8mm
Posted on 04/01/2008 1:50:53 PM PDT by wagglebee
Very few people could have looked upon Chantal Sébire at the end of her life and not understood why the former schoolteacher wished to end it. Left horribly disfigured and in frequent torment from incurable tumors that amassed in her sinuses and skull, Sébire's plea that doctors be allowed to legally terminate her life deeply moved French public opinion. It also prompted considerable reexamination of the nation's laws prohibiting active euthanasia —reflection that has continued in the wake of Sébire's March 19 suicide. But the passionate debate Sébire's case sparked may well have unfolded differently had the French public been informed about one neglected aspect: that Sébire had continually refused treatment for her disease for nearly a half decade before it evolved to the terminal phase that resulted in her wanting to die.
Doctors with intimate knowledge of the case tell TIME that though extremely rare, the esthesioneuroblastoma disease Sébire suffered from is now routinely controlled through early detection and surgical removal of the tumors from the nasal vault. Through such operations, specialists say, patients typically go on to lead relatively normal lives. Yet after the disease was diagnosed as the cause of her repeated nose bleeds in 2002, Sébire rejected proposals of surgical intervention — and subsequently turned down the palliative services and pain-masking medication doctors offered. It was only after her tumors had grown too large and present on her brain that Sébire's determination to beat the disease on her own morphed into her final campaign to obtain legally permitted euthanasia from the same doctors whose treatment she'd originally rebuffed.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Based on her comment about not wanting doctors to put “chemical poisons” in her body, my guess is she was trying holistic, natural treatments that didn’t work.
Until the same culture-of-death libs make guns illegal, you can go to a store, pick up a piece, and make your own do-it-yourself euthanasia machine. No state sanction required.
Until socialized medicine is put in place by the same culture-of-death libs, you can get the required meds from your local pharmacy (with scripts from one cooperative or 3-4 uncooperative physicians). No state sanction required.
Or you can commit police-assisted suicide. Or you can drive your car off a cliff. Or you can go to Home Depot and pick up a rope. No state sanction required.
Problem with state sanctioned suicide is not that you commit suicide. That's between you and your god (lower case intentional). Problem is that there will be a cultural shift that will eventually make it seem like the "responsible" thing to do (for your heirs, for the insurance company, or for the State).
If YOU had bothered to read the article, all of it because it had to be exerpted, YOU would have seen that her cancer was treatable and not terminal. She refused treatment, that is nobody's fault but her own. I might also point out that this article is from TIME magazine, not a pro-life publication that you and your ilk like to discredit.
No offense, but I truly believe you are certifiably insane.
If you think, even for a second, that I give a damn about your opinion you are gravely mistaken.
I can't help but think that if a person with any self respect and ingtegrity had said the following, that they would no longer be here:
| Will FR embrace socialism to make way for Rudy Giuliani as a Republican presidential candidate? |
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| Posted by Hildy to Jim Robinson On 04/26/2007 5:04:58 PM PDT · 11,382 of 18,431 You will “KEEP” me around as an example - that’s rich. FR has become one big circle jerk. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. I mourn the great site this once was. Goodbye Jim. It was a great decade and it’s been an interesting ride. I wish you and your family nothing but happiness. Life is too short for this kind of nonsense. Please close my account. Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11,354 | View Replies |
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Well, you cared for more than one second...by my count it was about 10 seconds to respond to my post, and then another three minutes to dig up that old piece of news, cut it, paste it and tell me how much you don't respect me...
So by my calculation, you care about me about five minutes more than I care about you. Ta ta.
Even though I don’t care what you think about me, I still want to make sure that others understand how contrary your views are to those of genuine conservatives.
"Yet after the disease was diagnosed as the cause of her repeated nose bleeds in 2002, Sébire rejected proposals of surgical intervention — and subsequently turned down the palliative services and pain-masking medication doctors offered."
She REFUSED treatment, she didn't have to suffer or die. Her illness was used by her and others to advance a ghoulish agenda to the detriment of her own well being. If anyone can be considered "certifiably insane," is is Sébire and the death mongers who manipulated her. Or perhaps even you, for you seem to be so consumed by your myopic devotion to the culture of death that you are unable to understand that even the liberal media is running for cover on this case.
“Problem with state sanctioned suicide is not that you commit suicide. That’s between you and your god (lower case intentional). Problem is that there will be a cultural shift that will eventually make it seem like the “responsible” thing to do (for your heirs, for the insurance company, or for the State).”
