Word: euthanasia
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...Left horribly disfigured and in frequent torment from incurable tumors that amassed in her sinuses and skull, Sébire's plea that doctors be allowed to legally terminate her life deeply moved French public opinion. It also prompted considerable reexamination of the nation's laws prohibiting active euthanasia -reflection that has continued in the wake of Sébire's March 19 suicide. But the passionate debate Sébire's case sparked may well have unfolded differently had the French public been informed about one neglected aspect: that Sébire had continually refused treatment for her disease...
...subsequently turned down the palliative services and pain-masking medication doctors offered. It was only after her tumors had grown too large and present on her brain that Sébire's determination to beat the disease on her own morphed into her final campaign to obtain legally permitted euthanasia from the same doctors whose treatment she'd originally rebuffed. That has caused considerable concern among observers and ethicists who note that neither the media attention directed to Sébire's distressing appeal to die, nor the public sympathy it generated, appeared aware of her own handling...
...unconscious until they die. As a last resort, such drug-induced sedation is legal in most countries including the U.S., and it is widely accepted as a mainstay of end-of-life care. Opponents of terminal sedation argue, however, that some doctors misuse the practice as a substitute for euthanasia. A study published last week in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) indicates this may be the case in the Netherlands. Physician-assisted suicide has been legal there - though highly regulated - since 2001, but its use has dropped in recent years. At the same time, Dutch physicians have turned more often...
Still, what's troubling about the new findings, Byock says, is the implication that doctors may be issuing the treatment either too early or without the patient's consent - or that they are using it to sidestep legal requirements to perform euthanasia. Nine percent of the patients in the study had in fact asked for euthanasia before being sedated. "Sedating someone until they die is a one-size-fits-all solution, but thoughtful pain management requires time and money," Byock says, noting that plans should always be discussed with patients and families well in advance. "One shouldn...
...frequently terminal sedation is used in the United States has never been studied, but estimates range from almost never to as much as 50% of the time in hospice care. The practice has been sanctioned in the U.S. since 1997, when the Supreme Court, in a decision outlawing euthanasia, explicitly ruled terminal sedation legal under the Constitution. But the procedure didn't make big headlines until 2006, when some experts suggested that it may have played a role in the deaths of four critically ill patients trapped in a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina. (Louisiana prosecutors went further, charging...