Turbo Euthanasia

Turbo–euthanasia

http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10577

Dr Sarah Van Laer, who has euthanased 28 patients since legalisation in 2002, has complained bitterly to the Belgian newspaper De Standaard about the burdens of her work.

“It’s too much for me. Lately I’m averaging one second opinion a week. Once a month, I am asked to perform the euthanasia itself… Recently I was called urgently for a patient who had been promised that euthanasia would take place that evening. But the doctor would not do it. When I came in I said I had come to see how things were. The family did not understand that –– ‘a promise is a promise’, they said.
“There are too few doctors ready to perform euthanasia. This problem is badly underestimated. Because of their reluctance many doctors pass this delicate matter off onto us. Meanwhile politicians are pressing for an extension of the legislation to minors. I wonder who will be willing to perform these euthanasias.”
She complains that doctors are getting burned out. “If a doctor does not want to perform euthanasia, he should get in touch with a palliative care team or an end–of–life doctor at a much earlier stage. Please do not get us there at the last minute. If I’m also supposed to perform a euthanasia, I want to be involved early. I am not a product on the supermarket shelf which you buy whenever you need it. I’m a person with my own needs and feelings.”
Euthanasia can be a good way to end life, she insisted. “But I am not in favour of turbo–euthanasia,” she said regretfully. “I sometimes miss those moments of life before death, that good experience that dying can create.”
The term ‘turbo–euthanasia’ is not something that I have come across before. Whilst I may agree with euthanasia in some instances this article does raise a few complex and controversial ideas. Firstly the doctor in question – Dr Sarah Van Laer talks about euthanasia as if it’s a run of the mill practice like having an MRI scan. In my view Euthanasia should never be treated in this way, this should always be one of the most important ethical and medical issues as it has the most dire consequences if something goes amiss.
The doctor then makes a reasonable request in the fourth stanza – if doctors do not want to perform euthanasia they should contact someone who will or a palliative care team early on. I think this is a very reasonable request. However, there are again problems thereafter. The doctor says that ‘Euthanasia can be a good way to end life’, I would disagree with this assertion. I would state that euthanasia can be a necessary and needed way to end life but never good – ending life is never good even for ‘beneficial’ purposes – it can be right, but never good. She then goes on to say ‘I sometimes miss those moments of life before death, that good experience that dying can create’. I am somewhat stunned at what I have been reading. A doctor, misses moments with a patient before their inevitable demise – this could possibly be accepted, enjoying the last few moments with someone and making the most if it. However, the last section cannot be excused, I fail to understand how there is a ‘good experience that dying can create’. I have never seen the death of a close relative engender happiness, or laughter, anything of goodness. Euthanasia is often a persons last option, death may be a welcome release, but that does not mean that it is good. I have yet to see a ‘good experience’ that dying creates and doubt I ever will.

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