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Reformer Editorial: Death with dignity
From the Brattleboro Reformer
By RICHARD DAVIS
Wednesday April 18, 2012
The Vermont death with dignity/doctor assisted suicide bill has been in the news recently. The Legislature has made a few efforts at having discussions about related issues but they have not been able to vote on legislation. I think that may be a good thing.
I have watched hundreds of people die and I have had many conversations with dying people about how they feel about the process of death. Death is something we all have in common. It will happen to all of us sooner or later.
Sadly, many societies have come to medicalize death the same way they have medicalized birth. That is not to deny the fact that modern medicine may be helpful in the birthing process as well in the process of dying, but we have to be judicious and make an effort to know when we need the medical system.
The public debate over controlling how we die revolves around the use of prescription drugs to end a person’s life when they feel that they no longer wish to suffer. This is where the legal/ethical problems begin. Once a person relies on prescription medication to die then they have to deal with doctors (as well as other health care providers) because they are the only people in our society who have the power to prescribe drugs.
Should we ask a doctor to help us die? It would be appropriate for us to ask a doctor to make us comfortable while we are dying, but to ask that person to cause or hasten death is asking them to do something contrary to their
professional role.
So then the question arises of how to hasten death without the help of the medical system. I would argue against a quick death such as using a gun or taking a lethal dose of barbiturates. If a person wants to die because they anticipate prolonged suffering, they have an option, but it is slow.
A slow death can be a good death. It gives a person time to say goodbye to friends and family and it takes away the stigma of an act of suicide. Native Americans understood how to die peacefully. When it came time for an elder to leave this world they would walk far into the woods and sit down until death came.
I doubt that very many of us would be able to willfully take the native American walk in the woods, but we do have a reasonable alternative. Simply stop eating and drinking. I have watched many people take this route and it is slow, peaceful and it does not force others to take responsibility for one person’s death.
If a person is still cognitively aware enough to choose this method they can control the setting in which they die. They can invite people important to them to say good-bye. They can have time to experience their own death.
Once a person stops eating or drinking it can take somewhere around seven to 10 days to die. There is no exact way to predict how long it will take and there can be a great deal of variability. These numbers are based on my experience. As a person becomes dehydrated their kidneys slowly stop functioning. Thirst can be an issue the first few days and simply wetting the lips is comforting.
After a few days of thirst many people are no longer concerned about it. The kidneys eventually lose their ability to filter the body’s waste products and the waste becomes a sort of natural poison. The person becomes weaker and begins to sleep more. Eventually they reach the point where they are sleeping all of the time and they simply move into a deeper and deeper sleep. As they approach death their breathing changes and there are longer and longer pauses between breaths. There may be some troubling noises, but they are only troubling for the living. And then there is the final breath.
That is truly death with dignity.
Richard Davis is a registered nurse and executive director of Vermont Citizens Campaign for Health. He writes from Guilford and welcomes comments at rbdav@comcast.net. Continue reading
Times Argus: Another view on death with dignity
From the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus
4/27/12
With all due respect to the Rev. Ralph W. Howe, the many good works he does in the community, and the reverence due to his religious vocation, I must disagree with his position on death with dignity. I do not doubt his sincerity in remembering that “the dying confer inexplicable blessing on those around them even in the final hours of life.” I merely assert that the choice about how to die should lie with those who are doing it, and not, as he advocates, with some unspecified community of spectators, which does not have to, and, in fact, cannot, experience the subjective reality of any individual death.
Dying is surely the most private experience any of us will ever have. Why should it be subject to the mandates of an anonymous “community”?
Connie Brown, Montpelier Continue reading
7Days Fair Game: Dysfunction Junction
Full article at Seven Days
By Andy Bromage [04.18.12]
[...] “Rude” and “Washington-style” were how some senior lawmakers described the politics at play in the Senate.
Here’s another word for it: democracy.
If the past few weeks have shown anything, it’s that some Vermont senators have a very low tolerance for dissent among the ranks. There’s been so much finger wagging from Senate leaders about “following the rules,” I’m tempted to go out and buy each of them one of those giant foam fingers. At least it would give their tired hands a break.
It seems that some senators — mostly brash freshmen and a few uppity women — are upsetting the order of things by calling for floor votes on tough issues that some lawmakers would rather not discuss in an election year.
Take last week’s showdown over “physician-assisted death,” legislation that would give terminally ill Vermonters with fewer than six months to live the option of receiving a fatal dose of medication.
[...] Sen. Hinda Miller (D-Chittenden) found another, albeit creative, way to get right-to-die legislation to a floor vote: attach it to a tanning-bed bill and pass it through the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. Miller was determined to see the bill pass before she retires at year’s end. In a floor speech, she admitted she skirted the normal committee of jurisdiction — Senate Judiciary — but argued the legislation was more important than the “rules.”
“There’s something bigger than process here,” Miller said. “It’s about compassion and it’s about choice. As much as rules are made to follow, there are certain situations where rules are made to be broken.”
Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, didn’t like that one bit. “To hijack a bill out of committee is breaking the rules, and if we want to continue to break the rules in this building, there will be consequences for all of us,” he warned.
Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell (D-Windsor) was equally critical. He said that if senators permitted Hinda Miller’s maneuver to stand, the process would be “forever broken.” Sen. Kevin Mullin (R-Rutland) complained that the process had been “subverted,” while Sen. Robert Hartwell (D-Bennington) repeated Sears’ claim that it was “hijacked.” Apparently, enough colleagues were persuaded; they voted 18-11 to quash the death-with-dignity amendment.
But as freshman Sen. Philip Baruth (D-Chittenden) pointed out, Senate “rules” allow for just the type of maneuver executed by Miller. It’s not common. But it’s written right there in black and white.
Baruth has been on the losing end of three such power plays this year. In one, Baruth and Sen. Joe Benning (R-Caledonia) say they were urged by Sears with “a wink and a nod” to bring a bill decriminalizing marijuana as a floor amendment, only to have Sears turn around and scuttle it.
Baruth suggests the current class of senators isn’t as obedient as leadership — and tradition — requires. He believes the ruling class has employed heavy-handed tactics to put down the rebellions.
“They’ve been at a loss for how to deal with [us], and I think the reaction has been an overreaction by the Senate leadership,” Baruth says. “They have become heavier in their tactics since last year and, as a result, people who are trying to move things are becoming more ingenious in their tactics.”
[...]
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Reformer LTE: On death and our right to it
From the Brattleboro Reformer
On death and our right to it
Ray C. Walker, M.D. – Guilford, April 18
Editor of the Reformer:
It is always interesting to hear of someone’s idea of a “good death,” especially from somebody as distinguished as Richard Davis. Or about Mr. Davis’ idea of death with dignity. But isn’t the issue the right of individuals to select for themselves their chosen way to die. That is the point of the legislation that seeks to be discussed in the chambers of our legislature.
Some few, for very personal and realistic reasons, elect to have a say concerning the time and place of their death. Is it harmful for their medical practitioners to be of aid in this endeavor? Aren’t doctors primarily faithful to the needs and wishes of their patients, and only secondarily to their own need for pursuit of a cure? If doctors want, they can opt out of this service for their patients.
So here is a vote for Death With Dignity as proposed in the bill sooner or later before our legislators. May that vote and voice of so many Vermont citizens be heard soon.
Ray C. Walker, M.D.
Guilford, April 18
Banner: Local lawmakers find wins, losses at Statehouse
Full article at the Bennington Banner
4/14/12 NEAL P. GOSWAMI, Staff Writer
[...] Health and Welfare Committee Chairwoman Hinda Miller, D-Chittenden, said she wanted to see a vote this year before she retires from the Senate. An attempt was made Thursday to suspend the rules and vote on the measure despite Scott’s ruling. The procedural vote requires three-fourths of the Senate to approve suspending the rules. Proponents of the right-to-die legislation could only muster 11 votes, however, with 18 voting against it.
A vote on the actual legislation was never held. [...]
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Reformer: Controversial bills keep lawmakers busy
Full article at the Brattleboro Reformer
4/14/12 By HOWARD WEISS-TISMAN / Reformer Staff
[...] Death with dignity
The Senate on Thursday voted 18-11 against suspending a rule that would have allowed Senators to debate the controversial bill that would allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with the help of a physician.
Supporters of the bill attached it to another bill that would prohibit minors from using tanning beds.
That move was made to get the issue on to the Senate floor, but lawmakers would have had to suspend the rules to allow the Senate to debate the death with dignity, or physician-assisted suicide, bill.
With Thursday’s vote, the bill will have to wait at least another year before Vermont takes up the issue once again.
Rep. Michael Mrowicki, D-Putney, a long time supporter of the bill, said that while the Senate vote was disappointing, the issue is sure to make its way back to the Statehouse next year.
“There seems to be strong support to keep the efforts going beyond this session,” Mrowicki said. “We were reminded last week that in 1992 Rep. Squires of Guilford helped get the bill protecting gays against discrimination and then we passed civil unions 10 years later and another 10 years later marriage equality. It may take a while to effect such a cultural change and supporters like me will keep at it.” [...]
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Herald Editorial: Life and death
Full editorial at the Rutland Herald
4/15/12
[...] The parliamentary maneuvering in the Senate on the Death With Dignity bill became a story in itself, and ultimately a number of senators voted against the bill in part because of the methods that other senators were using to put it to a vote. Some of the more colorful personalities among the club of 30 clashed openly about the attempt by backers to suspend the rules of the Senate in order to consider the bill.
Backers of the bill presented it as a humane measure allowing terminally ill Vermonters to make the choice to end their lives on their own terms by requesting a lethal dose of medication from a physician. The bill had built into it many safeguards to ensure that the request by the patient was legitimate. The positive experience by Oregonians with a similar law showed that the bill could work.
The death of Dick Mallary, a well-liked, longtime House member and congressman, provided a real-life case study of how the will could help people. Mallary, a supporter of Death With Dignity legislation, died without the benefit of its legally sanctioned assistance. [...]
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