アメリカの尊厳死。現在３州（ワシントン/オレゴン/モンタナ）が法的に医者の処方薬を許している。
Peter Goodwin: The Dying Doctor’s Last Interview
By Belinda Luscombe |March 14, 2012 |
Dr. Peter Goodwin, a family physician and right-to-die activist, took his own life on March 11, 2012, at age 83. He did it legally, with the blessing of his family and doctors, under the Oregon law allowing physician-assisted suicide — the first such law in the country — that Goodwin was instrumental in creating.
Dr. Goodwin granted TIME his last interview, four days before he died. (The full interview will be available online on Thursday and in print on Friday.) He did not look like a dying man; he was chirpy and alert and still had a mischievous twinkle in his eye. However, as a result of his fatal disease — a Parkinsons-like condition called coritcobasal degeneration — he could not use his right hand or do much reliably with his left. Walking was difficult for him and stairs were particularly treacherous. He did not want to die, but death was coming anyway, and he did not want to wait.
“I can no longer eat in public,” Goodwin said. “My balance is gradually deteriorating. My three doctors agree that I’m within six months of dying. My attending physician has given me a prescription for medication to end my life and I have had it filled.”
In Oregon, doctors may not administer injections to end a life, but they are allowed to write prescriptions for lethal drugs for mentally competent people who are able to take the medication without help and have less than six months to live. And yes, the prescriptions are covered by health insurance.
Dr. Goodwin took his life on Sunday not because he could not bear to live any more nor because he was in incredible pain, but because he wanted to die among family. He timed his death so that his four children and their spouses could be there, including his younger son, who is a Navy pilot in Korea. During our interview, he wept several times at the thought of no longer being involved in their lives.
Ever the activist — Goodwin was brought up in South Africa and his cousin was a defendant in the Rivonia trial alongside Nelson Mandela — the doctor wanted to make his death mean something. The moral question of whether doctors should be allowed to enable terminally ill people to kill themselves is not yet settled in the U.S. Currently physician-assisted suicide is permitted only in Oregon, Washington and Montana.
Oregon voters approved the Death With Dignity Act at the polls in 1994; it was enacted three years later, after they voted down legislation that would have repealed it. To date, 597 people have died under its provisions. Goodwin, who has himself helped three patients die under the legislation — and one patient even before the Death with Dignity Law — has fought tirelessly to change people’s attitudes about death, right up until his own.
Goodwin gave lectures and interviews as long as he was able about the importance of advance directives at the end of life as well as open and frank discussion with loved ones. He wanted the end of life to be as gentle as possible and within the patient’s control. He was also a big advocate of allowing dying people to receive hospice care early, rather than letting doctors continually try to cure them. “Physicians are taught to treat, and they often go on treating and treating and treating,” he said. “It’s very, very difficult because they have so much in their armamentarium — so many new ways of treating cancer, so many new ways of treating heart disease — it’s very difficult for physicians to give up.”
Goodwin passed, it seems, just as he wanted to: half an hour after taking the lethal dose of medication his doctor prescribed for him and surrounded by his children.
フェイスブックで自殺中継-台湾の女性
Woman's Facebook friends don't call for help as she commits suicide
The Taiwanese woman kills herself on her 31st birthday, posting photographs as her room fills with fumes.
Associated Press March 27, 2012, 2:55 p.m.
TAIPEI, Taiwan— A woman in Taiwan killed herself by inhaling poisonous fumes while chatting with friends on Facebook, and none of them alerted authorities, police said Tuesday.
Claire Lin killed herself on her 31st birthday, March 18, and family members who reported her suicide were unaware of the Facebook conversations that accompanied it, Taipei police officer Hsieh Ku-ming said.
Lin's last Facebook entries show her chatting with nine friends, alerting them to her gradual asphyxiation. One picture uploaded from her mobile phone depicts a charcoal barbecue burning next to two stuffed animals. Another shows the room filled with fumes.
One friend identified as Chung Hsin, told Lin, "Be calm, open the window, put out the charcoal fire, please, I beg you."
Lin replied: "The fumes are suffocating. They fill my eyes with tears. Don't write me anymore."
A few of the Facebook friends chatting with her tried to stop her and track her down on their own, but none called police. Chung did not respond to attempts to reach him for comment.
Lin's last words, in Chinese, were: "Too late. My room is filled with fumes. I just posted another picture. Even while I'm dying, I still want FB (Facebook). Must be FB poison. Haha."
Lin's Facebook postings indicated she was unhappy because her boyfriend was ignoring her, and had failed to return home to be with her on her birthday. Her boyfriend found her body the next morning and alerted her family, Hsieh said.
Hsieh said he regretted that none of her friends called police to help her during the 67-minute episode, but he added it may have been difficult for them to know her whereabouts because of the nature of social media.
"It could be true that it would be hard to track down a Facebook friend without her address or phone contact," Hsieh said.
