Assisted Suicide

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

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He was tired of being old.  So he killed himself.  Apparently Switzerland allows that.

A 104-year-old Australian scientist who had campaigned for the legalization of assisted dying in his home country has ended his life at a Swiss clinic, a representative from the pro-euthanasia group Exit International said.

David Goodall, a respected botanist and ecologist, died Thursday at the Life Circle clinic in Basel, Switzerland, after administering a lethal drug under the guidance of doctors.

I kind of see where he is coming from.  I mean this guy was getting his degrees way back in the 30s.  He seemed to still have his senses, so I wonder why he just didn't do more research.

"At my age, I get up in the morning. I eat breakfast. And then I just sit until lunchtime. Then I have a bit of lunch and just sit. What's the use of that?" said the scientist, who appeared to have lost none of his sense of humor on Tuesday, wearing a top inscribed with the words "Aging Disgracefully."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/10/health/david-goodall-australian-scientist-dies-intl/index.html

[Nefertiti]

I see assisted suicide as a fundamental human right under the right checks to avoid abuse. Watching the horror of some sufferers' last days convinced me of this. It's already allowed in multiple liberal countries in Europe and the US. I believe including California. Holland is prominent in death tourism.

[RV Pundit]

Agreed.

I see assisted suicide as a fundamental human right under the right checks to avoid abuse. Watching the horror of some sufferers' last days convinced me of this. It's already allowed in multiple liberal countries in Europe and the US. I believe including California. Holland is prominent in death tourism.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

I see assisted suicide as a fundamental human right under the right checks to avoid abuse. Watching the horror of some sufferers' last days convinced me of this. It's already allowed in multiple liberal countries in Europe and the US. I believe including California. Holland is prominent in death tourism.

I would place this particular case under abuse.  He did not have a terminal illness.  He was in no pain.  He was just bored.

I think the option should be there to prevent suffering.  But also the immediate family of the suicider should have a say.

[Nefertiti]

I see assisted suicide as a fundamental human right under the right checks to avoid abuse. Watching the horror of some sufferers' last days convinced me of this. It's already allowed in multiple liberal countries in Europe and the US. I believe including California. Holland is prominent in death tourism.

I would place this particular case under abuse.  He did not have a terminal illness.  He was in no pain.  He was just bored.

I think the option should be there to prevent suffering.  But also the immediate family of the suicider should have a say.

People should end their own lives when they want to. Dude was 104 man. The caveats are liabilities - as in a young parent or debtor or criminal should not die as escape; or greedy relatives should be vetted from imposing suicide on a rich uncle; kids and mentally ill folks too need guardian approval; etc.

This was not abuse.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

I see assisted suicide as a fundamental human right under the right checks to avoid abuse. Watching the horror of some sufferers' last days convinced me of this. It's already allowed in multiple liberal countries in Europe and the US. I believe including California. Holland is prominent in death tourism.

I would place this particular case under abuse.  He did not have a terminal illness.  He was in no pain.  He was just bored.

I think the option should be there to prevent suffering.  But also the immediate family of the suicider should have a say.

People should end their own lives when they want to. Dude was 104 man. The caveats are liabilities - as in a young parent or debtor or criminal should not die as escape; or greedy relatives should be vetted from imposing suicide on a rich uncle; kids and mentally ill folks too need guardian approval; etc.

This was not abuse.

What makes it abuse for me is that he basically felt like it.  Because he was old.  To me that is not a good enough reason.  I find pain and suffering in a terminal illness the only reasons that make sense.  If you allow it for gratuitous reasons, there is really no justification for why you should discriminate against anyone by putting artificial limits on who should and shouldn't get it.  After all they are all trying to escape something.

[Nefertiti]

I see assisted suicide as a fundamental human right under the right checks to avoid abuse. Watching the horror of some sufferers' last days convinced me of this. It's already allowed in multiple liberal countries in Europe and the US. I believe including California. Holland is prominent in death tourism.

I would place this particular case under abuse.  He did not have a terminal illness.  He was in no pain.  He was just bored.

I think the option should be there to prevent suffering.  But also the immediate family of the suicider should have a say.

People should end their own lives when they want to. Dude was 104 man. The caveats are liabilities - as in a young parent or debtor or criminal should not die as escape; or greedy relatives should be vetted from imposing suicide on a rich uncle; kids and mentally ill folks too need guardian approval; etc.

