[A] medical committee determined that she no longer met the conditions because her health had apparently improved.... She had no idea health officials were even meeting to review her case. She had been quietly living out her final hours, and had tuned out media coverage of her case.“She canceled her phone plan because she thought she was going to die tomorrow,” her lawyer, Camila Jaramillo, said on Saturday night. Jaramillo’s law firm, the Laboratory of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (DescLAB), has vowed to fight the decision, which it described as “illegitimate and arbitrary,” and one that violated her right to a “dignified death.”...
Here's my post from 2 days ago, based on WaPo's story about the planned event. The authorities say their new decision is based on the "high probability" that her disease — ALS — wouldn't kill her within 6 months, but it's very hard not to suspect that the news reports — especially the big WaPo article — caused the authorities to retreat from strong support for euthanasia. It's not just that the public was put in a position to express disapproval. It's also that she participated in publicity, providing evidence that the committee relied on:
Sepúlveda appeared on television smiling and laughing as she dined at a local restaurant this month....
ADDED: The authorities seem to have unwittingly inflicted something like the torture of a mock execution. Not exactly like, of course, unless there have been some victims of mock execution who, preparing to die, genuinely wanted to die.
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27 comments:
The Governor’s reprieve, but she doesn’t want to live. Rats!
Maybe the phone company won’t charge her now.
Well...it is seemingly an arbitrary move. If they had examined her previously to grant her approval, surely they knew that she was not going to die later in that week or even that month, but given she has ALS, she would be dying a slow, torturous death. No getting around that. Once you have that diagnosis, you know what the endgame is. You may have another few weeks or more to live, see a friend or family members, but as each day and week goes on, you are in more pain, your body ceases to allow you to control your muscles, your movements. Simple things become impossible as your brain and muscles disconnect and eventually, you are unable to even breathe.
In a country allowing euthanasia you would think once ALS is confirmed and approved, they'd allow the person to select their time.
There is no element of personal autonomy that some state tyrant is not eager to trample.
does she (do WE?) Want to live, in a muddy world without mammophants ???
Let's fix problems that make our world suck, before we start telling people to live in it
The old trope, death and taxes: the government already own the latter, they also want total control of the former.
I don't get it. If she's functional enough to move and be self-aware, then she can take her life into her own hands - suicide. I even bet she could find someone to give her the same drugs (illicitly) they would use to kill her. If she's Catholic, either route is damning. If she's not, what does it matter?
Something like 48,344 people killed themselves last year in the United States. https://chapterland.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2017/11/US_FactsFigures_Flyer.pdf
Almost every one of them did so without either the assistance of a physician or the permission of a judge. Is it that Ms. Sepulveda wants to end her life, or that she wants to end it in a particular way?
Maybe she can file a wrongful life suit against them.
Look, I know why I am against it for myself. I am a Christian, and firmly believe that we shouldn't take the decision on when to go out of God's hands. But why would a non-believer want to force her to live through the last months of ALS? Her quality of life will go down and keep going down to a predetermined end. If she wants to opt out, I am not going to be the one to tell her no. Watched my father and sister both go through that. And now watching my mother go through it. Sounds like a good time to mind your own business and let people decide for themselves how much suffering they are willing to go through for a few more days of life.
I was taught in med school that it’s one thing if your patient dies, it’s another if you kill them. And I’m saying that as a person who has a family member w ALS
They won't let Sepulveda Pass. That makes sense to anyone going back home to the valley on the 405
"I don't mind so much being shot, I just don't dig being told about it." - Bob Dylan
I guess, if she's serious about her goal, she'll go about it the old-fashioned way. However, I suspecct not.
Sure, she could easily take her own life- there are lots of ways to commit suicide, but she wants to make a political statement instead.
She is still perfectly free to do things the old fashioned way -- put a plastic bag over her head or a rope around her neck or any number of other self-killing methods that Derek Humphreys described in his "right to die" book.
The only thing this woman is denied is the complicity and approval of society and the state. She'll have to do her evil on her own.
Sounds like a good time to mind your own business and let people decide for themselves
That is exactly what this denial of a state-sanctioned killing is doing -- civil society and the state minding their own business and leaving her alone to decide for herself and act for herself.
As noted above, tens of thousands of people in this country alone manage to kill themselves without the assistance of the law or healthcare providers who exist to preserve life. They don't need the help of state executioners. They do it themselves.
They won't let Sepulveda Pass
But they will let you cut off your Slauson.
One of my bosses at Boeing, Dick Burwell, came down with ALS. He was a runner and very physically fit. A great guy. I think he was gone after about two years. Such a sad event.
They won't let Sepulveda Pass. That makes sense to anyone going back home to the valley on the 405
Howard, that's sick-funny. I grew up down there, now live in the Democrat Paradise of King County, WA where the homeless can do anything they want, and everyone else must obey the idiot health czars of KC and WA, or else!
So I guess it wasn't a fine day to die after all.
Keep the means to do what you want, defending or ending your own life, close at hand as you age. There are those who will want to end you before your time, and those who will try to keep you past all caring. Both are obnoxious and deserve to be thwarted.
And I bet the phone company tries to charge her for all of October.
The New York Times, a year or two ago, did a Sunday piece about a woman who offed herself with phenobarbital and alcohol (the same mix that did in the Heaven's Gate cultists).
Sounded like a pretty relaxed way to go.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/magazine/the-last-day-of-her-life.html
Blogger Wilbur said...
Maybe she can file a wrongful life suit against them.
A doctor friend of mine got sued just this way. He had done a vasectomy on his barber. He did them routinely. The barber never came back for a sperm count before having sex like he was told to do. His wife got pregnant and he sued the doc. I told my friend to offer to adopt the kid and see what happened.
I always told patients that I didn't do vasectomies because of my religion. My religion was avoiding trouble like this.
I will likely get flak for this, but guns are a widely available and pretty well foolproof means of suicide. Especially, I should think, in Colombia.
I do not understand why a nation full of "Right-to-Die" states (I live in one myself) should also be so damn concerned about gun suicides. Apparently the only right way to "die with dignity" is to have a doctor administer poison to you. Anything else -- including any other form of suicide -- is "death without dignity." Is it that gunshots involve blood, which is messy, hence "undignified"? I would hope we aren't quite so childish as that.
This is the first time I realized that Sepúlveda‘s terminal disease is ALS. It’s a disease that kills from the extremities in, and it kills very slowly and quite painfully. There who want to see the slow death it brings should read Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom (available through the Althouse Amazon portal).
Key takeaway from Morrie (I’m paraphrasing because I don’t know which still-packed box has my copy of the book): The day will come when I can no longer wipe my own ass. That’s when I find out who my true friends are.
Sly humor, yes, but contemplate not having enough muscle control to be able to wipe your own ass. Is that life?
The "right to die" is the thin end of the wedge that ends up with the forced euthanasia we're seeing in Europe.
There is really no constituency that wishes to force people to live against their will. All of the financial incentives run HARD the other way. End-of-life care is incredibly expensive in resources, and no matter what system is paying, these resources lose money for the payer.
People cannot really be stopped from committing suicide if they are determined. Is someone going to follow this person around and cut holes in every plastic bag?
Given that suicide cannot really be prevented, there is no reason to make euthanasia legal if people dying who want is your primary consideration.
But if your goal is to mandate to ease the strain on your health care and pension system, there's a lot of reasons.
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