A Connecticut woman who pushed for expanded access to Vermont’s law that allows people who are terminally ill to receive lethal medication to end their lives died in Vermont on Thursday, an event her husband called “comfortable and peaceful,” just like she wanted.
Lynda Bluestein, who had terminal cancer, ended her life by taking prescribed medication.
Her last words were ‘I’m so happy I don’t have to do this (suffer) anymore,’” her husband Paul wrote in an email on Thursday to the group Compassion & Choices, which was shared with The Associated Press.
The organization filed a lawsuit against Vermont in 2022 on behalf of Bluestein, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Diana Barnard, a physician from Middlebury. The suit claimed Vermont’s residency requirement in its so-called patient choice and control at end of life law violated the U.S. Constitution’s commerce, equal protection, and privileges and immunities clauses.
We do it for animals but we hesitate for humans. Truly pathetic.
Watched my mom die from terminal cancer of the liver and she suffered terribly. Looked like she was ready to give birth when her heart finally stopped. My sibling is a hardcore Christian and when my mom asked about assisted suicide, sibling expressed her uselessly ignorant point of view, explaining that she wouldn’t be able to be there to “inject” her. Needless to say, that’s not how it happens.
People shouldn’t be made to suffer, and fuck religious people that push that horseshit dogma on others. Had to hear my mom cry, questioning her faith that if God existed, why would he make people suffer like this. It was terrible.
That goes for some oncologists, too. My mother’s liver was completely destroyed (that they somehow didn’t notice while she was in chemo for her breast cancer) and the oncologist wanted to continue treating her. Another doctor, who broke the news to us and showed us the images of her liver, came to our defense and tore that oncologist a new one. That was already after the first round of chemo had started and Mom was basically incoherent. I had watched her handle chemo the first time around like a champion. This time, it practically killed her. Had she kept doing chemo, she would have died much faster and it would have been terrible.
I don’t know what else to say. Fuck cancer, fuck religious dogma and fuck physicians that don’t keep the patients best interests at heart.
My mom literally starved to death. She would have absolutely preferred to go out peacefully and comfortably, but instead she was forced to slowly waste away in front of her entire family until her body shut down. The last last week was absolutely torture, and the last two days of that were even worse. Thankfully she had good pallative/hospice nurses, but it’s absurd that she needed that kind of attention instead of being allowed a more dignified death.
My Mom had a stroke that paralyzed her left side completely. It took her a week to die of dehydration. It was absolute torture. You have my sincere condolences. I just lost her a month ago.
She had a degenerative autoimmune disease that she suffered with for nearly 25 years. Her good days were long outnumbered by her bad days and her mobility was severely limited. It would not have been a good prognosis of recovery, especially with her already weakened state.
Suffering from chronic pain, her nerves and muscles under attack by her immune system, she suffered most of my adult life. It affected her mind in addition to her body. Having seen her life taken from her slowly it would have been much better to have had the option to go out on her own terms.
I get the feeling the more secular the country, or world for that matter, becomes, the more we’ll see acceptance of implementing assisted suicide for terminal people.
Good for her, she clearly deserved the peace that would come at the end. There is no point in struggling for every last second of life, where there is little quality of life or a chance for a future there is no humane reason to force that person to struggle till their “natural” death.
I wonder what kind of meds she took, personally I’d request nitrogen and a benzodiazepine