This was not abuse.

What makes it abuse for me is that he basically felt like it.  Because he was old.  To me that is not a good enough reason.  I find pain and suffering in a terminal illness the only reasons that make sense.  If you allow it for gratuitous reasons, there is really no justification for why you should discriminate against anyone by putting artificial limits on who should and shouldn't get it.  After all they are all trying to escape something.

My reasoning is that noone is consulted before their birth: we're all just here. Further, suicides do occur anyway, just more horrifically. So long as it's not a means of escape from responsibility like debt or criminality people should die when they choose. Heck some terrorists might choose it in place of blowing up innocent folks.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

My reasoning is that noone is consulted before their birth: we're all just here. Further, suicides do occur anyway, just more horrifically. So long as it's not a means of escape from responsibility like debt or criminality people should die when they choose. Heck some terrorists might choose it in place of blowing up innocent folks.

I sympathize with some of that.  However, like murder - which is illegal arguably because it happens  - criminalization of suicide permits legal avenues of intervention whenever possible.

Because death tends to have a societal impact and affects more than just the victim, I prefer restrictions on its facilitation in general with rare exceptions.

[vooke]

My reasoning is that noone is consulted before their birth: we're all just here. Further, suicides do occur anyway, just more horrifically. So long as it's not a means of escape from responsibility like debt or criminality people should die when they choose. Heck some terrorists might choose it in place of blowing up innocent folks.

I sympathize with some of that.  However, like murder - which is illegal arguably because it happens  - criminalization of suicide permits legal avenues of intervention whenever possible.

Because death tends to have a societal impact and affects more than just the victim, I prefer restrictions on its facilitation in general with rare exceptions.

What exception would you have in mind apart from the usual suspects; mental illness etc

[Nefertiti]

I sympathize with some of that.  However, like murder - which is illegal arguably because it happens  - criminalization of suicide permits legal avenues of intervention whenever possible.

Because death tends to have a societal impact and affects more than just the victim, I prefer restrictions on its facilitation in general with rare exceptions.

Murder is nothing like suicide: choice about the self. Just like freedom of worship, etc. There is no freedom to impose death on others. Murder motives are a disaster altogether!

This is a similar argument to transgender: if a father decides he was meant to be a woman, do the kids get a say? Since they wind up with two 'mothers'.

If you consider Caitlyn, transgender and the supremacy of the individual in choice, then it's a small stretch to euthenasia and assisted suicide. Nobody sane and innocent should have to jump off a building just so everyone can feel great about themselves.

[Nefertiti]

My reasoning is that noone is consulted before their birth: we're all just here. Further, suicides do occur anyway, just more horrifically. So long as it's not a means of escape from responsibility like debt or criminality people should die when they choose. Heck some terrorists might choose it in place of blowing up innocent folks.

I sympathize with some of that.  However, like murder - which is illegal arguably because it happens  - criminalization of suicide permits legal avenues of intervention whenever possible.

Because death tends to have a societal impact and affects more than just the victim, I prefer restrictions on its facilitation in general with rare exceptions.

What exception would you have in mind apart from the usual suspects; mental illness etc

-Mental illness
-Liabilities - pay up first
-Kids

Kwisha. Noone asked to be here. Personally if I was given the form I would have chosen to wait for the intergalactic era... as a Cartwheeler probably. Much more fun o'er yonder.

[veritas]

At that age he would've had health issues. I don't support assisted suicides but I do support dying in dignity. Surely there could be a scientific way one day to transform consciousness into artificial intelligence. I think nature already does this after death rebirth etc. ie. DNA but how to give a piece of DNA a perception or conscious awareness.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

My reasoning is that noone is consulted before their birth: we're all just here. Further, suicides do occur anyway, just more horrifically. So long as it's not a means of escape from responsibility like debt or criminality people should die when they choose. Heck some terrorists might choose it in place of blowing up innocent folks.

I sympathize with some of that.  However, like murder - which is illegal arguably because it happens  - criminalization of suicide permits legal avenues of intervention whenever possible.

Because death tends to have a societal impact and affects more than just the victim, I prefer restrictions on its facilitation in general with rare exceptions.

What exception would you have in mind apart from the usual suspects; mental illness etc

Mental illness is not on that list. 

