When my time comes I want this option.
Thanks for the heads-up, Jesse.
Just out of curiosity, I googled up some of the "no" opinions.
It's all about how your life isn't yours, it belongs to Jeebus. Or whoever manages to hornswoggle enough people into believing he speaks for Jeebus.
As per usual, these people's yapping about "freedom" is a meaningless noise. What they want is theocracy.
When that time arrives, I shall negotiate for a stay, whinge, beg, plead, grovel, pray to any and all fantasies, swear, curse, fight dirty ... and if none of that has any effect, then I shall wake up and pretend it is just another day in paradise. Apres moi, le noir.
i've told a lot of folks about my intention to order "the suicide slam." when the time comes.
eggs, toast, pancakes, pistol, bacon...
When I'm feeling sorry for myself because I just plain feel like shit and the stairs to bed seem like the stairs up Montmartre, I remember that you probably feel like shit, too. But I've never felt like ordering up a Kevorkian. But when that time comes, I want my Last Cocktail, and I want it with no hassles to anybody but the undertaker.
me too!
i watched and helped care for my grandfather as he died at home because back then it was standard to hook a person up to anything they could and he knew he was dying and did not want that. so he suffered at home and then died but at least he didn't go the way of my father who died last year at the v.a. he suffered for years at home and his last 2 weeks in the hospital were a nightmare, 2 oxgen masks because just 1 didn't deliver enough so that he could sort of breathe. bloody gauze padding all over as he coughed out his lungs, body riddled with more than 1 type of cancer.
nope, he wanted a shot and if i had one i would have given him one, just as i would have for my grandfather.
i had to have my boxer, 13 years old, put down a few years ago. it was so much better. i held him and talked to him, 1 injection and a few moments later he was gone.
why not give that peace and dignity to human beings if the ask?
GNB readers might be interested in this BBC article on "When Should the End Come?"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_ne...ine/
7564061.stm
One has to remember also that "when the time comes," you may not remember how to load or fire the pistol, or where the keys are for the truck you intend to drive over a cliff. The time to start thinking seriously, as in beyond what you'll theoretically do "when the time comes" (but will not be able to do), is now, while you're still in command of your faculties and can think about what is acceptable to you in the way of infirmities, illness, dependency.
Peace, V.
Exactly, VictoriaB. I'm thinking stock up on drugs (street, 'scrip, doesn't matter) while I still have enough brain cells to rub together.
California has been trying to get a similar law through the lege or on the ballot. Yet, once again, the fetus worshippers have a parental notification proposition on the November ballot. Grr.
Friend of mine, 94 years old with terminal cancer, just took the gun out back at 3:00 a.m. and pulled the trigger. A better option should have been available, but what the hell, we live in Jeebusland (Florida).
sherry makes an excellent point.
I asked my vet once if being a vet had influenced her to favor these types of laws and she said yes, absolutely.
fuck the fundies, AGAIN, fuck them always and forever unto the ages of ages, amen.
amen
As a lifelong liberal who is loud and proud of my liberal roots, I have to say Jesse gets it wrong on I 1000.
I am a person with a significant disability and I know legalizing assisted suicide will kill people with disabilities. Nearly half of the people killed by Jack Kevorkian were people with disabilities. 4 of them were quadriplegics just like me. So don't you fucking tell me it's not about people with disabilities!
In the Netherlands nearly 1000 people each year are euthanized and the majority of them are people with disabilities. Compassion and Choices has been killing people for years in Washington State and you haven't heard a word about it. They will kill people with disabilities and the same veil of secrecy will not be lifted.
I don't care if you hobble and hurt motherfucker you are not a brother with a disability or you would not call us cripples. By doing so you demonstrate your oppressive and discriminatory beliefs about brothers and sisters with disabilities.
I have always loved and respected you Jesse but with this blog post you prove yourself a bigot when it comes to disability. Steve would not be proud of you right now.
enslaved, you've got a lot of goddamn nerve storming in here, pretending you have any fucking idea what Gilly would and would not approve of. More than anything, Steve Gilliard was a truth-teller and he was not afraid to point stupidity and hypocrisy when he saw it. Jesse is walking in the footsteps of Gilly, no matter how painful it is for him to walk literally and metaphorically.
Don't you dare to lay a fucking trademark on the word "disability." You don't own the word anymore than Ward Connerly owns the word "African American." You don't get to throw someone out of the club just because they don't agree with your jaundiced fundie paranoid hysterical worldview.
I-1000 has safeguards to protect against misuse against people with disabilities, and the elderly, and the poor. Don't bring up Kevorkian because he don't live around here. This law is about a decent, humane option to Kevorkian and his Volkswagen bus of death. Don't talk to me about the Netherlands, because in case you haven't noticed, we don't live there!! Look at Oregon. There aren't doctors running down the streets with syringes, looking for people to murder. Look at the studies - PwDs are not using the law at a greater rate than anyone else. Neither are women. Neither are the poor. Oregon is the only place that has a law exactly like I-1000, and there is no abuse in Oregon. Period.
It's about giving people an option at the end of life. It's not some Soylent Green conspiracy to exterminate undesirable people. The rumors in that direction are a front to mask the real opposition - religious extremists who want to veto any moral choice they don't personally approve of. The same noisemakers who tried to turn Terri Schiavo's death into a circus are trying to defeat I-1000 by any means necessary. Don't be fooled.
Thanks for posting this, Jesse. Amen, brother.
Commenting by HaloScan
