Recently, assisted suicide has been officially proclaimed by the LDS.

What is your opinion on a DNR or Do Not Resuscitate

Is it proclaiming suicide to have a DNR?

It's a blurred line, but no, I personally don't believe that allowing nature to take its course is assisted suicide unless it's someone responsible for a minor who does not have an inevitably terminal illness and isn't otherwise in a position to make that decision for himself or herself.(I'm referring here to some of the fundies who have allowed children to die because of disbelief in the most basic of medical care, as in an appendectomy or even fever-reducing drugs or antibiotics.) That's not to say that failure to act in a way that would save someone, i.e. extending a hand or pole to someone who is drowning who wants the help and/or one has a professional or ethical responsibility to help is not an act of malfeasance. But no, I don't think a DNR equates with suicide unless a deliberate action is taken by someone (i.e. overdose); one could say the suicide was on the part of the person who deliberately overdosed, but anyone who had professional or ethical duty to mitigate the damage and didn't probably assisted in the suicide by act of omission, but that's probably a DUH sort of thing.

I'm not taking a stand on the right or wrong of assisted suicide.

Lets say, for instance, that if all medical science would allow a person to live by getting a heart transplant, and their life would continue, (pain free), however by getting a heart transplant, by doing so, would cause an undue hardship on their family and friends by caring for them, and the person getting the heart transplant wanted to avoid hurting them

Also, I believe in Jesus,

If someone wanted to commit suicide, why would they need someone to assist them

If someone wanted to commit suicide, shouldnt they be able to that on their own

Now then, shouldnt a DNR

Its complicated

As I currently believe, a DNR is the correct option

DH worked for the coroner, he would relate, the not uncommon occurrence, of two elderly people making a pact.

" When terminal disease occurs, promise me, when the time is right, you'll help me out. "

What generally happens is they have to obtain veterinary drugs and make a complete hash of it.

I work as a nurse, one single conversation with a terminally ill women changed my views on voluntary euthanasia.

"I'm dying, I have 6 months, I understand my illness. I am also fully aware of how the end will be. It will be painful and messy. I know what drugs are available to ease the pain and their side effects. I don't want to die, but I'm going to. I wish I had the choice to end it at the moment of my choosing. It would be close to the end. My family would be there, we would say our good byes.
I might not take that opportunity,but I wish I had the choice."

Veterinary drugs?

Drugs used by vets to euthanise animals, obtained overseas in places like Thailand, or stolen from vets.

I have been the primary caregiver before death to three people in my family (my aunt, my mother, and my father).

Death from [so-called] "natural processes" like cancer, can be immensely painful and exhausting to the person dying, to the point where they just want it to be over.

In hospice care, and in my experience with two different hospice services, once the patient has been entered on their rolls (there is a legal process involved, which is straightforward and makes sense, but also has to be completed as required by law), the very next thing that happens is that there is a knock on your front door, and a hospice-designated person delivers a paper bag with several different prescriptions inside...and also, from my experience, one of these medications is a bottle (maybe eight-to-ten ounces) of morphine in syrup.

That morphine is definitely needed by the patient to depress pain, but it ALSO has the effect of easing the death process along. I do not know how the physiology works, but what I took away from the explanations I was given is that the morphine gently depresses critical bodily functions like respiration, which allows the patient to go through the death process much more smoothly, and frequently more rapidly.

From a strict interpretation of what is going on, the taking of morphine during the end-of-life death process could be categorized as "assisted suicide."

In these kinds of circumstances especially, I am firmly in favor.

Thanks Tevai!

Thats vile.

When someone is on the end of their journey on this earth

When I go

I want to go

According to the dictates of my own concience

So a DNR assisted by the help of legal drugs

Is how I want to go

My dad battled cancer for the last twenty years of his life. When I was two, he lost his arm up to his elbow. He fought on. While I was on my mission it hit him again. He lost his right leg and hip. Two months after I got home, the cancer had spread through out his body.

After a couple more months stay at the hospital he came home. We had to give him morphine every couple hours to ease his pain and suffering. We had several bottles of morphine on hand and mom was in charge of administering it. Mom wore out and had a heart attack. Care for both of them was up to me and an older sister. Dad went into a coma but would still thrash when the pain became to intense.

