ProWomanProLife

  • The Story
  • The Women
  • Notable Columns
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / All Posts / Words matter…

Words matter…

March 3, 2010 by Andrea Mrozek 2 Comments

…at the end of life as at the beginning. Here Margaret Somerville highlights how Quebec doctors aren’t likely to be able to debate legalized euthanasia well, since they don’t appear to know what it means:

Dr Barrette said that in caring for terminally ill people, “doctors are aware they can be charged with murder if they administer a ‘palliative sedative’ before a patient is on his or her last breath.” This is not euthanasia, although, like Dr Barrette, 49 percent of Quebec physicians recently polled mistakenly thought it was. Palliative means the sedative was necessary to relieve pain and suffering and was not given with an intention of killing the patient. That cannot result in a murder charge, or any other legal charge, unless the patient refused it.

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmailby feather

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: margarent somerville

Comments

  1. Suricou Raven says

    March 3, 2010 at 1:48 pm

    The mention of ‘intent’ doesn’t look to reassuring. A sedative given to someone near death probably will hasten it – and if it comes down to intent, how do you determine if the doctor viewed that as an unavoidable consequence of reducing pain or as an aim in itsself?

    Reply
  2. Deb G. says

    March 4, 2010 at 8:29 am

    I have worked in long-term care for more than 20 yrs, as a Registered Nurse, and have worked with countless palliative patients. Our goal when working with palliative residents is to keep them as comfortable as possible. That may mean administering a sedative or pain medication, which may also have the side effect of depressing their respiratory system. My intent when administering them has never been to hasten someone’s death.
    I have also cared for my mother-in-law, who died from cancer 5 years ago. She was given pain medication and sedation, at her request and with my father-in-law’s blessing (and on doctor’s orders). The medication probably did cause depressed respiratory function, but she died peacefully and free from pain at home. This was not euthanasia. Our intention was to keep her comfortable.
    It is not unlike chemotherapy drugs (to give another example). They are used to give the patient the best chance possible to recover from cancer. But the unavoidable truth is that they may also hasten death in some cases- the patient may not be able to handle their potent side effects. Does that mean we don’t use them? All medications have side effects- some have life-threatening side-effects. I rarely hear intent called into question when administering them.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow Us

Facebooktwitterrssby feather

Notable Columns

  • A new website by women for women
  • A pro-woman budget wouldn't tell me how to live my life
  • Are most Canadians pro-choice?
  • Bad medicine
  • Birth control pills have side effects
  • Busting the 3 biggest myths on the government funding of abortions
  • Celebrate these Jubilee jailbirds
  • China has laws against sex selection. But not Canada. Why?
  • Family love is not a contract
  • Freedom to discuss the “choice”
  • Gender quotas don't help business or women
  • Ghomeshi case a wake-up call
  • Hidden cost of choice
  • Life at the heart of the matter
  • Life issues and the media
  • Need for rational abortion debate
  • New face of the abortion debate
  • People vs. kidneys
  • PET-P press release
  • Pro-life work is making me sick
  • Prolife doesn't mean anti-woman
  • Sex education is all about values
  • Thank you, Camille Paglia
  • The new face of feminism
  • Today’s law worth discussing
  • Trudeau can call abortion a right but that won't make it true
  • When debate is shut down in Canada’s highest places

Categories

  • All Posts
  • Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia
  • Charitable
  • Ethics
  • Featured Media
  • Featured Posts
  • Feminism
  • Free Expression
  • International
  • Motherhood
  • Other
  • Political
  • Pregnancy Care Centres
  • Reproductive Technologies

All Posts

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2018 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in