DNR and Euthanasia: Yay or Nay?

DEATH - Choosing the Nature of Death: Is DNR the way to go?


I have been pondering over the question of Death for quite a while now (I am not talking about being EMO) and began contemplating how people view Death as a whole. My questions were answered, when I attended my Human Development class; where, as the name says, we study about psychology and the development of human beings.

After attending the class, which ended last week, another question emerged: Choosing the Nature of Death: Is DNR the way to go? As for all of you who do not know what DNR means; it simply refers to “Do Not Resuscitate”. DNR signifies a choice. A choice that a person must make; to either live or die; fight the battle of life or raise the flag of defeat; an important choice we all will have to make one day.

The decision to use or not to use extreme medical interventions entails several issues. One is the differentiation of “extreme” and “extraordinary” measures from those that are simply routine. There are no hard-and-fast rules; people making the decision must consider the needs of specific patients, his or her prior medical history, and factors such as age and even religion. For example, different standards might apply for a 12-year-old compared to an 85-year-old.

One thing is clear: Medical personnel are reluctant to carry out such gruesome medical procedures – pulling the plug on the patient’s life. Some patients who are terminally ill are not able to bear the pain, and ask for the end of their lives. Such a situation is not easy for doctors and family members alike. Imagine this situation: Your mother is terminally ill. She's been bedridden for the past two years, suffering from numerous diseases. She is put into a coma, so she will not suffer from the horrendous amount of pain. You are now given the chance to make a decision for her: Leave her on the ventilator or end her pain and suffering once and for all.

Most people, when asked a question such as the above, choose to get more advice on it. They will ask a number of doctors, physicians, other family members and even close friends. Believe it or not, most predictions made by doctors and physicians are inaccurate. More than half of these physicians and doctors say they understand, and know their patient’s preference when, to be simply honest with you, they know nothing. Here are a few numbers to show you what I mean:

- Terminal patients who did not want resuscitation 31%
- Of those patients who did not want resuscitation
, percentage whose physicians were aware of their 47%
preference
- Of those patients who did not want resuscitation
, percentage whose preferences were entered on their 49%
charts

(Source: Kub et al., 1995)

Euthanasia. The only legal way to kill someone.

Euthanasia, better known as “mercy killing”, is THE only legal way to end a person’s life – in some countries such as Oregon which passed a law in 1998 that allowed people to take their own lives. At first, when I heard that euthanasia was a legal way to kill someone I laughed my head off, because the first thing that came to my mind was a dog. I eventually concluded, that killing a person via euthanization is to kill a person as if her or she were a dog – a low life creature that has no place in community alive. But that was my initial thought, which eventually changed, but I still dislike the notion that killing a person should even be legal.

A bit of hard facts from history on euthanasia: Dr. Jack Kevorkian became well known – and frequently prosecuted – in the early 1990s for his invention and promotion of a “suicide machine”, which allowed patients to push a button that releases anaesthesia and a drug that stops the heart. By supplying the machine and drug, which the patients administered themselves, Kevorkian was participating in a process known as assisted suicide in which a person provides the means for a terminally ill individual to commit suicide.

Although he was first charged with murder, the initial cases were dismissed. However, the state of Michigan, where the assisted suicides took place, passed a law prohibiting the practice, and Kevorkian was sent to prison when he continued to aid people in their deaths.

(The Boston Globe, 2004)

Indeed it is quite a gut wrenching thing to know that people actually commit suicide because of pain, and sometimes have family members help them in their quest for death; but is it morally or ethically correct? In my view, which has been scrutinized over a long period of time, it is by far one of the most undignified ways to end one’s life; nor is it an easy way to die. As I have explained earlier, most patients live well way past their, let’s call it “due date”, predicted by doctors and physicians alike. There have been many cases where patients – terminally ill nonetheless – who have been given “due dates” of a few months to have lived an extra year or two. Predicting death is not a real science, it is more guess work than science. And no matter how skilled a doctor may be, how many PhD's he, or she, might have, death is something no human being can predict.

Death is ubiquitous. Outrunning it is out of the question. The time will come when everyone has to die, no matter how strong, healthy or rich they are. I believe it is all in the hand of God, and no human has the power to end his, or her, life or the life of others; even though it is what they wish.

And they say, “There is not but our worldly life; we die and live (i.e. some people die and others live, replacing them) and nothing destroys us except time.” And they have of that no knowledge; they are only assuming. And when Our verses are recited to them as clear evidences, their argument is only that they say, “Bring [back] our forefathers, if you should be truthful.” Say, “God causes you to live, then causes you to die; then He will assemble you for the Day of Resurrection, about which there is no doubt,” but most of the people do not know.
(Quran, 45:24-26)


Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me
[Psalm 23:4]
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So, now that my point has been made, I ask you on what your opinion is concerning both the above topics. Do they contradict what I have said, or do you have an opinion that fortifies my belief?

Honestly, I say Nay. I lost my grandparents to those things. It's not like the movies, and that's what most people don't understand. It's not, "Oh, we just pull the plug or don't hook him up, and they just drift away all peaceful like." It's painful! It's a worst death then anything I can imagine. And for the people who have to witness it, it's the thing of nightmares.

