To the Editor:
Re “I Promised My Sister I Would Write About How She Selected to Die,” by Steven Petrow (Opinion visitor essay, Jan. 7):
I admired Mr. Petrow’s account of dropping his sister to most cancers and her plan for her personal loss of life. As a tradition, we nonetheless battle in coming to phrases with the private struggling of superior sickness and the choice to take no matter management we are able to of our personal lives and deaths.
In my household’s case, my sister, Jean, endured breast most cancers on her personal for greater than 5 years, with little seen signal, and tell us solely a few months in the past, when she was informed she wouldn’t final into the brand new yr.
Jean was dwelling in Tennessee when she lastly shared the information, and he or she got here to Vermont for help in dying by her personal alternative. That allowed us to affix her there and say goodbye, whereas honoring her want to keep away from “having a bunch of individuals bending over my mattress and gushing.”
The help she discovered by means of hospice nurses and employees eased her final days. She additionally confirmed the sort of power that Mr. Petrow present in his sister.
Demise comes for all of us, and we are able to solely hope to ameliorate our struggling and that of our family members as actually as we are able to in greeting it.
Tim Norris
Mystic, Conn.
To the Editor:
I’m a doctor who lately misplaced a member of the family to ovarian most cancers. My coronary heart goes out to Steven Petrow on the loss of life of his sister, Julie, who ended her life utilizing New Jersey’s medical help in dying (MAID) regulation. We are able to respect Julie’s alternative whereas noting each moral and scientific issues with MAID.
Each the American Medical Affiliation and the American Faculty of Physicians take into account physician-assisted suicide inconsistent with the doctor’s responsibility to “do no hurt” and to guard and protect the affected person’s life.
Furthermore, information from Oregon has proven that most individuals who request physician-assisted suicide aren’t struggling extreme, intractable ache; reasonably, most are anxious about lack of autonomy, incapability to interact in satisfying actions and lack of dignity. These considerations advantage supportive counseling, not deadly medication. Many sufferers requesting physician-assisted suicide are clinically depressed, and might be efficiently handled, as soon as correctly identified.
Lastly, opposite to Mr. Petrow’s implication that the one various to physician-assisted suicide is to “look ahead to the Grim Reaper,” mentally competent, terminally sick sufferers could select voluntary stopping of consuming and consuming, which, in keeping with one research, produced a “higher” loss of life than did physician-assisted suicide.
Because the medical ethicist Leon R. Kass rightly noticed, “We should look after the dying, not make them lifeless.”
Ronald W. Pies
Lexington, Mass.
To the Editor:
Each New York State legislator ought to fastidiously learn Steven Petrow’s transferring account of his sister Julie’s loss of life by means of medical help in dying in New Jersey. Julie was capable of die peacefully, with out struggling, surrounded by her loving household, because of the New Jersey regulation I helped lead the marketing campaign to go. Now it’s time for New York to offer those that are dying in our state the identical alternative.
Medical help in dying, now licensed in 10 states and Washington, D.C., permits a terminally sick grownup, with lower than six months to reside, to get a prescription, as Julie did, to deliver on a peaceable loss of life, snug and surrounded by family members. It’s an end-of-life choice that few will use. However realizing it’s there offers reduction to so many.
New Yorkers shouldn’t have to go away the state or set up residency throughout the Hudson for an opportunity to expertise what Julie and her household did. State lawmakers can provide their constituents a present of affection and compassion by passing the Medical Support in Dying Act.
Corinne Carey
Troy, N.Y.
The author is senior marketing campaign director for New York and New Jersey for Compassion & Selections.
To the Editor:
Due to Steven Petrow for his essay celebrating his sister’s life and the best way she selected to finish it. Nevertheless, Mr. Petrow’s assertion that New Jersey’s MAID regulation permits “residents with terminal diseases to decide on to finish their lives” elides the hurdles and exclusions that make related legal guidelines ineffective for a lot of who may need a “loss of life with dignity.”
They require medical doctors to certify that sufferers are terminally sick — normally outlined as dying inside six months. This will disqualify victims from neurological illnesses who, by the point they’re close to loss of life, are sometimes long gone the time once they could make choices for themselves.
Medical know-how now exists that may prolong a lifetime of countless struggling for a lot of months or years. But arbitrary time intervals preclude assist for individuals who discover this life unacceptable. Many legal guidelines require {that a} affected person bodily signal varieties and take the treatment themselves, thus disqualifying these with A.L.S. and different illnesses who can’t use their palms.
Final yr I accompanied an expensive buddy and his spouse to Switzerland, the place a non-public group known as Dignitas helps folks finish their lives. Every particular person we spoke with expressed a typical feeling: disappointment that so many People selecting to finish a life that had turn out to be insufferable needed to journey overseas to take action.
I revered my buddy’s determination to make use of Dignitas and the braveness it took to take action. I hope for a day when all People can have the identical assist when and in the event that they want it.
Charles Bethel
East New Market, Md.
To the Editor:
I cried as I learn Steven Petrow’s account of his beloved sister’s approaching loss of life and closing moments. I instantly felt the loss, deep ache and love.
My beloved spouse of practically 59 years, Paula, died of acute myeloid leukemia virtually a yr in the past. She acquired chemotherapy and rising blood and platelet transfusions to have a high quality of life price dwelling. However the illness progressed, as did the toll taken by the chemotherapy.
In her final three months at dwelling, with some hospice assist, she inevitably wasted away, slowly and painfully, changing into a psychological and bodily shell of what she had been.
She had requested MAID a few months earlier, which was refused, as she was a resident of New York. She whimpered, “I can’t reside like this anymore” just a few days earlier than she died.
It’s extremely merciless to not enable an individual to die with dignity.
Leo Gorelkin
New York