My aunt, who was a nurse in SLC hospital, called to see how things were going. When I told her, she called the doctor whose office was across the street from our home. He came over to "check on dad". He gave dad a shot to "help him rest" better and left.

Thirty minutes later my mother got up and went to the side of dads bed. He had passed away. My aunt called within just a few minutes and I told her. She told me to put all the morphine that was left in a box and send it to her.

After a bit of introspection, I realized what had most likely happened. All of the family was greatly relieved that it was over. We were all worn out. And we appreciated what my aunt and the doctored conspired to do. All our resources had been used. Financially mom was in the hole hundreds of thousands of dollars. None of us had anything else to give. (Note: Mom recovered and lived another 20 great years, She continued to work up to the last week of her life at age 84.)

(My aunt was diagnosed with cancer a year later. She died within a week of finding out. Coincidence? I think not.)

I am all for DNR. Sister and I have a made an agreement. We will help each other avoid the suffering and pain that making the final exit can bring. We witnessed our dad suffer for too many years to even begin to think otherwise.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2016 04:58AM by dejavue.

I think that a DNR can be a great blessing to the very elderly and the terminally ill. Modern medicine can do a lot, and sometimes it can do too much. It's up to the patient to say, "I've had enough."

If you gotta go, you gotta go.

Quality of life is an important part of living.

Many atheists on this site, however, I must say, they are concerned about the here and now.

Dejavue

Thanks for your comment

What it boils down to, perhaps, is letting each person/soul choose their own way to....

Right now, personally, I believe that if anybody wants a "heart transplant", I would immediately do everything in my power to do that, and also, anyone that doesn't like it, should basically suck it

Whenever anyone questions about that, its futile

Because if I needed a "heart transplant", I would definently want one.

At what point to you say DNR

>>At what point do you say DNR

When the person whose body it is, is too tired and worn out to go any further. As an adult person, *you* get to decide how much medical treatment you want or don't want. Isn't that how it should be? Would you really want to have medical treatment forced upon you?

Its a really touchy issue. On one hand, you have people that want to get everything before the remberance has even started.

Yes, I agree. There are those who want everything now and it sucks. While dad was sick, my older brother cleaned him and mom out. Mom hid things to try and slow him down. My oldest sister did the same.

Then when mom was 84, living on her own, able and willing to care for herself, working at the nearby library every day, she decided to put the three oldest children (my sisters) on the title to her home to avoid probate at the time of her passing.

Within a couple days of her doing that, the three oldest girls went to her doctor and asked him to declare her incompetent. They wanted to put her in the rest home so they could go ahead, sell the house and get the money now. They told the fourth sister of their plan and she leaked it to me. I kind of blew a gasket and told mom. She was devastated.

I got hold of an attorney and mom and I went to see him together. After speaking to him for an hour he said that my mother could definitely win in court but warned her (us) that it would probably be a real ugly battle and pit the three remaining kids against the three oldest three. I was pretty upset and wanted to pursue it but mom said she didn't want us kids fighting.

When she got home she called her sisters who lived several states away and told them goodbye. Next day she took care of the financial affairs with the bank and the third day she was taken to the hospital by ambulance. We all met her there. Mom was smiling and and told us all to go home that she was alright and the doctors would nurses would just check her over and she would be okay.

Took me about 20 minutes to get home. When I got there, phone was ringing. It was the hospital. Mom had passed away.

Sisters sold the house for a third of it's worth and the proceeds were gone in a few short weeks.

Even though mom had lived a good long life and her last years were what she wanted, it was hard for me to be around my sisters after that.

A clean getaway.

Our conversations on this board are so temporary,

Is there a sound that says peace

It is a heartbeat

cantsay brings up a very valid point. It was not so long ago it was easy to have a woman declared a lunatic, sent to the asylum and husband/son/cousin got his hands on the estate whilst lady is still alive and well.

The modern politician keeps this in mind. No government wants to allow 'elective suicide' since there is so much room for abuse.

