The Right to Die

[POWERJIM]

Do you feel that a seriously ill person deserves the Right to die in dignity rather than in pain?

[POWERJIM]

Heres an example of an Extremely ill person being refused the right to die.


A terminally ill British woman has lost her final legal bid to be allowed to die.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on 29 April that the refusal of the British courts to allow Diane Pretty's husband to help her to die did not contravene her human rights.

The ruling marks the end of the legal road for 43-year-old Mrs Pretty, who is in the advanced stages of motor neurone disease.

The law has taken all my rights away

Diane Pretty
The verdict came just hours before it was announced that another woman - known as Miss B - had died after she had won her right to have medical treatment withdrawn.

Speaking at a news conference in London, Mrs Pretty's husband Brian criticised the ruling in her case and urged the public to back a campaign to lobby the government to change the law to allow voluntary euthanasia.

Mrs Pretty, who is paralysed from the neck down, also criticised the verdict. Speaking with the aid of a computer, she said: "The law has taken all my rights away."

Mr Pretty told journalists: "I am pleased in one respect because I have my wife with me a little longer but I am very sad because her choice on when she should die has been taken away from her."

Public campaign

He urged members of the public to sign a petition, available on Diane's website, to back a change in the law.

"If the British people are behind Diane as polls suggest it will be great hope for Diane," he said.

"With their help and their help alone can we ask the government to relook at these laws."

The Voluntary Euthanasia Society and civil rights organisation Liberty said the Director for Public Prosecution could draw up a policy document outlining when individuals could help others to die without fear of prosecution.

Mrs Pretty's solicitor Mona Arshi said: "The DPP could publish a policy outlining when he would not prosecute."

VES director Deborah Annetts added: "As a lasting testimony to the courage of Diane Pretty we ask the DPP to put a policy in place."

Unanimous verdict

The seven judges of the European Court ruled unanimously that the refusal of the government to allow Mrs Pretty's husband to help her to die did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

In their verdict, the judges said: "The Court could not but be sympathetic to the applicant's apprehension that without the possibility of ending her life she faced the prospect of a distressing death."


Mrs Pretty has motor neurone disease

But they added: "No right to die, whether at the hands of a third person or with the assistance of a public authority could be derived."

Appeals against the court decision can only be made in exceptional circumstances.

Mrs Pretty's lawyers said they were not considering to launch an appeal.

Reaction to the verdict has been mixed.

Richard Green, of the Motor Neurone Disease Association, said its members were divided over the case.

He told BBC News: "There are many in the association who supported her application but equally there are people in the association who would have been horrified if there was a change in the law."

The Medical Ethics Alliance welcomed the verdict saying a "right-to-die" ruling would have put many disabled and elderly people at risk.

Dr Michael Wilks, of the British Medical Association, said: "The European Court of Human Rights has made the right decision."

Bruno Quintavalle of the anti-euthanasia ProLife Alliance said: "We are thankful but not surprised by the Strasbourg court's unanimous rejection of her claim to have a right to die under the European Convention on Human Rights."

[Hawkwind]

This is a hard one for me to decide on. More than once in my life I was down and out physically so badly and in so much pain that all I wanted was to just go quietly in my sleep.

And when they thought I had MS...a disease that is known to be progressive. I really didn't know what I would do. I've spent the majority of my life since my teens getting brought down and dragging myself back up.

I've watched a friend waste away from aids, a grandmother waste away from cancer...the list of those I have watched suffer goes on.

In my case, when the depression from the pain hits I could very easily have made a decision to 'end the pain' that would have had profound consequences for my children. They always wanted me to pull through and have always been a very integral part of why I have never quite given up.

I'm facing a very difficult treatment protocol in the very near future. Of my own volition. I want the chance to try one more time to put my disorder on the back burner. My quality of life has been sketchy at best for more years than I care to remember.

To compound my quandry I have been brought up to believe that taking ones own life is just not done. I've seen the devastation left behind when the father of a friend of mine took his life when we were young because he couldn't stand the pain any longer. My friend was told by her priest that her father would go to hell because he commited suicide. How can you say that to a youth? How the hell does that priest know for sure my friends dad went to hell? He was a wonderful man that did everything he could for his family and was cut down in his prime by cancer.

I will say that I feel doctors need to manage pain better and stop f*cking worrying about addictions. People that live with chronic disorders are in too dayumed much pain. Addiction is a possibility. But is actually much more rare than people realize. And as much as I gave up recreational marijuana use back in my early 20's there is a very real need for medicinal use. I know. I self medicated migraines for three years after all the meds the doctors used on me failed and even made me sicker.

We need to stop treating people that need meds that are considered controlled substances as if they are addicts or criminals when all they want is to improve their quality of life and keep debilitating pain to a very bare minimum.

There is much the medical community can do to help these people. The government needs to get off their dayumed high horse and stop over legislating the lives of the terminally/chronically ill.

[Patrick_Bateman]

Easy decision....hell yes, I recognize no nation as having power to decide if I can take my own life when I choose. When people get that sick they need to have the balls to end it themselves and not really on the medical community to help them......and also be smart enough not to get so ill they can't take there own life. As for those who are put in that situation by sudden injury I feel sorry for them, and would hope a family member would carry out there wishes.

[Cammo]

Let them die with dignity - if you kept an animal alive in some of the states these people were in, you'd be hauled across the coals and slapped with a hefty fine, maybe even a prison sentence.

Dr's just like to play god a lot of the time..... "keep them alive at any cost" - it's quite sick.

[Hawkwind]

When people get that sick they need to have the balls to end it themselves and not really on the medical community to help them......and also be smart enough not to get so ill they can't take there own life.

Actually ... if I were to go along with either of those statements I would be dead already a couple times over.

If I had followed through and ended my life myself I would have robbed my kids of a caring mom.

As far as being "smart enough not to get so ill that they can't take there own life"...obviously you have never wrangled with any type of illness or disorder that can take you down suddenly.

One episode that stands out in my mind was the time encephalic swelling set in. I was driving my bus...made it through the first route and had to pull into the bus company to have my supervisor take over for my second route. She called my mother to come get me as I became so ill so suddenly that I couldn't stand up let alone drive myself to the emergency room. I ended up literally on my face for 7 days until the swelling, fever and pain worked out of my system. I was so sick and in so much pain and puked so much over that time frame that I can tell you that I wanted it all to end.

I had gone into work with just a slight headache....

[TorontoMoFo]

Its completely the persons right.

If the victim can express clearly and legitimately that they want to die, then so be it.

Make something good out of something bad.

[7digits]

i refuse to be kept alive by machines. when it is my time to go, i'm going to go the same way i came into to this world, kicking and screaming.

[Boogeyman]

I'm hoping I don't get sick and die in the first place..

[travis8798]

Yes.

Personally, when I get to the point that I can't function entirely on my own...I don't want to be alive anymore. Call it selfish or whatever you want...but I don't see the point in "living" if you are on a ton of medications, can't walk, can't see, need oxygen, or something else along those lines.

[Babbs]

I agree with Travis and the majority of others that have posted here.

[adrenaline]

Im gona b a total dag.. and say...

Open the good book to Exodus 20:13 or Deuteronomy 5:17... Thy Shall not kill... so yer im sticken by that for now... but i understand im some situations u need to use common sence but the reason why the person has been "Bistowed upon such a treatment" is up to god and their time will come... ANimals are not Humans Cammo.. We differ we have a spiritual side...

But i guess you only follow that if your a christian if your not.. well whateva pop the the pill out