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Comment by pieter_mj | Hacker News Reader

I recently witnessed my uncle's euthanasia. There's a few things to consider and discuss with your leifarts (as the euthanasia assisting doctor is called in Belgium) :

- death is instantanious (within 15-30 seconds of administration of penthotal)

- often a sedative is given. Dormicum can lead to loud snoring so you should discuss with your doctor necessity/alternative

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And yet in the US you're pretty much stuck with refusal of treatment which inevitably means dying slowly of dehydration. The outcome is the same and everyone knows it. After all, that's the point. It's just needlessly barbaric. We don't even treat animals that way.

It is strange. Allowing the state to take a life but not allowing the individual the same right over their own life.

Limiting the options to "palliative care" instead of active euthanasia is partly a bulwark against there ever being social-pressure-to-die. And given many societies aren't very good at identifying or dealing with elder abuse as it is, it seems a reasonable bulwark to have.

How about the incredible social-pressure-to-live!, not only social pressure but legal pressure. In my father's last few weeks of life I would see him wake up each day asking "why am I still here". Because you have NO choice.

We absolutely treat pain and air hunger with opioids in the US, if it is consistent with the patient's wishes.

That's not actually true in practice in the US: the morphine dosage used to treat pain for advanced cancers is given knowing full well it's a fatal dose. That it hastens death in addition to numbing the pain is something not much talked about outside the medical profession, but that is what is going on.

"lijfarts" (body doctor) actually ;-)

no ;-) leif.be

Well, I stand corrected.

No, actually, it is LEIFarts. Because the euthanasia forum is called LEIF (Life Ending Information Forum).

Hey, high five to fellow Belgian Pieter! :)

Yes, I was with my dad a month or so ago, same thing. One small injection to make him sleep, then after 5 minutes, one to stop his heart. It was instant, like switching off a light.

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