In the UK morpine is a 'controlled' drug and can only be administered either directly by a doctor or by a nurse who must sign a book and have it co-signed each and every time morphine is used (even post operatively, that's why self-administration devices were created). Even recovering heroin addicts on the methadone program take their medication in the pharmacy on the high street. The practice Tevai describes sounds horrendous to me, but may not to others, but I would agree that morphine is used frequently in connection to palliative care. Just as heroin will eventually kill the addict, morphine will eventually kill the patient, that is why it became a controlled drug in the first place.

DoNotResuscitate orders are given in hospital (or hospice) by a registered doctor (GP or hospital surgeon) after discussion with family. It used to be brought up by nurses in terminal care when a patient was so weak that to perform resuscitation would break all their ribs and cause more pain that they were already in. Therefore the intervention of resuscitation itself is harming the patient. It was only 25 years or so ago that it became common practice to discuss DNR's with relatives of elderly patients.

Nurses believe the hospital (and especially the nurse) should do no harm to the patient (florence nightingale penned that one) and doctors take the hippocratic oath to do the patient 'no harm'. Therefore, when the act of resuscitation is causing the patient actual harm (broken bones with chest compresions before the resus team arrives), and more harm than the ailment then the time for medical intervention has stopped.

Elective suicide is different - in this situation removing care will cause more harm than the ailment itself and committing suicide by administering medications is definitely 'doing physical harm' so to stay true to their profession, medical staff must place the patient's mental health over and above (rather than equal to) the physical health. To some staff, this is not a problem. To others, it is.

The biggest problem with it all though harks back to the problems with the lunacy laws - it would be open to abuse. Even doctors have been found to be guilty of serial 'mercy killings' without any record of consent from patient or family. (google dr shipman if you are interested in murderous GP) The elderly could be co-erced to 'leave the world' earlier than nature would dictate, people with disabilities or low IQs could be 'convinced' to elect a legal suicide, I'm sure you could imagine other scenarios where abuse of this law is possible.

It is perfectly legal to commit assisted suicide in the netherlands, in certain circumstances and with medical approval. Family from the UK who take their relative to 'the clinic' are no longer being prosecuted upon their return to the UK. However, Dutch medical professionals are now discussing the possibilities of furthering the availability of elective suicide to include unwanted children who were not aborted in the early stages (this has already been named post-partum termination) and children born either disabled or damaged during the birthing process. A chronically depressed fairly young person (survivor of abuse) has also been allowed to elect to kill herself.

Where does it all end if the floodgates get opened? This is the pandora's box which no-one wants to open - yet.

My father had a very painful death due to an aggressive meningioma. (Brain cancer). There was already a DNR drawn up before his illness, but that did not prevent unnecessary pain. He was totally paralyzed on the left side, and would suffer lengthy seizures that became impossible to stop. He said they were painful, and toward the end they became more and more frequent. Before he lost the ability to speak, he begged us to end it for him. All he got for asking was a guilt trip from his brother about how it was a sin to pray for death, and "this is god's will". My father was weeping from the pain.

I don't give a rat's ass what the church says about assisted suicide. I think it should be an option for those in my father's situation. If that kind of suffering is a lesson that god wants people to go through, then he truly is an asshole that deserves no respect or any worship from me.

As for the DNR, my mother believes that she starved my father to death, and that it was her fault that he was in so much pain. He was so dehydrated that they couldn't find a vein to give him pain medication. She now lives with intense guilt.

I hope that no one ever has to go through the pain and suffering that my father had to go through, and no, he couldn't end it himself because he couldn't move.

Is there a way to DNR with an assistant/md prescribing a something? To lessen the pain. By no way am I advocating this or that.

Were I in the final stages of an incurable disease (MS, ALS, cancer) I would request a doctor assisted suicide. Suffering with no positive outcome is not dignified.

RB

in doing medical transcription is that a person can have a DNR/DNI in place and then they enter the hospital with altered mental status. The family changes the DNR order and the person goes on. Oftentimes they are in their 90s and have no quality of life. But the family can change it all.

For all the furore about medical insurance in the states, and even though in the UK our medical care provision is not always at acceptable levels, or even maintained at a similar standard across the country, there is something to be said about having a national health service.

