Assisted Suicide: The Invisible Elephant - Physicians are Prepared

It's on national television again.

Salem-News.com

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - Almost anybody who has suffered long term excruciating pain will likely tell you that death would have come as a blessing.

Two states, Oregon and Washington, have doctor-assisted suicide laws. The big question is, do other doctors in other states do the same? The answer is yes. They are just more careful about it.

A few years ago The Oregon Medical School Medical Ethics Professor sent a questionnaire to every doctor in the state: Have you ever helped a patient commit suicide? About 200 doctors said YES, the rest were too timid to answer! This was all anonymous so the “ethical moralists” couldn’t jump on them.

A very close doctor friend of mine had metastasized cancer and knew he was painfully dying from it. To protect his family and doctor friends he went through the bushwah of psychological hoops to acquire the necessary pills to do so.

He was suffering terribly and even asked me if I thought Medical Marijuana would ease his suffering and I arranged for him to get the marijuana.

He found out that his 5 children, one a physician, one a dentist and one a state policeman had used and knew all about the benefits of Medical Marijuana.

I had gone through a several month-long extremely severe pain experience in a VA Hospital. It was a chemical spinal meningitis. It hurt even to cry. I would have welcomed death.

They did addict me to Phenobarbital which just made me dopey but didn’t relieve the severe pain. Finally I went through withdrawl and that was no fun either.

Most doctors have a stash of suicide medicine, me too, or they have a doctor friend they can count on.

The doctors who help patients will say “take one pill and if that doesn’t work take two but if you take more it could be dangerous (read lethal)”.

Many patients take “accidental” overdoses. It’s lots better than being shot in the head or eating rat poison.

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