Quotes About Euthanasia

Once I had a dog that died of lead poisoning . . . I shot him in the head.

The practice of euthanasia, under some circumstances, is morally required by the two most widely regarded principles that guide medical practice: respect for patient autonomy and promoting patient's best interests. In the Netherlands and Belgium active euthanasia may be carried out within the law.

Mental patients and disabled people appear to have been the first ones the Nazis actually gassed; they killed at least 50,000 in an experimental euthanasia program code-named Aktion T4 that began in the fall of 1939.

There are only two ways out for animals at pounds--being adopted or being killed. And cats have such a low rate of adoption that many pounds, even in some larger cities, don't bother to take them in at all. Not for nothing is it always the "dog pound" and never the "cat pound."

happy life and merciful death

The patient decides when it's best to go.

If human life becomes cheapened, it becomes cheapened at both ends. Parents are killed, by euthanasia, when they become a "burden" to their children; and children are killed, by abortion, when they become a "burden" to their parents. All societies in history would regard these two sins as two of the most heartless and inhuman possible sins. To kill your parents is to kill yourself, your own past; and to kill your children is to kill yourself, your own future.

Voluntary euthanasia occurs only when, to the best of medical knowledge, a person is suffering from an incurable and painful or extremely distressing condition. In these circumstances one cannot say that to choose to die quickly is obviously irrational.

Legal, regulated voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide have far less potential for abuse, and when they are available, there is no need to make it easy for people to find out how to kill themselves.

In the Netherlands, a nationwide government-commissioned study found that 'many patients want an assurance that their doctor will assist them to die should suffering become unbearable'. Often, having received this assurance, no request for euthanasia eventuated. The availability of euthanasia brought comfort without euthanasia having to be provided.

Alexander singles out the Nazis' so-called euthanasia program as the root of all the horrendous crimes the Nazis later committed, because that program implied 'that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived'.

If you present your dog to a veterinarian with the instruction to put him to sleep, you would normally mean something very different than you would upon taking your wife or husband to an anesthesiologist with the same words.

My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized.

When all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.

Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death.

I'm trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.

Absolute monarchy,... is the easiest death, the true Euthanasia of the BRITISH constitution.

Our confused society badly needs a community of contrast, a counter-culture of ordinary pilgrims who insist on living a different way. We can make the world stop and think before pulling a trigger, or exacting revenge, or neglecting the vulnerable, or practising euthanasia on those it deems 'devoid of value'.

The dilemma is awesome. But it has to be faced. Should you battle on, take the pain, endure the indignities, and await the inevitable end, which may be days, weeks, or months away? Or should you take control of the situation and resort to some form of euthanasia, which in its modern-language definition has come to mean "help with a good death"?

Involuntary euthanasia – This is the most controversial way of hastened death, yet it goes on widely and secretly everywhere. Only the Dutch admit to it. It is sometimes necessary when a patient is suddenly, unexpectedly dying in agony, cannot communicate their wishes, and so the attending doctor administers a merciful end.

However much the drink is loaded with sweeteners, patients say it still tastes awful. Usually observers have noticed that the patients are so desperate to die that they ignore the nasty tasting drink. The Oregon dosage is: Seconal capsules reduced to powder - 9 grams & Pure water - 4 ounces – OR – Liquid Nembutal - 9 grams & Add water to suit

Self-destruction by hanging is almost always an act of protest, a desire to shock and hurt someone. Therefore, believers in euthanasia avoid it. Even if the job of cutting down the body is left to the police or paramedics, this is an unacceptably selfish way to die, and I have never heard of a euthanasia supporter using it. Unless the neck is broken by the rope jerking the fall to a stop (as a professional hangman arranges), then it is death by strangulation, often not so quick.

If you have to help a person die, say nothing. Let the police do their own sleuthing.

Among doctors in general, I think more than half support what I'm doing.