When a hospital is prioritising funding, the costs of keeping someone alive with invasive procedures is balanced against the quality of life and the dignity of providing palliative care instead of restorative. Again, this is open to abuse and sometimes life is not prolonged when a patient may have benefited greatly, however, it removes a lot of the 'blame' and guilt from family when a doctor says "all we can do now is ease the pain/make patient comfortable".

I feel that when everyone has private medical insurance then the care provision is more geared toward preventing litigation or providing only that care which is affordable under the insurance, and so, because the insurance company is paying, procedures that are perhaps unwarranted may be provided, with the knowledge that the bill will be paid in full.

Give an elderly person the choice of 2 more years in pain or declining health, or a new incubator for the neo-natal unit and palliative care for theirself, they will mostly elect for the new machine & palliative care. Thinking like this takes a lot of recriminations away and helps patients accept their demise more readily when they think in terms of funding for everyone. Lots of elderly patients in the UK tell staff not to waste money on keeping them alive - spend the funds on the next generation instead. It is very noble and gives a feeling of control to some.

My unsolicited advice.

If you don't have a living will please fill that small but important gap in your health care preferences. Don't leave certain decisions to your loved ones, who may not be able to think with a clear head. Or to doctors, who already have a single purpose. What ever it is that you want make it clear.

Suicide is a terrible thing that is a reminder that we don't live in an ideal society. DNR is a medical/personal decision that has little to do with mental illness or any other reason why an otherwise healthy person should chose to end their life. Do not conflate the two or otherwise insinuate that they are similar.

Lastly, moral judgement of the actions of those who are suffering have no place in this discussion. I cannot imagine any reason why I might try to end my life while healthy. But that hasn't always been the case. Truthfully, perspective was what pulled me through some fairly rough teen years. How could any one person claim to have perspective for another?

I have a DNR attached to my will along with an organ donation directive. My dad had me promise his I'd not be cremated after I die. Haven't decided whether to honor that or not. What funeral homes charge for services is obscene. Will look for the cheapest alternative. Have my family spend the difference on a proper wake.

RB

Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have a DNR attached to my will along with an
> organ donation directive. My dad had me promise
> his I'd not be cremated after I die. Haven't
> decided whether to honor that or not. What funeral
> homes charge for services is obscene. Will look
> for the cheapest alternative. Have my family spend
> the difference on a proper wake.
>
> RB

Ron...

I don't know if this would be of interest or not, but in the United States, there is now a small (but steadily increasing) movement to "care for [your own] dead"...which means: a family member or members doing all, or most, of what a funeral director does---at a vastly reduced cost, of course, but also (as I discovered when I did it) as a loving, and healing, way to personally reconcile, and affirm, the natural processes of life, caring, and love.

During the time when my father was dying of terminal cancer (etc.), I was standing in the checkout line at Follow Your Heart when I noticed a magazine in the rack which featured a story about Lisa Carlson and the "Caring for the Dead" movement---which (unbeknownst to her at the time) she had begun when her husband died unexpectedly and she had absolutely no money to pay a funeral home.

I bought the magazine, went home, read the article and was tremendously impressed on a number of levels. I bought her book ["Caring for the Dead," previously: "Caring for Your Own Dead"], I made my notes, and I began the process. (My father was still alive as I did this, but he had been diagnosed terminal and was under end-of-life hospice care.)

I come from a family where cremation is a taken-for-granted reality (complete with a couple of fairly humorous stories ;) ), and since he had told me to "Flush [his] ashes down the crapper...," I knew he would be A-OK with what was now my plan.

I went to the local county office where they handled these matters, was given instructions on what to do in filling out the paperwork (Death Certificate), and also what was Very Importantly necessary immediately after my father's death...getting a Coroner's Case Number. (At least in that local jurisdiction, this was the most important part of the process.) The person I was dealing with also told me that they were very much in favor of me doing this, and they could not understand why more people did not do this.

I called the Coroner's Office, and they were REALLY helpful (and nice!). They told me that THE VERY FIRST THING after my father died, after I called hospice to send over a nurse to verify that my father was, in fact, dead, was to call them to get that Coroner's case number. I was given the Coroner's phone numbers for regular business hours, and also for twenty-four hour access if my father died either outside of normal office hours, or during the weekend (he actually died at 8:15 PM on a Friday night). They also gave me instructions on how to care for the body if my father died at night or on a weekend: to keep natural decomposition to a minimum, use bags of "party ice," which I got at the supermarket, especially over the abdominal area---plus: I needed to turn up the air conditioning system to maximum high, to keep the ambient temperature as cool as possible.

