The long term grinding down of the soul.
This is the best definition I have ever seen of abuse against others, for this is what it does.
Abused as a wife, I cannot imagine how devastatinbg it must be to be old, ill and helpless and suffer abuse.

Keep writing and speaking of this abomination in our midst.

Lorraine

How fortunate we are that people like Paul know what older citizens want much better than they do themselves! To you or me it may look like Granny is bed-ridden, incontinent, eaten up with cancer, miserable and longing for death; but Paul's X-ray vision can look beyond that and see that she would be happy, healthy and youthful, if only her blasted relatives would leave her alone in the loving care of those skilled professionals who are feeding her pills and stuffing tubes into her orifices.

When old or sick people say they are tired of life and want to die, it is the absolute height of arrogant condescension to blithely inform them that, no, we know what's good for them, far better than their relatives do, far better than they do themselves, and if they are sick of a bedridden, agonisingly painful existence, well then they must be off their heads, and obviously can't be trusted to make rational decisions! This is a cruel and despicable Catch-22, and I find it repellent to encounter the loathesome kind of mind that could regard it as even remotely satisfactory.

Paul I'll thank you to mind your own damn business, & get the hell out of other peoples lives.

You must be the ultimate interfering know it all do gooder, & are not welcome in our lives.

Many of us are approaching the time when it will be time to go. Many know what lies ahead for us, & have no desire to go through the long painful death we have seen our loved ones suffer.

Once incapacitated we would endanger our loved ones to help us go, thanks to fools like you & your fellow lobbyists. You actually force many to go, while they still can do it by themselves, often before they would otherwise chose. Does that make you feel good?

Paul, I believe that forcing elderly people to continue living against their will should also be classed as elder abuse.

Suggesting that psychiatrists should 'assess' all elderly people who request euthanasia, in case they are clinically depressed, is ridiculous .
The mere fact that they are asking to die suggests that they are not happy to continue living, whether their reasons are physical or emotional.

It is not up to any so-called anti-euthanasia group to decide what everyone else should do.
It's pretty simple really, if you want to battle out a terminal illness to the last breath, then you go right ahead, no one will stop you. But please don't try and stop anyone else because it is not your business.

We've gone through the painful experience
with my mother-in-law about a year ago,
when she passed away. Prior to her passing,
she had been diagnosed with alzheimers
and had been living in a nursing home. She
did fine for about six months and then she
lost bladder and bowel control, could not
dress herself, feed herself, or transfer from
bed to chair to bathroom.

She stopped eating and drinking and her doctor
told us that this was quite common in people
on the tail-end of alzheimers. The doctor
kept her in the nursing home under palliative-care.
It was difficult to deal with the agony of her
vegetation. However her doctor did not pursue
a vigorous therapy to preserve her life. He simply
saw to it that she was comfortable. She finally lost
her functional and mental independence completely.
And passed away.

I realise that physicians are expected to do all they
can to sustain life. However, after our experience
I seriously question patients being hooked up for days,
months, or years,
to machines that sustain their lives even if they are
in constant pain, or permanently comatose. I feel that
technologies that were intended to save people from
unnecessary death should not be used to have the effect
of depriving them of a dignified death.

Thank you for this article. My own daughter is not yet 50 yrs old and is already subjected to name calling by her daughter. 'Stupid' is the common one and assertions that she knows nothing occurs daily. About 30 years ago, I saw this happening to an elderly man who was intelligent, educated, and had so much to give but was silenced into depression. At that time there were no organisations to help, now there are. When the elderly are sick, suffering from chronic pain and yet are uncared for and abused, they well may prefer death and therein lies a danger of the ultimate abuse. Yes, there are many cases of wanting to assist a loved one to leave this world, however if only one wants to die to escape abuse, then the law must stand to protect them.