Assisted suicide is an emotional issue for many people, especially those who have watched a loved one suffer from a long and sometimes painful death. Next year, the debate over whether assisted suicide should be legal in Connecticut is expected to be heard at the state capitol, and Sunday on Face the State we will hear from a woman who arrested for her role in her father’s death.
Watch the 60 Minutes story of Barbara Mancini here
and watch her appearance on Face the State today at 11AM on WFSB Channel 3/
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Dennis House blog 
Wow
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I’m glad the 60 Minutes spot was not entirely one-sided. There are many of us who question why a case as weak as the one against Barbara Mancini was prosecuted so aggressively…you heard her say right there, she couldn’t have known for sure what her father’s intent was with his pain medication.
It is completely inappropriate to use this case to push for the bill that has been proposed two years in a row here in CT. That bill, as Dr. Andrews from Branford pointed out so well, would have mandated that doctors sign death certificates with a false cause of death on them. (Video here http://youtu.be/n96M8ic8_zM) Under normal circumstances falsifying a death certificate is a felony. The bill would also not have established any oversight or reporting requirements for external accountability…Oregon’s is a joke, because they expect people to report themselves for noncompliance, but we would have had nothing. Does that sound like transparency? This has been brought up repeatedly. Ms. Coombs Lee herself was present for at least one of the CT hearings that I recall, and the regional coordinator was there too. I can only conclude that they either have a very strange idea of what transparency looks like or they are being dishonest.
I’m not saying the status quo is not flawed. The amazing thing is that in CT we have a pilot program that could become an example for the rest of the nation — and C&C had literally nothing to do with it. They weren’t involved and didn’t even submit testimony for or against it, but were happy to try to piggyback off it anyway: http://ctmirror.org/emergency-responders-disability-advocates-backing-end-of-life-care-proposal/
No, I don’t believe assisted suicide and “better end of life care” can coexist. I think anyone would be hard pressed to find a scenario in which 100 barbiturate pills are not the cheaper and easier solution in a resource-conscious, profit-driven system. That is human nature. We also have to address this attitude that it is preferable to be dead than to depend on others for help with basic needs — extreme independence might have helped Americans survive the frontier, but it’s not going to help us survive old age in 2014.
Readers will recall that the late Senator Kennedy died of a brain tumor. When Victoria Reggie Kennedy wrote against Massachusetts’ assisted suicide bill, she said, “My husband used to paraphrase H.L. Mencken: for every complex problem, there’s a simple easy answer. And it’s wrong.” Her full letter is here: http://t.capecodtimes.com/article/20121027/OPINION/210270347
Please, Connecticut…we all want to help, but let’s really think this through and not just put a loaded gun (or should I say a bottle of poison) into people’s hands.
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Should be totally
LEGAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I agree 100 % my husband was diagnosed too late with pancreatic cancer. He only had 6 months to live. The pain he went through was horrible. I sat next to him in a recliner which he sat in his. Screaming in pain everyday. He just wanted to die and not have his kids and myself go through anymore of this. This would out give a terminal patient the right to end it instead of going through all that pain and making their loved ones suffer watching them to die. I would want to do it.
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Should be legal. Each person can make their own choice. If I were dying of a terminal disease I’d like to have the choice to die with dignity.
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For anyone who hasnt watched and had to be part of someone debilitating pain on a daily basis knowing it was only getting worse due to the progression of the disease really doesnt understand at all. When the only benefit that comes from their suffering is the hospitals the doctors and the phamacutical companie get richer. BTW, pain medication during a long illness also loses its benefit as bodies become tolerant and does nothing to ease their pain. When I hear all the nay sayers try to tell me that they can better the care so that the quality of life can be mantained again just dont understand. I watched and watched the love of my life cry, lay in bed, not being able to get up, eat food to hold it down and become a shell of who she was. She pleaded with every and any physician to some how ease her pain and nothing worked. Then one Saturday I came home from work after talking with here two hours earlier, we had agreed to again go to the ER to try to find some relief, well she felt compelled to take her own life as well by taking all her meds. She left a note telling all those she loved that she in fact loved all of us but just could not live like this anymore, the pain was too great, the knowledge of knowing she was never going to get better just get more pain, more suffering… NO HUMAN should ever have to live like this is they chose not to… so while everyone has a right to an opinion, if you havent walked in their shoes, if you havent taken care of someone in these debilatating conditions I first pray that you never have too and second I wish that you would not believe that your opinion or education makes you better to decide the fate they should have the right to decide… I for one will not allow any doctor, hospital or company the opportunity to get rich and give some blatantly fake empathy to me. Its my life, its my choice, to make individuals have to decide to committ suicide and not have the choice of compassionate death is inhumane, we treat animals better
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It should be legal. We can euthanize an animal when they are terminal why can’t we do the same for humans?
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Should be Legal to choose!
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