I would make exceptions for situations like pulling the plug(or stopping active treatment) in a terminal illness where there is no realistic chance of recovery with the current technology and/or scarce resources being wasted on sustaining a life.   Likewise, palliative treatment that increases likelihood of death.  In either case, the death comes by indirect action on the part of others, in situations where they are out of options or trying to alleviate suffering.

[Dear Mami]

I support your views on this, Termie. Some times the law is also a statement by the society at large about things which are important. Like human life. Legalizing some things and worse, turning them into some kind of absolute "human right", often has the opposite impact of making them not only 'legal' but normal, and then it becomes morally right in a lot of people's eyes.  You also lose the ability to make compromise laws/solutions like the one you are talking about where not all cases are treated equally.

Now, as a person who closely witnessed my own father's horrendous suffering due to not just a degenerative illness but a few other serious complications for some years before he passed on, I understand more than I want to why people opt to do that. I still couldnt bring myself to do it (I don't think) but I can no longer pass any sort of judgment on those who make this choice when it is too damn much.

However, I would want very serious restrictions/checks around it. These so-called liberal European countries that do this do so in a really draconian way IMO. It's up to the doctor, basically, not even so much one's close relations and I've heard of a few horror stories where a lucid person protested the idea of being killed by the doctor only to be ignored because the doctor felt this person was brainwashed by religion or whatever and so went ahead and euthanized them against their will. It must have been either Belgium or the Netherlands where this happened. It was a nun that was euthanized. Something like that ought to be straight up illegal and grounds for murder charges. If someone still has the ability to refuse being killed then killing them is murder, plain and simple. You don't get to decide for people that they shouldn't go on living or that their life is not worth living when they don't want to be euthanized.

Also, placing such a decision in the hands of a stranger who feels nothing for the dying person is just gross. You find one of these cold hearted folks who only think in robotic, factory terms like how much medicine and food you're consuming etc. That cannot and should not be in the hands of a doctor. A doctor must be consulted (as part of the restrictions) but he cannot have the power to override another person's desire to continue living until natural death or at least until the point where they are completely incapacitated and cannot be brought back.

I also sometimes wonder if "easy" solutions like this esp where the elderly are concerned might negatively impact research and innovation around some illnesses that exclusively affect the aged.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

I support your views on this, Termie. Some times the law is also a statement by the society at large about things which are important. Like human life. Legalizing some things and worse, turning them into some kind of absolute "human right", often has the opposite impact of making them not only 'legal' but normal, and then it becomes morally right in a lot of people's eyes.  You also lose the ability to make compromise laws/solutions like the one you are talking about where not all cases are treated equally.

Now, as a person who closely witnessed my own father's horrendous suffering due to not just a degenerative illness but a few other serious complications for some years before he passed on, I understand more than I want to why people opt to do that. I still couldnt bring myself to do it (I don't think) but I can no longer pass any sort of judgment on those who make this choice when it is too damn much.

However, I would want very serious restrictions/checks around it. These so-called liberal European countries that do this do so in a really draconian way IMO. It's up to the doctor, basically, not even so much one's close relations and I've heard of a few horror stories where a lucid person protested the idea of being killed by the doctor only to be ignored because the doctor felt this person was brainwashed by religion or whatever and so went ahead and euthanized them against their will. It must have been either Belgium or the Netherlands where this happened. It was a nun that was euthanized. Something like that ought to be straight up illegal and grounds for murder charges. If someone still has the ability to refuse being killed then killing them is murder, plain and simple. You don't get to decide for people that they shouldn't go on living or that their life is not worth living when they don't want to be euthanized.

Also, placing such a decision in the hands of a stranger who feels nothing for the dying person is just gross. You find one of these cold hearted folks who only think in robotic, factory terms like how much medicine and food you're consuming etc. That cannot and should not be in the hands of a doctor. A doctor must be consulted (as part of the restrictions) but he cannot have the power to override another person's desire to continue living until natural death or at least until the point where they are completely incapacitated and cannot be brought back.

I also sometimes wonder if "easy" solutions like this esp where the elderly are concerned might negatively impact research and innovation around some illnesses that exclusively affect the aged.

Yep.  It doesn't sit well.  And this Aussie mzee was not sick in any big way.  He was more bored than anything.