The Rights of the Terminally Ill

NOTE: The Corona virus crisis is forcing us to make many changes making the familiar all that much more important. We shall therefore continue posting as we normally do.

One in 6 hospital patients are now being cared for in a Catholic hospital.  For people who believe in assisted end of life, that has huge consequences. Catholic hospital see assisting end of life as intrinsically evil, and insist their physicians abide by their principles, which means that should a doctor sympathize with a patient as happened between Neil Mahoney and   Dr, Barbara Morris in Colorado, the doctor gets fired.

Eight states currently have assisted dying laws (Oregon, California, Washington, Montana, Colorado, Vermont, Maine and New Jersey) and they are being considered in some 20 additional states. That’s a lot of people who wish for a say so as to how they die, when and how much pain they can endure.

I believe in assisted end of life. My own understanding says that to lie in a bed under palliative care sedated to deal with pain impedes and not eases the process of dying. That is not what I want, and neither do I want the principles of another religion to be imposed upon me.  What happened in the case of Neil Mahoney was that without a doctor’s prescription the medication he needed to end his life could not be filled. He eventually did find a pharmacist who believes in dying with dignity and who was able to help him.  But the issue remains, should the religious beliefs of a hospital dictate how I or anyone with another spiritual view should die?

The Lack of Palliative Care

In many poor and middle income countries untold millions are in pain due to illnesses like cancer and are not able to receive needed relief.  A chief reason is the opioid epidemic in the US. These countries are afraid that if the opioids needed to alleviate pain were made available more freely, that they too would end up with an epidemic.  While the US has 31 times the amount of drugs it needs, the result of this fear and avoidance is that Haiti has about 0.2% of what it requires and Nigeria even Continue reading “The Lack of Palliative Care”