8mm
Posted on 06/08/2008 11:49:59 AM PDT by wagglebee
Elderly foreign tourists are tapping Mexican pet shops for a drug used by veterinarians to put cats and dogs to sleep that has become the sedative of choice for euthanasia campaigners.
Tourists from as far as Australia have travelled to Mexico to buy liquid pentobarbital, which causes a painless death in humans in less than an hour, right-to-die advocates say.
Clutching photos of the bottled drug to overcome a lack of Spanish, they have maps sketched by euthanasia activists to locate back-street pet shops and veterinary supply stores near the US border. There they can buy a bottle for $35 to $50, enough for one suicide, no questions asked.
"We have a moral right to a peaceful death. I don't want to die with a total loss of dignity, incontinent, barely able to see and stand up, suffering as my mother did," said Bron Norman, a healthy 65-year-old Australian woman who spent $2,860 to fly to Mexico in March to buy pentobarbital.
Used legally across the world to anesthetise and euthanise farm animals and pets, pentobarbital, sometimes known by the trade name Nembutal, is tightly restricted to veterinarians.
But lax regulation in Mexico means it can easily be bought.
Euthanasia campaigners call it "the Mexico option" and say they are willing to travel so far because pentobarbital is one of the few drugs that produces a reliable and tranquil death by sending a person to sleep before shutting down breathing.
"There are few countries in the world where the drug is as readily available as in Mexico," said Australian doctor Philip Nitschke, who set up pro-euthanasia group Exit International.
Exit International has helped 250 people from Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand get pentobarbital in Mexico over the past few years. And, it says, interest is growing.
"You do this trip because you want an insurance policy," said Michael Irwin, a British euthanasia campaigner and former United Nations medical director who plans to take a dozen Britons to Mexico this year to buy the drug, helped by Exit.
"You make (the trip) in good health so that if you become terminally ill this can guarantee you a quicker exit."
Little does she know that by so willfully disregarding the Will of God she has already lost her dignity.
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Cue “Dead Man’s Party” by Oingo Boingo...
But, will they stop voting liberal?
When God wrote the rules there weren’t things like feeding tubes, resuscitators, heart machines, bypass machines, etc. I think it cruel people are kept alive by machines against their will......and yes, people do deserve to die with dignity. If you wish to lie in a bed diapered with tubes coming out of every orifice suffering while waiting to die feel free.
If you believe in that kind of thing. Most people don’t like to have religious groups imposing their morality on what they do with their body. This isn’t like an abortion, where an innocent party with no say in the matter is killed off, this is about people in extreme pain having the right to end their life by their own free will....
This is about suicide, not euthanasia.
My real problem comes when somebody tries to lure medical professionals into helping them commit suicide. “Helping” someone commit suicide is in fact homicide. It is a very dangerous precedent.
Women use to travel wherever necessary to get an abortion (although the baby was still dead as a result of their actions regardless of where the murder occurred).
Why are these people buying “original sin” to take home with them?
Why don’t they get a nice view of the beach and down it there?
Why the return trip ticket?
We are born with a total loss of dignity; naked, cold, wet, crying, incompetent and incontinent.
And they expected life to somehow “get better”?
Does the indignity begin with diapers? When they break out a bedpan or have to give you a sponge bath, should they first ask “are you sure you want to go on with this burdern on my profession?”
There are instances where people are ruled incompetent and sometimes without relations to look out for their best interests. While not in a coma, the state has declared that some people would be better off dead.
If you are walking around society and confess to having suicidal thoughts, you will be put under analysis and treated for “depression”. In some hospitals, they will advise it. That puts suicidal thoughts in someone’s head.
How much “free thought” is there to the decision?
comparing birth to death is nonsensical.....of course you were obviously a dumb baby. I came out of the chute fully clothed and speaking......and HEALTHY...which is an obvious characterization you left out.....
This is a story about PEOPLE making their OWN decision...not about doctors making it for them....try and stay on topic.
*these shops
“We have a moral right to a peaceful death.”
The next step is you have a moral obligation to accept a peaceful death, and no one has to get your permission first.
The situation you’ve described is why I wish the Japanese every success in developing robots for home care — before I need them. I’d rather have Rosie beeping cheerfully, while she looks after me; than be abused by a bitter, lazy, passive-aggressive “care giver”.
How stupid are these people. Don’t they know they could save a bundle in airfare and travel costs by staying home, having a few drinks and a sedative or two and going nighty-night in the running family car while parked in the garage? Anyone that wants to kill themselves need not campaign for this kind of crap. There are many easy ways of doing the job. This article is just disinformation in the same way that dope smokers tout the lack of ‘medical’ marijuana or that hemp production is the answer to America’s prayers for all the sailing, rope and paper needs that go begging.