Chai Ben-rei, a sociologist at Taiwan's Feng Chia University, said the incident reflected social isolation in the Internet age.
"People may have doubts about what they see on the Internet because of its virtual nature, and fail to take action on it," he said.
In a statement, Facebook said the company is deeply saddened by Lin's death and that the case serves as a "painful reminder of how people can help others who are in distress or need assistance."
Facebook's help page has links to suicide prevention hotlines in about 20 countries, including Taiwan, where the Taiwan Suicide Prevention Center's phone number and website are listed.
In the case of an emergency, however, Facebook urges users to call authorities immediately.
ベビーブーム世代の尊厳死殺人−アメリカの場合
Ohio hospital shooting: Mercy killing or murder?
Aug 12, 5:48 PM EDT
By THOMAS J. SHEERAN and JOHN SEEWER Associated Press
CLEVELAND (AP) -- John Wise watched a tear roll down his wife's face as he stood alongside her bed in the intensive care unit. She'd been unable to speak after suffering a stroke and seemed to be blinking to acknowledge him, Wise confided to a friend who had driven him to the hospital.
The couple had been married 45 years and Wise told his friend that they had agreed long ago they didn't want to live out their years bedridden and disabled.
So a week after Barbara Wise's stroke, investigators say, her husband fired a single round into her head. She died the next day, leading prosecutors to charge the 66-year-old man with aggravated murder Wednesday in what police suspect was a mercy killing.
The shooting leaves authorities in a dilemma some experts say will happen with greater frequency as the baby boom generation ages - what is the appropriate punishment when a relative kills a loved one to end their suffering?
More often than not, a husband who kills an ailing wife never goes to trial and lands a plea deal with a sentence that carries no more than a few years in prison, research has shown. In some instances, there are no charges.
"It's a tragedy all around that the law really isn't designed to address," said Mike Benza, who teaches law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
A New York man in March was sentenced to six months in jail after suffocating his 98-year-old disabled mother and slitting his own wrists. He told authorities he had just been told he had cancer and believed he was going to die soon, and feared no one would care for his mom. A Washington state man accused of shooting his terminally ill wife this year told investigators she had begged him to kill her; he is free on bail while prosecutors weigh charges.
Almost always, there are deeper issues involved with the accused, including depression, their own health problems and the stress of taking care of a dying spouse, said Donna Cohen, head of the Violence and Injury Prevention Program at the University of South Florida.
Seeing a dying or disabled spouse suffering can be enough to push someone over the edge, said Cohen, who is writing a book called "Caregivers Who Kill."
"Men will hit a wall when they can't do anything else," she said. "That's usually a trigger."
She worries this will happen more often with longer life expectancies and a continuing shortage of mental health services for older people.
In the early 2000s, testifying a Florida legislative committee, Cohen cited research showing that two in five homicide-suicides in the state involved people 55 and older. The number of cases grew among older people while staying the same with those under 55.
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Police say Wise took a taxi from his home in Massillon, calmly walked into his 65-year-old wife's room on Aug. 4 at Akron General Medical Center without drawing any attention, and shot her.
Juries are often sympathetic to those who kill a spouse out of what is portrayed to be love and compassion, but the message that sends is unclear, said Wesley J. Smith, a California lawyer who wrote a 2006 book "Forced Exit: Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide and the New Duty to Die."
"Where's the stopping point?" he said. "There almost comes to become a cultural acceptance that certain people are better off dead than alive."
Those who kill a loved one to end the suffering are acting out of their interests, he said. "We're really putting Grandpa out of our misery," Smith said.
Wise's lawyer has said that he was a good man who was devoted to his wife.
"I am absolutely confident that everything that he's ever done for his wife has been done out of deep love, including the events that just recently transpired," said attorney Paul Adamson.
The former welder also suffered from nerve damage that made his hands and feet numb, survived bladder cancer and had diabetes, said Terry Henderson, a 30-year steel plant co-worker.
Those issues could help his case if it goes to trial. "The facts surrounding her death are sympathetic and may actually foster a plea before trial," said Jeff Laybourne, a prominent Akron defense attorney.
But just because his wife may have been suffering isn't a valid defense under the law, Laybourne said.
Other factors that could determine whether the case goes to trial include the timing of the shooting and that it happened in such a public place.
Henderson thinks Wise may have snapped under the weight of both of their health concerns. "He never dreamed, given his history of medical problems, that this would happen to her before he'd go," Henderson said.
That kind of situation can be deeply depressing for a person dependent on the care of a spouse who suddenly is disabled, said Dr. Peter DeGolia, a physician specializing in care for the aging at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland.
"If this man was dependent on his wife for care and basic well-being, and suddenly she's gone, he's going to feel very vulnerable, highly at risk," he said. "Older white males are the highest risk group for carrying out suicide plans."
It's a scenario that DeGolia said can be defused with help from social workers and hospice care for the dying.
"There are lots of options," he said, "aside from going and shooting them."
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Seewer reported from Toledo.
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