Huffington Post

Barbara Mancini Assisted Suicide Case Rallies ‘Death With Dignity’ Advocates:

Barbara Mancini’s 93-year-old father was suffering with a terminal illness when she handed him a bottle of morphine at his request. Understand; she did not pour it down his throat she just handed him the bottle.

Four day later Barbara’s father Joe Yourshaw died in the hospital.

Sometime after his death some suspicions arose through a hospice group nurse and she reported her concerns to the authorities.

Police Capt. Steve Durkin testified at Mancini’s preliminary hearing this month that she told him “her father wanted to die and she gave him the morphine”. Following that admission Mancini was charged with assisting a suicide.

As far as I am concerned I think the lady is a hero for helping he father die with dignity; there should be more people like her.

There are only a couple of situations where I see assisted suicide is not a positive solution to end a person life that is terminally ill.

If it can be proven that the ill person does not want to die or if there isn’t some sort of financial conspiracy going on in the family. We all know what happens after the lid slams and the bank books are opened.

Other than those examples I think assisted suicide or unassisted suicide should be perfectly legal in all states.

It is legal in Oregon, Washington and Vermont. Those tree huggers are a little ahead of their time; good for them.

I have been around many people that suffered for years because of the implications in ending their life with dignity was illegal.

What should be illegal is to keep a terminally ill person alive that has absolutely no chance of recovering and that does not want to live anymore. It isn’t how long someone lives; it is how well they live.

Tell me that there are people out there that would rather have their kids or some nursing home wipe their ass, change their diapers, feed them and bath them. I am not one of them.

Spending some time in a nursing home and observing most of the residence strapped into a wheel chair, sedated, drooling with their tongues hanging out and their heads slumped over; to me serves no purpose. For what so MAYBE their kids will come to see them one a week.

It should be absolutely the decision of the sick person or a competent member of their family to make the decision whether to end their life or not.

I know a few people that disagree with me that doctors, hospitals and nursing homes keep people alive for the fees. It is without a doubt all about the money.

There are numbers out there that claim nursing home facilities in the USA rake in excess of 100 BILLION dollars a year. BILLION not million.

Just think of the financial impact it would have on them if assisted suicide became legal. They would go out of business in a month.

Combined with hospital, hospice, in home care and a multitude of other care-giving organizations that figure may be 50% more. It is very big business keeping the old, worn out and terminally sick people alive.

Jack Kevorkian in my opinion was a hero and a pioneer in the field and should have been commended for his work rather than chastised. His major setback was he deliberately challenged the system and they did not like it.

A person has to reach a certain age in life to appreciate the significance of one being able to decide their own destiny. I have always said “when a person is born, the first thing that they should be issued is a pill; it should be totally up to them as to when they want to use it”.

It is just like the death penalty in our legal system; there are a few mistakes along the way and several times they got it wrong but percentage wise, that is the route to take.

A slightly different interruption to Patrick Henry’s quote “give me the liberty so I can chose my way of death”!

I hope the jury in Barbara Mancini’s case has the sense to see her compassion and find her not guilty. Hopefully that may set a precedence.