Good deaths

An Ann Althouse discussion of utopian traditions yielded this interesting comment by long-time commenter Mike K, who I believe is the same fellow who leaves interesting comments at Maggie's Farm and who wrote a really entertaining memoir about his decades as a doctor:
My surgery professor, when talking about Euthanasia, coined the term "Cacothanasia as a word for a miserable death.
He also practiced some passive Euthanasia by omitting some drugs when end stage cancer patients were admitted to the hospital. For example, he would put stage IV breast cancer patients on steroids to induce a bit of steroid induced euphoria, then omit the steroids when they were unable to manage at home. The result was a sudden death from adrenal insufficiency. The oral steroids had suppressed their adrenals.

4 comments:

Gringo said...

A family friend recently died at age 95 at home, surrounded by family. She kept her mind pretty much to the end. That would be a good death.

Grim said...

I have seen deaths that were earnestly welcomed. I can’t say they were thereby good.

sykes.1 said...

Assisted euthanasia/suicide often slides into mandatory, imposed euthanasia/suicide, i.e., murder. This is actually the case in Europe, and here is one example,

https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/01/murder-euthanasia-warning-netherlands/

There are other cases in the UK (where doctors remove life support without consulting family members), Denmark, Belgium and Netherlands.

douglas said...

This raises some interesting questions-
-Did the patient know?
-Is there such a thing as 'passive euthanasia'?
-Is this technique really 'passive' just because it's withdrawing medication rather than administering it?

I don't see this as being in the same vein as administering enough opiate pain killers near the end that it might also suppress vital function as that is clearly administered for pain relief with the knowledge that side effects may well result in death, as opposed to knowing that the removal of a drug apparently not needed in the first place will lead to death.

It's a tricky ethical area.