I called the crematory, and learned that I needed to get a cardboard "coffin"---which turned out to be two very-large pieces of flat cardboard which folded into a "top" and "bottom" big enough to hold an adult human. The crematory fees were quoted as something like $250 as I remember.

I called around to various mortuaries to get the cardboard coffin and was quoted prices from about $60-$150...and the last place I called said: "Come on in and we'll GIVE [the cardboard coffin] to you," which they did, at NO charge.

When my Dad died (around 8:15 PM, on a Friday evening), I phoned the hospice (who immediately sent over a nurse to verify death)...I phoned the Coroner's office, who gave me that essential Coroner's Case Number...and (soon after) the hospice nurse volunteered to take care of my father's poodle while I went across the street to the supermarket to get the bags of party ice.

When I got back, she helped me ice down my father's body (using, as I had been instructed, plastic baggies with the party ice inside)...I gathered up my father's poodle...turned up the air conditioning to maximum cold...and went home.

Over the weekend I filled in my Dad's Death Certificate, got it signed by his physician, and I took it into the Vital Statistics office first thing Monday morning. They did their own additions (signatures, official numbers, seals, etc.), and gave me several copies of the completed Death Certificate back.

We (there were three of us) put my father's body in the newly-constructed cardboard coffin, put it in the back of a van we had rented for a few hours, and drove to the crematory (I had called ahead; they were expecting us).

When we arrived at the crematory, they examined the paperwork to be sure it was all legal, and then they loaded the cardboard coffin onto a gurney and wheeled it inside. A couple of days later, I went over to the crematory and they gave me a cardboard box with my father's ashes inside, in a plastic bag.

My sister later scattered the ashes.

My conclusion: I would never do anything other than this if I had the choice. It was tremendously healing (on levels I had not anticipated), and tremendously loving as well.

Total costs were something under $500 as I remember (but this was some years ago). In any case, THOUSANDS of dollars less than the funeral home alternative.

If this would work in Canada, I very strongly recommend it on every level.

http://crossings.net is a US-based website, but has much valuable information (though, looking through it, it doesn't cover Canada in the specifics).

Lisa Carlson's book has two titles: "Caring for the Dead" [which is the current edition], and "Caring for Your Own Dead" [the original edition]. www.abebooks.com may have copies for much less than new book prices.

If you Google "caring for the dead, Canada" the results that come up should give guidance for Canadian national and provincial laws.

If this is an option for you and your family, I personally highly recommend it.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2016 07:26PM by Tevai.

Thank you.

RB

Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My dad had me promise
> his I'd not be cremated after I die. Haven't
> decided whether to honor that or not.

Ron, I know you love and respect your Dad and that he was a wonderful man, but that type of request seems unreasonable. I've told my children that I prefer cremation as I do not want to be buried with all the expense (as though I'll care). It's a request, not a demand.

I think there is a feeling among TBMs that cremation makes the resurrection harder for God. I've never understood that line of thinking. If there's something else, then there will be something else. A well-embalmed body in a sealed coffin only has a little longer shelf life in the big picture, than a cremated one.

I do understand why Jews, given what happened in the Holocaust, would not want this option out of respect for those whose final dignity was stripped from them.

Just my 2 cents, Bro. Hopefully, neither of us is going to need that option soon.

My dad passed away in August from glioblastoma. He was a doctor, and he has always had a DNR on his file. He also was lucky to be living in California when he passed away, which had just enabled assisted suicide.

I know he and his doctor had the legal/paperwork process going for it, when his cancer took a fast downturn. Had he lingered, I would have honored his request for assisted suicide. The brief time he spent in hospice care was so horrible to see.

Like my dad, I firmly agree that quality of life is far more important than quantity. We help our pets along with their passing when their suffering is too great. Why is it so wrong to help our loved ones when they are ready to cross over (or unable to remain here)?

