Dr. Kevorkian

So Steve and I watched a movie about Dr. Kevorkian tonight--soooo interesting. Maybe we're nerds, but we both find medical issues, especially life and death situations fascinating. Steve said that if he didn't believe in God, he would "get" Dr. Kevorkian, and I would have to agree! He got a little whacked out in the end to pursue making "a point", but at least his legitimate desire was to help patients to be free of pain and their miserable quality of life. We both thought it was interesting that he turned down hundreds of requests for his help by patients in whom death was not imminent, i.e. they were just depressed and could seek psychiatric help to seek a somewhat normal life. So I don't think he was completely psycho, as he did evaluate the quality of life and imminence of death of the patients he actually assisted in euthanasia. 

After the movie we had about an hour-long debate on the issue haha. As a nurse in the ICU, I've seen a lot of people die. I've seen a lot of patients with no quality of life, who are miserable, who just want "to go home", who don't interact much with loved ones, and who are not getting better. I've also seen patients who are depressed with their new or old medical issues who want to give up, but still have decent qualities of life. I've participated in discussions and answered questions from patients and patients' family members about making the decision to withdraw medical support and the dying process. I've caught a mother who fainted after her 24-year-old drug addict daughter died. I've cleaned and prepared a lot of dead bodies for the morgue or funeral home. It's a very surreal thing. It's a very spiritual thing. My opinion is that if death is imminent, if you are done fighting, if you want us to take out the tubes and medications and other support, by all means, yank them out and let's get you home in your bed with as much morphine as you want. If you ask me to douse you in potassium so you can go toward the light, I'm sorry but I don't think I'd fare very well in prison...Whether you tell the doctor you're done fighting, or whether the doctor approaches you and tells you that you may not be getting better, it's your decision how much medical intervention you allow. You're not choosing TO DIE, it's not suicide, you're just choosing to disallow medical intervention.

Steve on the other hand believes it is suicide. He doesn't believe that it is OK for a person to mentally give up and choose to stop fighting. We didn't choose to come to this world, God asked us to and we agreed. Therefore, it's not up to us to decide that we're done with this life that he gave us. It's suicide. He doesn't believe it's OK for us to decide we're done if there's a chance that life would be feasible if we continued to fight. If a doctor approaches you and tells you the reality of the situation and you want to go home to be comfortable in the end, then that's OK. Understandable to a point...? Maybe?

I then presented several different situations with all sorts of twists---it's all such a grey area and fine lined subject. I did tell him that if he keeps me alive against my will, I WILL bite down on that breathing tube and rip out anything I can, then haunt him when I finally DO go haha. What do you think?