Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site alice.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!bea
From: bea@alice.UUCP (Bea Chambers)
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: suicide for an incurable illness?
Message-ID: <3580@alice.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Apr-85 21:11:15 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.3580
Posted: Mon Apr 15 21:11:15 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Apr-85 01:38:08 EST
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 34

I was browsing for the first time thru net.suicide  but no one
touched on what is bothering me, namely, how to take your life reliably and
painlessly if one is hit with an incurable illness. Last year,  my mother
(in her early 90's) had cancer of the colon. The team of doctors decided
on major surgery even though they knew the cancer was well advanced.
I asked the surgeon why she couldn't just be kept sedated and left to die with
some dignity. I did not get a satisfactory answer but my mother wanted the
surgery because she did not realize she had cancer. The pre-op preparations 
weakened her a lot and the surgery itself put such a strain on her that she had a heart
attack. She made it through the surgery but was still weak and in a lot of
pain. The post-operative therapy was also very unpleasant and painful for her.
After the surgery, my mother begged the doctors to 'let her go' 
but if course, doctors don't do humane things like that.
I felt like that whole experience was something out of a horror movie and
when she died, 1 month later, we were all grateful.
 
I found myself wondering if doctors get some sort of sadistic pleasure doing 
this. Or are the doctors required by laws to do this? Or do they think they
are doing the right thing?
 
Now, if you are young or middle aged perhaps I can understand considering
major surgery. But at 90+, I think that was awful and unnecessary.
If I ever get in such a position,I would like the option of ending it all
but frankly, I don't know how. I don't think one can ask your friendly
doctor for pills because he/she would get in trouble. Perhaps one can
get sleeping pills  and save them up but i don't think that is reliable.
One can, of course, use a gun or a knife but even then, one may end up
alive and mutilated. Any ideas out there? 
 
There is a French magazine called Le Figaro which has an article on just this
subject. For any French readers, it is 12 Avril-1985 and the article is
Le Suicide peut-il etre une therapeutique?
( I don't think any US magazine would dare publish such an article. Thank 
heavens for netnews)