A most flawed process indeed

[MrGongGong]

1) Yes it is. Maybe not technically BUT have a bit of bottle and say that that's exactly what it is. If my doctor gives me a drug that he knows will kill me then you are saying that he has no part in my death ? Some doctors are, i'm sure, more than happy to do this.


2) I don't think you understand this point at all

"The point is that one can't really make an informed choice about something that is so outside ones cognitive framework."


and IMV it DOES damage others

[PatrickOD]

Thank you, aeolium - beautifully put. For many of us it is intolerable that we are not 'allowed' that choice.

I must agree.

In the absence of that legal choice I think much suffering is tolerated, or endured. Where a person has expressed a wish to end it when the time comes, it should be possible for their wish to be respected.
Anecdotes are not proof of anything, but I did know a friend who had always made it known where he stood on this matter, and planned his own suicide. It had to be suicide because of the danger of implicating another. He gathered together the necessary ingredients in readiness, but when the time came he had passed the point of rational action and was unable to carry out his plan. His wife, opposed to taking life in any circumstances, could only wait until death came in its own good time. That man did not have to go that way, and reform to the system would surely have saved him and particularly his wife, not to mention a circle of friends, a horrendous experience.

[aeolium]

1) Then your position is that it is better that the person committing suicide should do so by overdosing on prescription drugs rather than having a relatively painless death under medical supervision - because it absolves the doctor and society from any responsibility?

2)

"The point is that one can't really make an informed choice about something that is so outside ones cognitive framework."

In the context of the paragraph you wrote I take it you meant that the outside observer cannot imagine the experience of someone who has a radically different experience because of their condition. I agree, but surely you accept that the person with the condition can imagine it - s/he is living it. That person knows exactly whether the condition s/he experiences is intolerable or not. I am saying that that person should have the right to determine his/her own destiny.

[MrGongGong]

In the context of the paragraph you wrote I take it you meant that the outside observer cannot imagine the experience of someone who has a radically different experience because of their condition. I agree, but surely you accept that the person with the condition can imagine it - s/he is living it. That person knows exactly whether the condition s/he experiences is intolerable or not. I am saying that that person should have the right to determine his/her own destiny.

Sorry , you don't understand what I mean at all

We often wish for things that we later regret
I've been in severe pain and given morphine , I might have decided that it was "intolerable" and be "helped" to kill myself, thankfully that didn't happen. We don't always "know" what is the right choice.

Given that (as many people point out) things are very different for different people It's impossible (IMV) to create a safe legislation that has safeguards to protect.
Many of the people and organisations who are in favour of this (and that includes the Swiss organisation) are more than happy , and want the option to be available to people who are depressed, "tired of life" or at the very start (as in the film on TV last year) of an illness that might take 20 or more years to make someone disabled.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sorry , you don't understand what I mean at all

We often wish for things that we later regret
I've been in severe pain and given morphine , I might have decided that it was "intolerable" and be "helped" to kill myself, thankfully that didn't happen. We don't always "know" what is the right choice.

Given that (as many people point out) things are very different for different people It's impossible (IMV) to create a safe legislation that has safeguards to protect.
Many of the people and organisations who are in favour of this (and that includes the Swiss organisation) are more than happy , and want the option to be available to people who are depressed, "tired of life" or at the very start (as in the film on TV last year) of an illness that might take 20 or more years to make someone disabled.

But shouldn't the right to decide be enabled to take precedence over the question whether or not the decision is right - regardless of what you, or I, judge to be right?

[teamsaint]

one lesson of history is that those with the power of life and death often use it unwisely.

A lesson of our times is that our governments want the economically unproductive minimised in any way possible.

The tyranny of choice is not always good.

This is part of a very slippery slope that we would do well to avoid.

[Serial_Apologist]

one lesson of history is that those with the power of life and death often use it unwisely.

How would that be encouraged by people having the right to assisted suicide?

[teamsaint]

what one person sees as a right to assisted suicide, some other people would see as the right for some other people to hasten the deaths of others.
There are a lot of vulnerable people out there. We may be those people at some point in time.

[Lateralthinking1]

I expect to take my own life sometime in the future. I say that in a fairly matter of fact way. My principal reason now for living is for the benefit of my mother and father. At least one could potentially be here for another 10 to 15 years.