Sheesh!
Why should so-called moral pushers decide for me whether I should live in pain or die quickly.
I have a right to decide that, not you.
Wait until you moral pushers need help and your laying there in pain.
You people make me sick.
Hey now there is a thought! Good ol’ Rosie! She never quits! I told my Dad, that “Maybe I could find new ways to motivate them” (Darth Vader line) one time while complaining about those bitches. Dad told me they would only quit, that would be an improvement. I could hire better, if my Aunts would let me. If I had “Rosie” that would be my “motivation” to make those lazy bitches actually work.
Are they breaking the law when bringing their purchase into the U.S.?
I would certainly think so.
And cute.
Don't forget cute.
Indeed we do. It's a right I claim. How I die is between me and my God, my spouse and to some extent my doctor. The state, church, the courts and busy-body FReepers have no say in the matter.
Not with a Dr’s RX... good luck getting that!
And with open borders they won’t have to sneak into Mexico but will soon be able to buy it here in the US.
This is absurd.
If people have a right to somehting, it shouldn't be a crime to help a disabled person exercise that right.
And as for the contention that helping someone is the same as doing something oneself, I should start calling my friend "Doctor," as she helped a disabled student earn his degree.
Yeah...give people the right to free speech, and next thing you know, you'll have an obligation to speak.
Or right to keep and bear arms...and they'll MAKE you do it.
Or right to vote and it will become compulsory.
Or right to assemble, and they'll make you go to rallies.
Or right to worship, and you'll be forced to go to church.
Heck, it's only a matter of time. Look at how half the state of Oregon has been killed off since they partially recognized a right to die.
</sarc>
Tell ya what... rather than focusing on reinforcing a police state where people have no right to die, why not focus on respecting a person's right to self-determination? That way, no matter how things break down, the slippery slope would slope against people forcing things against your will!
Oh, but let me guess...you don't really care about people's individual preferences and rights...you care more about controlling them, right?
Well, it is about euthanasia when any assistance is given, such as an organization facilitating travel to the pharmacy and the pharmacist supplying the drug with a reasonable suspicion of how it will be used.
And the poster of the thread and I believe suicide is against God's will as well. If one wants to convert finite earthly suffering into the infinite suffering of the afterlife, be my guest.
Some have written that in Biblical times there were no ventilators or feeding tubes to keep people alive (actually feeding tubes have been used for hundreds of years, but have become far more effective for long-term use with advances in plastics). But it is also true that there were no antibiotics or aspirin then either and very few people seem to object to these. But most importantly, there have been amazing advances in palliative pain treatment in the past few decades; pain is a factor in many terminal illnesses, but it can be managed.
Let’s say you wanted to drive over a cliff but you didn’t know how to drive. So, I put you in the passenger seat, rig up a stick on the gas pedal and bungy cord on the steering wheel, point to the cliff and send you on your way.
Whether you like the word or not, I just committed homicide.
I don’t think anyone has a moral or religious obligation to prolong their life as long as possible.
Obviously suicide among younger people with no health problems is something which must be prevented.
If and when my death becomes inevitable and life holds no more joy or hope, ending it on my terms doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
Jesus Himself came to this earth to be murdered, right? He knew full well what would happen before He came here.
That was Suicide by Cop, right?
Everyone has the right to commit suicide, even if it is a selfish act. I would only consider doing so if I had nothing to lose and no one to leave behind. I would define euthanasia more narrowly. Selling a potentially fatal drug does not mean very much since many drugs are potentially fatal under certain circumstances. Taking someone to a pharmacy to buy such a drug is also not euthanasia. Administering the drug is euthanasia.
sometimes
Don't bother with the facts. Bearing false witness is so much more fun.
Almost as much fun as watching suffering people have to continue suffering.
:-(
After watching both my father and brother die of cancer I could not agree with you less.
Your assertions do not rise to the level of common discourse on FReerepublic, and as such I will not be bothered to refute them, even if doing so is a simple matter of pointing out elementary semantic and logical errors.
I am not sure where I bore false witness. Perhaps you could enlighten me so I don’t do it again.
Euthanasia is ending someone else’s life through active or passive means because of a medical or quality of life problem, that motivation being the major difference from other kinds of homicide. Suicide, on the other hand, is self murder, ending one’s own life. Going to buy drugs for killing yourself with later is preparation for suicide, not euthanasia, which would be if someone brought you and especially if they gave you the drug.
What logical or semantic errors?
Sorry for not being clear. I was referring to others, not you.
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