If we include euthanasia as an \u201d\u02dcoption\u2019 in critical care we\u2019re making the patient the problem and not the condition. Once we begin to cross that line, does anyone really believe that the \u201d\u02dccheaper, quicker option\u2019 won\u2019t begin to take precedence over good palliative care?<\/p>\n
We should also consider the problem of elder abuse. As far back as 1994 a study in NSW found that something like 5% of people over the age of 65 were subjected to some form of elder abuse. Elder abuse has been called the epidemic of the century and is known to cost more than $2.6 billion in the US alone each year as the elderly are swindled out of their savings. Elder abuse can also be physical, emotional and even sexual and it\u2019s not hard to imagine that, if euthanasia were an option, that vulnerable aged people might be swindled out of existence as well.<\/p>\n
Readers will remember the famous case of Dr. Harold Shipman who, by his own admission, killed 600 elderly, vulnerable people in the UK by his own hand.<\/p>\n