My grandmother was killed off by a doctor who believed in Euthenasia. They unhooked her resperator, but that didn't kill her. Euthenasia also entails of the doctors to not give food, water or medicines to the patients. You just cut them off of everything. While my grandma gasped for breath, she was slowly starved and dehydrated to death. My mom, who was the one appointed to sit with my grandmother in her last HOURS of life, still has nightmares about it.

My grandfather had a DNR. He died from a blood vessel breaking in his head. We all knew he was dying. We all knew that, even with a resporator, he'd be dead by morning. The doctor wanted to hook him up to a reporator for just a few hours, so that my family could get to say good-bye. Because of that damn DNR, he died while we were driving up! My family never got to say good-bye.

I'm against them both. I think they are just meant to kill off people, and who cares about the families who must witness and live with themselves afterwards.

I agree with both of you in a lot of ways. Though I'm' sorry to say I can't agree on a religious front anymore.

But by the same token it should always be a persons choice to do with their lives as they will. Though we should always consider to an extent loved ones feelings.

It's a difficult one, and will always provide controversy and arguement. If a person is not in a healthy mind, and ask for DNR or euthanasia. Do you say yes? What if in a few months they will feel a little better, let's say they are depressed and don't want to live, but in a few months they recover, at least for now.

They no longer want to die. But what if you already helped them to? What if their no longer in a fit state of mind to have a decision or even talk to you about it? It's a huge dilemna.

I wanna say one thing too. I hope I'm not being too personal but you shared so hopefully you expected a reply. I think the way your grandmother received euthanasia is horrible. Not the fact necessarily that she chose it or the doctor accepted, though I expect that was bad to go through as someone who loved her in a way I can't understand, but in the way that it happened. Surely if euthanasia is to happen at all it's through another means, maybe morphine or something. But to just let them die, or in this case to take away things that help them live. It just sounds awful

While it is a person's choice to live or die, I think that it is not a choice that should be taken lightly. About the question of, is it ethical? I'm not sure. But as far as, should it be legal to assist in someone's suicide, if not, it should not be because of god (in the US at least) as the people here are supposed to have freedom of religion.

I know that my Grandma chose to be starved to death because that was the better option for her. She was never going to get out of her bed again, and if she managed to, only with extreme pain. Her brain didn't even work the same way it did before. It was no quality of life at all.

But then there is my cousin Luke. When he was born he was in great pain and given a due date of several weeks. He will be celebrating his nineteenth birthday this December.

Playing God, though? Who's to even say what that is. Some people say that keeping them on respirators interferes with what God wants. Others say doing anything that could cause them to die (ie taking them off respirators) is playing God. Hard truth is that no one really knows the specifics of what God wants. You can read what you can, but in the end, it comes down to looking inside of yourself, looking your loved one in the face, and making a decision. You can't tell me that making the best decision you can, with you heart, that any god would punish you for that, fora decision made in love. I don't want any part of a god that would send me to burn for that.

With or without religion, you have to, in the end, make your own choice.

Actually, in the case of Amamelina's grandmother, the doctors used DNR. They did not resuscitate your grandmother by unhooking her respirator, and denying her both nutrition and nourishment is one way to quickly end her life. By using such a method, a gruesome method nontheless, it actually helps fortify the belief that DNR is a viable solution to end one's suffering and pain. I am truly sorry for your loss, Amamelina.

In a religious perspective, to me, death is in the hand of God. Life is sacred and it should not be taken away by anyone, even well recognized doctors or physicians who have multiple PhDs and whatnots; and only God has the right to take it away. It is my belief that we are just "borrowing" this body from Him, and He is the only one who has the power to take it away.(our lives)

But couldn't prolonging someone's life be playing God as much as ending? If it truly is up to God, then we have no more right to prolong life then we do to end it.

Isn't living primarily for God? I might be mistaken, but isn't that partly what life is all about?
God created us for worship to Him, and prolonging someone's life shouldn't be considered as playing God nor should it be considered an attack on Gods will.

And I ask you this: Isn't saving a life considered a benevolent act, in both the eyes of man and God, no matter how low or inconspicuous the person - or even animal - might be?

You can't know what lies in the eyes of god. No one can entirely. You can have a good idea. But I don't think that causing someone to have prolonged suffering is any more benevolent than a mercy kill.

Problems here:

Purpose of Life
Creation
Benevolence or goodness
What is god what does he want

These are all questions based on belief and perception, so the answer to each person is going to be different.

I agree with that wholeheartedly. Those questions are all very subjective, and differ when the question is posed to other people.

You don't let madmen and children make important decisions for themselves (or at any rate you really, really oughtn't to)—I don't see the special circumstance here, where an argument can certainly be made that the person suffering isn't in their normal, adult frame of mind (as an example, why else would the pain in torture work so well if it didn't make many people want to do anything to avoid it?). Many atheists, agnostics, et all have and will agree with that if they realize pain does crazy shit to your logic, unless they're also misanthropic Social Darwinists, so I don't even need to go into any sort of religion. Even if it's in their will, can you be sure that the specter of fear didn't loom over them when they wrote that?