But when they die, I have the freedom to choose. I don't relish life in the future as it is likely to be for us all. There is nothing more now I wish to do with my life so there won't be then. As with anyone, there will be the possibility of serious illness at some stage and even dementia. In that situation I would be entirely in the hands of the state system which I will never again trust.

If someone were to suggest that I should look to the state for assistance on suicide, I would be absolutely furious. It has no right to interfere. And if anyone feels that in the event of becoming ill and in serious pain, they would prefer to have a route out, it seems to me that they should take the responsibility for finding out beforehand what is the best method. That is what I intend to do responsibly. Why on earth should I or anyone else pay through taxation for, and hence be an accessory to, their decision?

[MrGongGong]

But shouldn't the right to decide be enabled to take precedence over the question whether or not the decision is right - regardless of what you, or I, judge to be right?

NO

because in exercising that "right" you are denying others their rights (which many people will disagree with I know but that's the way I , and many others, see it)
normalising killing means that it becomes an option that is presented , and as teamsaint points out

"what one person sees as a right to assisted suicide, some other people would see as the right for some other people to hasten the deaths of others.
There are a lot of vulnerable people out there. We may be those people at some point in time."

[PatrickOD]

what one person sees as a right to assisted suicide, some other people would see as the right for some other people to hasten the deaths of others.
There are a lot of vulnerable people out there. We may be those people at some point in time.

We're all vulnerable, teamsaint. Those who see assisited suicide as a right are hardly those who fear others having the right to assist. Unassisted suicide, Lat, could be most unpleasant. And, in any case, what do you call terminal palliative care? Or, electing to opt out of any further treatment? There are a whole lot of ways to die; best to have some say.

[Lateralthinking1]

Surely society, as it is, is murderous enough. Generally that "quality" comes from what it perceives as the pursuit of good.

Additionally, much of outlook on death is complex and unconscious. There is an impulse in those younger to be victorious over those older, however caring many no doubt are. It is the human way, the way in which societies are structured, and the way that is necessary for effective management and survival.

And those who are older and heading towards death frequently have a need to look at the balance sheet. Many will feel that they have achieved what they wished or thereabouts. For some, though, there will often be unacknowledged resentment. One often sees a significant late stand among those who once had power, for example in politics.

This works too in more humdrum areas. What better way to feel that one is going out stronger than to think that in the very process one is changing society itself and indeed making other people less independent in relation to a stronger state.

I feel when I hear those not of an advanced age advocating assisted suicide that deep down a combination of these two things is in their mentality, one current and the other in anticipation, not that they see it themselves.

[aeolium]

But shouldn't the right to decide be enabled to take precedence over the question whether or not the decision is right - regardless of what you, or I, judge to be right?

Absolutely, S_A - that is the key point. But what Mr GG ignores is that the right to choose to die is already there - and legal. It has been legalised by the Suicide Act 1961. Whether or not Mr GG likes it, plenty of people already exercise it every year - around 5700 in the UK last year. So we are not really discussing the right to decide to end your life at all, contrary to what Mr GG thinks. That right has already been established. What we are discussing is whether someone may have assistance in ending that life so that the end may be as painless and (as far as is possible) dignified, in the company of those who are close to them. And when people talk about the 'tyranny of choice' ( a very odd term), they are quite happy to exercise the tyranny of denying choice.

[scottycelt]

one lesson of history is that those with the power of life and death often use it unwisely.

A lesson of our times is that our governments want the economically unproductive minimised in any way possible.

The tyranny of choice is not always good.

This is part of a very slippery slope that we would do well to avoid.

Apart from the overriding moral argument that Mr GG has rightly expounded, that post really has got to the nub of the issue.

Way back in the Sixties my late father was insistent that legalised abortion promoted by Steele & Co would inevitably (if slowly) lead to cries for legalised voluntary euthanasia, and then ... who knows? He despaired at the 'naivety' of otherwise decent folk who couldn't see this 'blindingly obvious' logical development.

And to think at the time I thought he was stark-raving bonkers....

[MrGongGong]

I wouldn't deny anyone the right to commit suicide
but don't think that we should make assisting people to kill themselves legal
my concern is that we are , as a society, unable to protect and that means that we should protect the most vulnerable at the expense of some rights
in the same way that my "right" to drive at 120 mph is curtailed by the need to protect others and quite rightly so