Forums: Assisted Reproductive Technology

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Terminally ill patients with less than six months to live will soon be able to ask their doctors to prescribe them lethal medication in Washington state. But even though the "Death with Dignity" law takes effect Thursday, people who might seek the life-ending prescriptions could find their doctors conflicted or not willing to write them. Many doctors are hesitant to talk publicly about where they stand on the issue, said Dr. Tom Preston, a retired cardiologist and board member of Compassion & Choices, the group that campaigned for and supports the law.

When I saw this headline, I wondered what it could possibly mean: "Drugs like LSD and Ecstasy 'could help terminally ill'." Turns out (drat!) that it doesn't mean that those hits of acid you may have swallowed when you were young and irresponsible will help you live longer. The first clinical trial involving LSD since the 1970s began in Switzerland in June with the aim of using "psychedelic psychotherapy" to help terminally ill patients come to terms with imminent death to improve the quality of their remaining life. Eight subjects will receive 200 micrograms of LSD - enough to induce...

Rabbi Gurkow: Welcome to the Rabbi's one on one chat room, how can I help you today? jewishscoller: whats the jewish take on assisted suicide Rabbi Gurkow: itis forbidden to take one;s own life or to help another take theirs jewishscoller: but why, whats so bad about puting somebody out of there misery jewishscoller: im sry to argue im am 100% against it i just want to get more details about it Rabbi Gurkow: let me ask you if you think it is ok to help a young functional man or woman out of their misery because they want you...

The Vermont House of Representatives voted against a proposal yesterday that would have made the state the second in the country to permit physician-assisted suicide, following Oregon. House members voted 82-63 against the measure euphemistically entitled "Patient Choice and Control at End of Life," after a week of impassioned debate on the issue, the Associated Press reported. The legislation would have made it legal for a doctor to assist a patient with a terminal illness to commit suicide by prescribe lethal medication. "In my view, (the bill) goes too far in enforcing one group's preferences on the traditional values of...

THE MAN I KILLED did not want to die, but he no longer felt he had much of a choice. He had gone from being tall and strapping, full of appetites and a brilliant manner of speech, to a skeleton, weak and full of messy needs. He and his wife still loved each other very much, but... he was 60 when he was diagnosed with cancer. ...One day over lunch, I told him that if he ever experienced too much pain or diminishment, I would try to help him die on his own terms, if he wanted. He was amazed,...

A long-dormant bill that would allow the terminally ill to obtain life-ending drugs from their physicians appeared to be headed for defeat Tuesday in a Senate committee after a wavering Democrat turned against it. Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Garden Grove, said he struggled with how to vote on the bill and ultimately decided it could lead to a broader use of assisted suicide than contemplated by the measure's authors because of future pressures to cut medical costs. "In this society, more often than not, public policy decisions are driven unfortunately by money concerns, not by policy concerns," said Dunn, the chairman...

The U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of the Bush administration's heavy-handed threats to prosecute Oregon physicians has revived the debate over whether California should allow doctors to help their terminally ill patients commit suicide. The fact that Oregon's law has survived the court challenge does not make physician-assisted suicide good public policy. It emphatically is not, for the simple reason that it exposes the most vulnerable members of society – the elderly, the disabled, the poor, the mentally impaired, the terminally ill – to unwarranted pressures to take their own lives because they are a financial burden on their families and...