I agree that there is a dark history involved in state-sanctioned suicide, so it’s imperative to avoid it. That’s why I would really only condone non-physician / non-state suicide assistance.
You go to a privately run organization and request a simple machine that will induce a lethal injection. You do it all by yourself. Maybe a doctor’s written opinion is required to state that you actually have a terminal illness— but that would be the extent of the doctor’s involvement, and I’m not even sure THAT should be necessary.
This is for all the folks out there who don’t want to have a “messy” death. I think it’s sensible.
I understand that you are not religious and this question is not meant to be religious, but who had more “dignity” in life and death, Adolph Hitler who was dressed in in finest uniform and chose the exact moment of his death or Jesus Christ who was beaten, bloodied, and humiliated on the Cross?
If a person has shown no dignity in life, I don’t think it matters how “dignified” they appear in their final moments, and a person who has lead a dignified life will have dignity at his final breath no matter how “messy” it is.
Your comparison is understood and valid— you have a point. But it really is an extreme comparison.
On a more practical, “real world” level, I submit the examples of my parents who both died at young ages after long and horrendous battles with cancer. My mom never expressed a desire to end her suffering early to me— but I was only 16 years old at the time.
My dad, however, did express the desire. He said many times that he should just shoot himself, but he was worried about a number of things: that it would be physically messy and disgusting, that it would traumatize everyone around him, that he would look weak, and that it would have to be done secretly and that people would be angry, etc.
He never said “wouldn’t it be nice if there was an accepted form of suicide... blah, blah, blah...” but I am making that logical leap.
He was in terrible physical and psychic pain for many many months. IF there was a painless and generally accepted practice for ending one’s suffering, he would certainly have considered it.
And, by the way, he was a Catholic.
So, this is where I am personally coming from on this issue.
Oh, and one other thing. As said above, he was a believing Catholic, and I am a non-believer (at least for now). And when he expressed his desire to end his own suffering, I NEVER counseled him to seek it.
AT ALL.
I left that decision to himself. I never gave an opinion one way or the other, I just listened and held his hand.
I am not the “Cult of Death” that so many here talk about, and I submit to you that there are many other non-religious (and even religious) folks who behave the same as I.
There is. It's called palliative care.
You go to a privately run organization and request a simple machine that will induce a lethal injection. You do it all by yourself. Maybe a doctor’s written opinion is required to state that you actually have a terminal illness— but that would be the extent of the doctor’s involvement, and I’m not even sure THAT should be necessary.
This is for all the folks out there who don’t want to have a “messy” death. I think it’s sensible.
The issue I was highlighting earlier was not state sponsorship, but state sanction. In other words, if suicide or assistance in providing suicide were legal.
In all candor, I just "googled" suicide methodologies and there were detailed instructions for multiple methods of doing so relatively painlessly and for little expense. For propriety, I will not post any links...but with minimal creativity, one could get a "do it yourself it" very easily.
Having said this, don't get the idea that I approve of it or condone it. The point is that an individual who has made up his mind doesn't need State approval. It doesn't need a "Suicide for Less" convenience store with a drive-thru window. It doesn't require a lot of money and it doesn't require compromising a physician's Hippocratic Oath (for those who still have to take that oath). My approval or disapproval is irrelevant, as is State Sanction (i.e., decriminalization).
Look up the facts about coerced abortions in the United
States (parents or “father” pressuring the woman) and
rethink your off hand statement.
Pinging you in light of the earlier thread on this. Please read the whole article, it’s excerpted.
This troubles me, from the article:
"That question of her personal decision in dealing with her disease early on in no way alters her right to a dignified death later in life, argues Emmanuel Debost, a general practitioner who treated and supported Sébire even before her fatal disease was diagnosed. "It also tries to discredit that right to a dignified end by suggesting my patient was somehow guilty in the terminal evolution of her disease."
I fail to understand how she was not guilty in the evolution of her disease. She refused acceptable, established treatment. As a result, her disease progressed. And why, why would this doctor have stood by her decision? This doesn't sound like a disease which is difficult in the diagnosing. This isn't like a pediatrician standing by a parent's decision to steer clear of Ritalin because his child may have something called ADHD. What this doctor did sounds like reckless endangerment.
I applaud the French for not caving in to her demands to be euthanized.
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