Euthanasia after a happy life. Dog related but just as relevent to humans.

[Burlea]

Today is a sad day for my son and his family, us including. His dog who I have written about before (Gerald not his real name) is being put to sleep this morning.
Gerald has now become incontinent, he is struggling in lots of other ways breathing, walking, hardly eating. He has been a lovely dog loved by all and will be missed not only by the family but is brother (cryil again not his real name). The vet wanted to end it last week but on the day my son and his wife couldn't do it. But over the weekend they realised that it's now cruel to keep him alive.
This has got me thinking why can we not have control over ending our own lives when it is cruel to be kept alive. As an example one of our friends has an advanced form of MN, he now cannot speak, feed, walk and incontinent. He knew this was going to happen. Being locked in his body.
I don't know what the answer is. And I don't want to upset anyone. But why can you go abroad to a clinic I think Switzerland and have help to die with no repercussions yet not here.

I honestly don't know. Some people exist in ways we wouldn't keep an animal alive
My Nan said for the last year of her life that she was ready to go, she was tired, she had done everything she wanted to and she felt she was just sitting around waiting to die

I don't support euthanasia. I agree in theory that if someone is in pain and feels they have no quality of life, they should be allowed to make that decision, but I believe it would be too open to abuse and coercion.

Sorry about your dog.

Formerbabe, I don’t understand your post. You say that people in pain and with no quality of life should be allowed to make that decision, but that you don’t support euthanasia. These two statements are mutually exclusive. Or do you think doctors should have to break the law to comply with their pstients’ wishes?

In theory, i support euthanasia.

In practice, I am concerned about people being coerced and/or possible abuses.

How on earth can you not understand that?

I support euthanasia. My poor mum wanted to go, actually she needed to go.
She hated losing control of her mind and body.

I lost her two years before she died, she was a husk of a person sitting in a chair bemused by life. We as a family then went through a charade of being upbeat and chatty interspersed with tears and deep, deep sorrow at what she was going through ( and this is a home where she was looked after pretty well).

She needed to be lifted mechanically from a chair into a wheelchair to have personal care then wheeled back to the seat and that was her day.
That was the exact opposite of the life my mum lead before.

I don't want that for myself, no, no way. I will write a directive with the criteria I need to meet and hope and pray that the mechanism and checks are in place to allow it to happen. I hope that the compassion we show to animals will begin to be shared with humans by the time I need a it.

Formerbabe, as a doctor I’m struggling with the concept of how I can kill someone “theoretically”!
If you support euthanasia “in theory” but not in practice, then you basically do NOT support it.

I support Euthanasia in an ideal world where people made the decision for themselves because they felt that they'd lived their lives to the point where it was over.

However I fear people would chose it for fear of being a burden on families, fear of financial problems, loneliness etc. Either that or awful people using emotional abuse and manipulation into making people do it to gain inheritance or similar, it would have to be very, very tightly regulated.

I'm a care worker and I work with people at the worst of Thierry dementia journey, I often welcome death for them if I'm honest.

@Babdoc

@TitsalinaBumSquash explained what I meant better than I could have!

I have a theory that you know how the right wing press have turned us all against benefit claimants...and the means testing of child benefit has contributed to the horrible attitude that poor people shouldn't have children....I believe that if euthanasia was legalised, we'd eventually be in a situation where the media and public turn against ill/disabled people who don't choose it as they're costing the tax payer money. A bit out there maybe?

I’m a vet and have posted here before about this. I can’t tell you how many owners have told me, literally while crying over a pet I’ve just euthanised for them, how much they wish someone could have done the same thing for their human loved one. I know there are concerns about safeguarding. I understand that. I think good protocols would minimise the risk of abuse. And overall, would human suffering be reduced, even if there were very rare miscarriages of intent, when you think of the years of torment and living death that so many people are sometimes forced to endure now? We don’t see it because most people with advanced dementia or paralysis are in care homes. But I’ve spent years visiting care homes, and there are some very unhappy people there, even in the good ones. My mum was 93 yesterday. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she said, ‘death ‘. She wasn’t entirely joking (in her case no dementia, physical frailty). I think modern medicine has the wrong balance sometimes -it values extending life too highly compared to quality of life. There are incredibly strict safeguarding protocols to reduce the risk of abuse in schools etc now. I think strict regulation could effectively minimise the risk of involuntary euthanasia.People so often say how grateful they are that their dog didn’t have to suffer like their mum or husband did. I don’t see how that speaks well of a society. Also, there are worse things than a good death. Society has become so separated from death that people are terrified of it. But we all end up there. A gentle death is a gift that vets are privileged to give. It’s sad that people who want the same are denied it here.