End-of-life care

Whatever criticisms you have about Price's ideas, I can assure you that they are not the product of a lack of personal experience with serious illness and pain. I just finished a brief phone conversation with him -- he was in too much pain to continue talking from his hospital bed. If he was more vocal about the laundry list of illnesses he's has faced down, the breadth and depth of his knowledge of health law, and the decades of service he has given to disabled and ill populations in California, these comments wouldn't contain attacks on his credibility or expertise.

Brad @ 10:25 AM PDT, Aug 22, 2008

Price has no business being on anyone's "bioethics committee." If he were wracked with pain and bedridden with no hope of a cure, I think he would have a different opinion. Death can and must be in the tool chest of proper medical care.

John Burgeson @ 4:50 PM PDT, Aug 21, 2008

Assisted suicide is nobody's business other than the person making his or her own decision to have assisted suicide. Eventually we all have to die anyway. It is only whether the time is chosen or by fate.

John @ 4:19 PM PDT, Aug 21, 2008

It appears the only way we will ge t the right to die is via a Proposition. The public endorses the idea but the legislature is far too sensitive to the conservative pressure groups

Wade Walker @ 2:05 PM PDT, Aug 21, 2008

The only thing more cruel than assisted suicide is forcing someone in pain and with an incurable condition to continue to suffer. Assisted suicide is not the same as inflicted suicide.

andrea r @ 10:10 AM PDT, Aug 21, 2008

The giveaway line in this opinion piece -- the point where credibility is thrown to the wind -- is the ludicrous assertion that "terminal illness is a term that is vague to the point of being meaningless." While that may be convenient to his argument, it is not only bogus, but insulting to every dying patient everywhere.

William @ 9:57 AM PDT, Aug 21, 2008

Refusing to provide means of painless suicide is wanton cruelty. If a desperate person is denied enough sleeping pills he buys a gun. Is that better? Men have shot suffering wives in their hospital rooms and then shot themselves before submitting to "the law."

Lawrence Kamm @ 9:33 AM PDT, Aug 21, 2008

If a patient is in pain and has no hope of recovering beyond a lingering, useless, bed-ridden life - - THEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO HAVE ASSISTED SUICIDE.

Lu @ 9:08 AM PDT, Aug 21, 2008

What if the patient sincerely desires assisted suicide? Why is this so culturally taboo and legally taboo? Many people really don't want to prolong their earthly days in the reduced living circumstances of a nursing home, and may find that unacceptable. But once having entered the hospital system and failing rehab progress, there is not a choice for them - like it or not, they are maintained in a nursing home, with little or no quality of life. Control of ones own destiny has been surrendered. Why are there no legal options at this point?

Marcia @ 7:43 AM PDT, Aug 21, 2008

Doctor assisted suicide was always taboo. They cried, "Do no harm!" With huge budget cuts and many patients out of funds, these same doctors say, "Death with dignity!" Pain can be treated with a spinal tap. This is not an "end of life" issue. This is an end of insurance issue! As a social worker, I worked in a Ohio State psychiatric hospital. Every single patient had signed a "do not resuscitate" order. None knew what they had signed! In a perfect world, things might be different, but our world is too imperfect to give anyone the power to kill! I am not talking about abortion here. I am speaking about the killing of fully formed adults!

Mark Heinemann @ 6:14 AM PDT, Aug 21, 2008