing an act of homicide.

So. When someone is a vegetable laying in a bed in the hospital and the family makes a decision to remove the person from life support, are you saying the doctors and nurses and all the other medical personal is "actively participate in committing an act of homicide?" Have you ever been in a hospital room when someone is disconnected? The family doesn't just start pulling plugs, tubes, masks and and grabbing the patients personal belongings.

The doctor and medical personal does it.

If'n I'm not mistaken, the one in the vegetative state has already been declared legally dead, which makes your attempt to conflate the two scenarios invalid as an argument.

My other thought is this. I, for one, am tired of adulterated language being used in the title and the summary of the bill to disguise the bill's intent.

The purpose of this bill is to expand the number of instances in which one individual may actively participate in the planning and execution of a homicide and have their actions excused under the law. The purpose of the bill is to make it impossible for a person who actively participates in the homicide of a terminally ill person to be held responsible for their act in criminal or civil court or to be disciplined by a professional organization for their active participation in the homicide of a terminally ill individual. Guess what folks, life is a terminal condition, always has been.

But, true to "progressive" form, it's better to hide, disguise and torture the language to give the impression that something else is desired instead. If you truly believe that opting out early makes your death somehow more courageous and dignified when you ask someone else to help you kill yourself I think that speaks volumes about your true character.

I've seen, many times, individuals who had a terminal illness face their impending death with courage and dignity, and not a single one of them was so cowardly as to ask someone else to be an active participant in killing them.

READ THIS CLOSELY.....

nypost.com/2012/12/09/diary-of-an-intensive-care-nurse/

Rather ODD that NO one wishes to comment on the link...REALITY is hard to wrap your mind around,
isn't it? We don't wish to witness our beloved pets put thru "agony/torture", but yet, we will NOT afford
the SAME consideration to humans...THAT is just warped.

THIS issue REQUIRES a revision of medical mindset and the legislation (and passage of it) are long overdue.

Your analogy of a pet and a person fails on so many levels that I will only pick a couple of the most egregious examples.

First off, pets are property, people are not. One can order a pet destroyed for no other reason than they no longer want the pet, even when it is healthy.

A pet has no say in their medical care, people have absolute say, unless, of course, they are a 14 year old cancer patient who, with their parents, has decided not to pursue treating their disease, in which case the government steps in and treats them like the property of the state.

You currently have the right to end your own life at any time of your choosing. In other words, despite what the Democrats are trying to establish with the title of their bill, you already possess the right to die, you just don't have the right to have someone else actively plan and participate in an act of homicide to kill you off, even at your own request.

It is obscene, and that's being kind, to try and establish that the only way you will have dignity when you pass is if someone else commits an act of homicide.

My Pa died of cancer, squamous cell carcinoma of the lung to be exact. During the last 9-12 months of his life we all knew he was going to die because he chose not to undergo a second round of chemo and radiation after surgery removed the superior lobe of his right lung and, despite finding no signs that it had spread at the time of the surgery, his liver, spine and other areas of his body were found to be cancerous shortly after his surgery. My Pa, at the time of his death, was as helpless as on the day he was born and required just as much care. With the help of the angels at Mt Evans Hospice he was able to die at home, in his own bed. I watched him take his last breath.

I dare any of you to say my father died without his dignity intact or to even suggest that any similar death happens in the absence of dignity simply because a physician wasn't an active participant in causing the life to cease. It takes courage and dignity to face your own mortality head on, I would even say that it takes courage to kill yourself. But to ask someone else to do your work for you because you can't face what is coming reeks of cowardice, and one thing every coward lacks is dignity. Hard to have your death contain something lacking in your own character to begin with IMNTBHO.