Janet Colbert of Lakewood, N.J., worked as an oncology nurse for more than 20 years, and she said some of her terminally ill patients begged her to help them die. Now Ms. Colbert has liver cancer, and she also wants the option to end her life on her own terms.
“I don’t want to have a painful, lingering death,” said Ms. Colbert, 69 years old. “It just shouldn’t have to be that way.”
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February 17, 2015 2:53 AM
Excellent idea.
February 17, 2015 2:53 AM
Assisted suicide is just more moral degradation. People need to face death courageously. Of course, talk is cheap.
February 17, 2015 2:52 AM
Relatives know its in the best interests of Dad to die and by the way theirs also (inheritance still available) and Dad knows this. So as to not hurt the feelings of the kids, he will kill himself.Is everybody happy?
February 17, 2015 2:52 AM
In re - “I don’t want to have a painful, lingering death,” said Ms. Colbert, 69 years old. “It just shouldn’t have to be that way.” - it IS NOT THAT WAY.That is what hospices are for. Palliative care too.I'd point that out even if I didn't, as a plaintiffs' attorney, fear mixed motives of interested parties, including medical professionals who are depressed by working on what they see as low percentage fights, in end of life decisions. As I age, I increasingly grasp that the Hippocratic Oath was all about reassuring patients who feared termination by a conflicted or well-meaning physician.People are both good and bad, and we shouldn't place additional temptation before the bad parts of us unless there is a good reason.With hospice and palliative care, there is almost never a good reason. Some neurological decline is a different argument than mere pain, and I still oppose "assisted suicide" in those circumstances, BUT at least there, I see a serious argument. Not here.
February 17, 2015 2:51 AM
My grandfather was told he had six months to live. He lived six years. This was quite some time ago, but I don't think most doctors are that much better at predicting.I have noticed that everyone always seems to pick the six month period. There must be something magical about it. That is usually the time that doctors warn that someone will have if they don't stop drinking, or some other destructive habit. And the lawmakers seem to have latched onto it as well. My own observation is that people usually don't deteriorate significantly until about two months before they die from a terminal illness. With a six month period you are encouraging family to hasten the end of a functioning person, who is afraid of being a burden. Three months is long enough.You don't like seeing your parent deteriorating and unable to help him or herself? Well, they would have preferred an infant who was immediately toilet trained, but they changed your diaper anyway.
February 17, 2015 2:51 AM
BAD idea.
February 17, 2015 2:51 AM
If you have witnessed a loved one dying from any kind of cancer, you support the idea of medical professionals helping terminal patients to end their lives. I watched my father die of colon cancer in 1995. He was 64 years old and had just retired. He aged 30 years in three months at the time of his diagnosis and prognosis. Dying the so-called natural death was undignified and agonizing to all of us who stood in his living room, watching him lying in a hospital bed writhing from side to side as his organ systems shut down, one at a time. He did not know we were there and he was talking to members of his family who had preceded him in death.If a terminal patient is courageous enough to make plans to die on his own terms, I would applaud it. It should at least be an option.