NYT: A New Openness in Considering 'a Good Death'

At a Mother's Day gathering of his family last year, Andrew James Turner Jr. made an announcement: "This is my last meal."

Mr. Turner, a 73-year-old cancer patient in Charlotte, N.C., whose treatments brought him great discomfort and no improvement, had already wasted to 130 pounds from 210. "He couldn't do anything that he enjoyed anymore," said his widow, Pat Turner. Mr. Turner told his family that he was having his feeding tube removed and that he would refuse further treatment and food. "If you have any comments about that, I will listen to them," he told them, "but this is my decision."

Five weeks later, he died peacefully in his own bed.

While Congress grapples with the Terri Schiavo case and a national battle rages over whether laws should allow doctors to help terminally ill patients end their lives, a quieter revolution is taking place. With or without such laws, many Americans are taking an active role in their own deaths, some with the help of their doctors and others through actions of their own that blur the definition of suicide.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/21/health/21dying.html?

It's my decision alone.

'Nuff said.

:-)

Since they're always yammering on about "getting the gov't off your back" or "out of your house" of wherever. You know, small government.

Except in practice that's only true for corporations. For them it's hands off, you guys know what's best. For for ordinary people, they're putting gov't right there in the bedroom, the hospital, the Dr's office, etc, etc.

Turner told his family that he was having his feeding tube removed and that he would refuse further treatment and food. "If you have any comments about that, I will listen to them," he told them, "but this is my decision."

Then Tom Delay burst into the room and told Turner that he was acting contrary to God's wishes. The feeding tube was reinserted and Turner sedated in order to prevent him from removing it.

Five years later, Turner finally made his peace with God and Delay by entering into a permanent vegetative state, where his eyes ceased to have a pleading appearence and took on the glassy look of a man, or something like a man, merely being alive.

and everyone concerned made a profit, except the family of Mr. Turner, who have been attempting to file for bankruptcy due to extreme medical bills.