Good article. I do not wish to skite but I have come to similar conclusions:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15978

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13445

A timely article.

The Big Med reason is particularly apt.

Drs, Nurses, Nursing home staff convince themselves that

- prolonging the life of vegitative old people wearing adult nappies for their final 15 years (standing or lying down) is a selfless and noble activity.

BUT keeping one's job, pay, profits, revenue and shareholder returns are not inconsiderable economic necessities.

Allowing people to die earlier is also unethical.

Moving into sue-able neglect and euthanasia issues.

What to do?

Good article.

I am up on this since in the last three years having had the care of both aged parents-in-law until they died, the first at home, the second at home until the last three weeks.

Both of their deaths were dreadful. Both of them got to the stage where they wanted to end it, but by that stage were not capable of doing it themselves. As they had made no arrangements, the result was horrible, and the last one really horrible. My wife described the death of her father as being slowly tortured to death by doctors. We got to know the nursing staff. All agreed that if you did that to a sheep or a dog, you'd be prosecuted for cruelty. And yet this is palliative care. All have made arrangements to top themselves quietly so they never get to that stage.

No sirree, the sudden dropping dead of a heart attack is far preferable to what both my parents-in-law went through; so stop worrying about how much butter you're putting on your bread while you're alive.

However, if you are slowly degenerating, lay aside some mortal drug that will despatch you straight, so you're not left pathetically asking the doctors for it, and them denying it as a criminal offence to give.

More's to the point, why should we grow more risk-averse as we get older? It's the young, who have their whole life in front of them, who should logically be most risk-averse, and the eldest least. Surely now is the time to take up sky-diving?

Oh yes, I also got sick of hearing people talking about sickness, hospitals, medical conditions, medicines, old age, palliative care, death, dying, funerals and graves.

The moral of the story is: get done all you want to do in life in good time, don't be desperately and pathetically sucking at the lees and dregs when you are in extremity, but go gracefully and be prepared to give yourself your own quietus, rather than linger in unremediable distress and indignity.

Jardine,

Another point, even if you can't accept euthanasia for religious or other reasons, is that it is a good idea to get legal advice to draw up a proper Advance Health Care Directive that will be legally binding in your state. I have done this, rejecting all life-prolonging treatment including artificial feeding or respiration, if I become incompetent. I have also appointed my younger son, who agrees with me, as Enduring Guardian and advised him to sue the hell out of anyone who goes against it.

Plantagenet,

Like you, I believe in following the money. The religious Right are often blamed, but they have lost on every other issue -- votes and property rights for women, restrictions on gambling and alcohol, contraception and abortion, divorce, Sunday trading, and so on. When the Northern Territory euthanasia legislation was struck down, I had just done a statistics class. I looked up the votes for each side, assumed that a Parliamentarian would have perhaps a 70% chance of being in favour of euthanasia (a bit less than the general public) and then worked out the probability that they would have all voted as they did by chance. Lets just say that it was infinitesimal.

Good essay - as far as it goes.
Our "culture" including its dominant Christian religion lacks any kind of Wisdom re the meaning and significance of death. It certainly lacks any kind of Wisdom which enables both the dying person, and those who are serving him or her to participate in death as a Living Process - a process of transition which always follows essentially the same sequence. This manual was produced as a guide to enabling this entirely lawful Process:
http://www.dawnhorsepress.com/ProductDetail.aspx?PID=3765

And, surprisingly to most people there is such a thing as Easy Death, which requires the necessary education for any and every one to participate in, in both their own death, and in serving the transition of others. This book contains comprehensive essays on the topic:
http://www.easydeathbook.com

This reference contains 20 or so personal stories re how the authors Wisdom & Blessing Grace helped them to serve the death of one of their intimates
http://global.adidam.org/books/instant-everybody

Two sets of references on the topic of death and dying
http://www.adidaupclose.org/Holy_Mutterances/death_and_dying.html
http://www.adidaupclose.org/death_and_dying

Dear Daffy

Is it me or are all the links you've supplied some sought of:

- money-making book selling exercise

- marketed by some Yoda Guru lookalike refugee from a Tibetan cesspool?

What next? DO YOUSELF IN FOR DUMMIES?

Poida