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The decision to sign a DNR order is one that is highly personal and one that should be made after much thought and discussion with your loved ones. It is one that should be made long before your mind is "muddled" with any mind altering drugs. With technology becoming better and better, and medical care becoming more advanced, the possibility of keeping someone's body alive, long after their mind has gone is a fact and one that can be a living nightmare.

Many of us who have worked in the health care field have Living Wills, which include a DNR order. Having watched and participated in many "Codes", knowing how brutal it can be on the human body, the wish to not have that kind of treatment preformed on one's self, after a trauma, or an illness has left you a shell of your former self, is not passive suicide. To allow a person to die with dignity, offering them comfort measures and relief from pain should be our top priority if that is what they have expressed is their wish.

Having been at the bedside of too many people, in pain, suffering for days, pleading to die, to be released from the torture they are going through, to have to perform that final insult on their bodies because they did not have a DNR order is torture for the health care professional as well. When we do CPR, we are not gentle; it is hard, and brutal. Ribs are broken; at times, a lung can be punctured in our efforts to bring this frail body back to life, again. Tubes are inserted down the throat into their lungs so we can breathe for them. Large size IV's are started, leaving the arms bruised for days, if the attempt is successful. The person is in more pain that they were before if we bring them back from the brink of the peace they so desperately wanted, only to last for a few, painful hours more.

Of course, I am not saying to never do CPR on anyone. It has saved the lives of countless people. People who have been struck by lightning, drowned, or had other accidents. But in a lingering illness, or just old age, having a DNR signed is just saying that you want to have the final say in the way you die. A death with dignity! Without someone pounding on your chest, inserting things into every orifice, causing you more pain and suffering, and then, not even knowing if it will work.

Passive suicide: Never!

Learn more about this author, P. M. Montgomery.
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