“So you think you’re free. You are part of a democratic society, so you have the freedom of choice in how you live – and die. Well, you don’t.”
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“There should be a JLMA form: Just Leave Me Alone, for those of us who concede that we’re actually going to die some day and work to keep our end-times as inexpensive and comfortable as possible.”
“One of the most common questions asked by people considering ending their suffering is how to start the conversation with family members and friends.”
“Your mother didn’t choose a terminal illness. She only chose not to let the disease pick when and how she would die.”
“We live in a culture that’s intensely driven by productivity, accomplishments, and academic achievements. In doing this, we’ve forgotten about our wise ones, the storytellers, the original wisdom keepers, the Elders.”
“‘Don’t let the patient die’… is that the right thing or the wrong thing for a given patient? It is time for physicians to think that through more completely and allow, perhaps, a different answer.”
“Why would an anti-MAiD activist try to force a patient about whom they know nothing, to live by the activist’s personal values rather than the patient’s own?”
“The sentence that sent my blood pressure skyward was this: ‘Even if my patients are beyond pain, there is also a cost to those who are forced to perform emergency efforts that is just that: a performance.’”
Jewish law states the dying are to be considered, for legal purposes, “like one who is alive for every purpose”, capable of wielding the same power over their lives until their very last moments, as they did in their days of health.
Had she been the family’s beloved old Labrador or suffering Boston Terrier, we would have taken her to the vet for a final loving, humane act, a choice unavailable to her family, doctors, or caregivers.
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