I’m so sorry about your Dad. I’m really torn on this issue - I don’t think it’s right for a person to commit suicide, but on the other hand I cannot imagine how horrible it must be to waste away in prolonged pain, knowing that the end result will be your death anyway.
Thanks. He was very independent and a great community guy. He wasn’t about to have his meals delivered and his butt wiped. They even had bathers scheduled.
If I’m ever in his position, I pray for the courage to do what he did. As shocking and horrible as it was, we completely understood. To call the police like that, wait for sirens, and go outside to spare the house. Even asked the cops to make sure the dog was given to the correct person.
On one hand, if Kevorkian was helping people commit suicide who were not terminally ill, that’s not far from murder. They may have wanted to die, but not for legitimate reason.
I too am mixed about this. I’ve watched two of my grandparents suffer from cancer. What will happen to a bedridden 90 year old man suffering from bone cancer? My grandfather, a man I loved dearly, wasted away over a period of a few months with a terminal (and very painful) illness. The inevitable result was death.
Consider the case of Terri Schiavo, who was left to starve and dehydrate, Nazi-style, over a period of 13 days in a “health care” facility. Logically, once you decide you will not provide her with food and water, she’s going to die. It’s been established she can’t get that on her own. Why people somehow think it’s acceptable that she died of “natural causes” is beyond me.
Once a person is going to die, I believe there should be an option to do so humanely. I am not sure why it is believed that euthanasia is wrong but suffering in pain to an inevitable death is right. I do not know the full depth of what Kevorkian did and I don’t think anybody but God does. I don’t mean to defend him, but the theoretical concepts he put forward have merit.