DNRs and assisted suicides come via very different circumstances, but I don't see any difference between them from the perspective of giving dignity in death.

Assisted suicide laws state that a patient must be capable of administering their own medication at the time of their choosing.

I am very confused by what a DNR has to do with assisted suicide. I know that if someone has a DNR in place and they flat-line, doctors and/or nurses were not to try and bring you back to life. but what does that have to do with assisted suicide. Granted I might of missed something a long the way as I read through the thread as well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2016 02:37PM by kativicky.

I am a strong advocate of having your end of life wishes in order and using what is legally available for you.
A DNR is a way to allow your body to die naturally without invasive measures that are not useful and cause more problems.
I have a DNR for my end of life. I am a strong advocate of Hospice also which is another way to assure you are given the RIGHT to die peacefully as it is "palliative" care.

NOTE: A DNR has nothing to do with suicide or assisted suicide. That is entirely different. It's important to understand how a DNR is used in the medical profession, especially in conjunction with Hospice which I highly recommend.

Thats what I believe.

SusieQ is correct -

a DNR or "do not resuscitate" order is a medical direction attached to the records of terminally ill and frail or terminally old and frail. It is based on the ethic of medical staff doing 'no harm' to the patient - administering CPR includes thumping the ribcage really, really hard - hard enough to break bones in a fit young person, never mind the arthritic or thinning bones of a dying person. 'DNR' is about stopping medical interventions and is everything to do with the ethics of providing end of life medical and nursing care.

Assisted suicide is self murder and nothing to do with the ethics of providing medical and nursing care. It is the ending of your own life using prescribed drugs in a licensed facility which will then prepare your body for funeral or cremation.

I was waiting for someone to describe suicide victims as murders. My child died after a terrible disease made her life unbearable. People who die by suicide deserve our compassion not condemnation.

I am sorry for your loss but the description was not to condemn, it was to state the legal position.

please accept my apologies if this offended you, it was not my intention to offend.

Assisted suicide is also for terminally ill patients. It's not something that a person walks into a clinic for and walks out with a prescription to kill themself.

Assisted suicide is completely about giving compassionate end of life care - the care to allow a terminally ill person to end their life with dignity on his/her own terms. It is about stopping treatments that will no longer have any effect on the person's disease and giving them control over their lives.

It is NOT murder in any way, shape, or form. It is purely compassion.

Cantsay, to answer your question, in my eyes, DNR's are not a form of suicide. When I posted earlier, I was quite confused with what DNR's had to do with suicide anyways. DNR's simply state that if I was in an accident or having a procedure done on me and my heart stops, don't try and make it beat again.

This is something that I have been doing some thinking on myself and I probably will have some statement that says that you can try and resuscitate me but only if you can get my heart working without having a machine keep me alive.

To me, if I was resuscitated to the point that the only thing keeping me a live was a machine, then what is the point of me being alive. I would rather be dead then be forced to live through a machine. The question should be, how is forcing one to live via a machine ethical?

By not having a DNR, doesnt that place a burden on society?

Not if I have something stated otherwise in a living will. That way my wishes will be known and will take that decision off of the people who would have to make that decision. The only way I would see something like this as a burden is if you do not have anything in place at all saying what you would like to happen in the event that your heart stops beating.

I support assisted suicide for terminally ill individuals, but NOT for those with disabilities or depression.

the problem with supporting assisted suicide in cases of terminal illness is with definitions - at what point during the terminal illness would assisted suicide be permitted - at the point of diagnosis, or later as the disease progresses?

Not supporting access to assisted suicide for those with disabilities or mental illhealth could be viewed as discriminatory. What about those who are severely disabled, especially those disabilities endured as the result of a tragic accident, and would an accident during birth count too?

How about living with a severe untreatable mental illness resulting from a lifetime of abuse when the patient is in constant emotional pain and turmoil which does not respond to medication? Is the suffering less or more in this case than in the case of, say, rampant secondary cancers?

I have no answers to any of these questions. Perhaps after a generation or more of discussion regarding the subject there may eventually be more suitable provision for end of life care. Until then, it is a political minefield.

A DNR is not suicide. You are already dead, you just don't want any attempts made to restart your heart and bring you back.