The Kevorkian Option

[chervilant]

Well, I have this huge thread started about Noam Chomsky's latest decimation of the Corporate Megalomaniacs, but this topic has superseded...

How many people do YOU know who are in such dire straits that they have mentioned suicide, or 'the Kevorkian Option'?

How likely do YOU think is the concept of the uber wealthy thinning the ranks of the Hoi Polloi by sustaining this global economic distress?

How likely are YOU to explore a Kevorkian Option, and what are your specific reasons for so choosing?

Please respond honestly to these questions. I am one of a growing number of unemployed elderly people who cannot see any other alternative, and I STILL will not go quietly into my coming night.

[WingDinger]

1. I dont GET heart attacks, I'ma gonna give them.

Those quietly sponsoring culling the herd, will suffer any escalation they envision personally. There are enough of the unwashed, to deal with their sociopathy with prejudice.

[chervilant]

2. In the quiet,

peaceful rural locale where I'll spend my last days, seemingly placid country folk are armed to the teeth, and sincerely unafraid to use their weapons (even without the false courage found in meth).

I wonder if we will have a total collapse of our social order. It doesn't seem as unlikely now...

[Egalitarian Thug]

3. In order of your questions: Too many.

Last edited Tue May 29, 2012, 11:04 AM - Edit history (1)

Kind of, but far too complicated to address in this forum.

Depending on how my health goes over the next couple of decades, very likely. I've seen too many people needlessly suffer way too much because of our perverse fear and fascination with death, made so much worse by the miasma of religiosity, that if I fall to some wasting disease and remain coherent, I fully intend to go out in my own time.

[FrodosPet]

4. My dad was a supporter of Dr. K

He WAS, until he was dying of pancreatic cancer. Then he fought tooth and nail to stay alive as long as he could.

YMMV

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. Exactly the point, everyone gets to choose for themselves. Those that want to fight should be able

to carry that fight as far as they wish, those that would rather not, should have humane options available.

[FrodosPet]

8. As long as it is a CHOICE

The thing that has always worried me was someone choosing "the humane option" for another person.

[chervilant]

6. This awesome Universe

sustains me as I move inexorably toward my final days. The Ozarks are breathtakingly beautiful. I've seen TONS of Luna moths and bluebirds and titmice and meadowlarks in the last three months.

I couldn't agree more with your post. Kubler-Ross helped me get past my 'fascination' with death, the inevitable transition for us all.

Going out on my own time, in my own way, feels like an indignity only because my departure has been needlessly hastened by the vile and hedonistic handful of sociopaths who are destroying our species and our ecosystem.

I suppose I should be thankful that they cannot irretrievably damage our planet.

[Zalatix]

5. That was the whole intention of assisted suicide to begin with.

Anyone who knows the history of euthanasia is almost by definition a "tinfoil hatter" if they bring it up. Know what I mean...

[shcrane71]

9. We've already got it with our healthcare system.

It's a "quality of life" thing. If grandma and grandpa's only asset is that two-bedroom house in a ghost-town decimated by the farm crisis, and grandma & grandpa will have to give up their only asset to get the long-term healthcare in a nursing home paid for by the state, many will choose the Kevorkian option.

I've seen this happen with my family on more than one occasion. People want to leave their kids SOMETHING. And the kids can't provide nursing home care, or pay for the care because all the kids are working so much and their wages have decreased. So, grandma's seizures are worse, but she still have her wits about her, and she contracts pneumonia. Grandma is then hospitalized, and gets really, really scared about dying, but she has a do not resuscitate instruction. She's not dying very quickly, and is put on morphine. After another dose of morphine, Grandma's dead, and the hospital writes pneumonia as the cause of death.

Kids get the crappy two-bedroom house, and everyone feels like a piece of shit because Grandma kept telling us how scared she was.