{"id":5657,"date":"2010-10-14T18:33:10","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T07:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=5657"},"modified":"2010-10-14T22:34:11","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T11:34:11","slug":"euthanizing-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/10\/14\/euthanizing-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"Euthanizing fear?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ignorance of current end-of-life care in modern Australia fuels fear of death\/ end of life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;First: many think laws for voluntary euthanasia are for burdensome treatments to be stopped, or for life\u2010support to be switched off, when people are about to die. But these are already best\u2010practice: good end of life care does not keep people lingering on endlessly.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Second: thousands of people around the country are working long and hard, right now, to make people comfortable and to help them die well. We call this \u2018palliative care\u2019. But in a society so shielded from death, most of us know nothing about it. In the recent Western Australian debate, thirteen palliative care specialists wrote \u2018We share many of the goals of those who support euthanasia,\u2019 they wrote, meaning that they agree when patients want to cease pointless treatments, or want to die well at home. These specialists can then control symptoms sometimes by use of \u2018deep sedation\u2019 that \u2018is both ethical and legal.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>This short briefing touches on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The fear surrounding this discussion of death;<\/li>\n<li>Two misunderstandings about end-of-life care;<\/li>\n<li>The practice of palliative care;<\/li>\n<li>The likely results of a euthanizing culture; and<\/li>\n<li>A motion now before the Sydney Diocesan Synod.<\/li>\n<li>It also lists 7 excellent links.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>SIBriefing #087, 14\/10\/2010, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sie.org.au\/pdf\/briefings\/Social_Issues_briefing_087_-_Euthanizing_fear.pdf\">Euthanizing fear: why it won&#8217;t work. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ignorance of current end-of-life care in modern Australia fuels fear of death\/ end of life. &#8220;First: many think laws for voluntary euthanasia are for burdensome treatments to be stopped, or for life\u2010support to be switched off, when people are about &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/10\/14\/euthanizing-fear\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5657"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5665,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657\/revisions\/5665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}