# Euthanasia for non-terminally-ill patients **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 18, 2015, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186 "2015-01-18T17:52:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/141 "2015-02-09T09:04:59Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Suicide should be available to anyone who wants it. Everybody has a right to life, and everyone should have a right to death once they are of legal consent. Nobody asked to be brought into this world in the first place. They should get to leave if they want. So it was wrong of the paramedics to intervene and save my mother’s life, then? She had an absolute right to die, nobody asked if she wanted to be born, my sister and I were being selfish by wanting a mother? > [@](#): > > If hospitals could be part of the suicide system, they could harvest much-needed organs. …and suddenly my concerns about the organ harvesting business don’t sound so crazy, do they? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/142 "2015-02-09T09:54:21Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > So it was wrong of the paramedics to intervene and save my mother’s life, then? She had an absolute right to die, nobody asked if she wanted to be born, my sister and I were being selfish by wanting a mother? Not wrong of the paramedics to intervene, both because of current law and also because they would not have had time to investigate whether it was a suicide. But if you’re asking, sure, any person should have the right to drop out at any time, even a parent. It may or may not be responsible to do so, but that’s not for me to say, and shouldn’t have a bearing on rights. > [@](#): > > …and suddenly my concerns about the organ harvesting business don’t sound so crazy, do they? Well is organ donation now an “organ harvesting business”? Because no-one mentioned doing this without consent. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/143 "2015-02-09T10:03:44Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Well is organ donation now an “organ harvesting business”? Because no-one mentioned doing this without consent. This is another thing Smapti believes - that “opt-out” organ donorship (that is, that you have to explicitly say, “no I don’t want to be a donor” in order to prevent your organs from being harvested upon death) is bad because it would lead to doctors not trying as hard to keep patients alive in order to get at their organs. I hope I don’t need to explain my opinion on that particular subject. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/144 "2015-02-09T11:07:40Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > “Natural death” happens all the time, often with the compassionate encouragement of these learned practitioners of medical science. One reads increasingly about the elderly with incurable illnesses, or younger people with terminal ones, having “died quietly at home” instead of being assaulted with medical apparatus in institutions to give them one more day or one more week of a miserable and hopeless existence. “Dying peacefully at home” is a fantasy. It’s a lie people tell themselves so they can feel better about something they’ve already resigned themselves to. Existence is only miserable and hopeless if you choose to be miserable. > [@](#): > > You seem to believe that facilitating justified euthanasia – as judged by medical professionals – is somehow equivalent to lightly advocating euthanasia for all. It is not. Others believe that it “cheapens” human life and is the proverbial wedge that opens the door to real death panels. It isn’t that, either. The German euthanasia program has already been cited. It’s only a short slide from “people should have the right to kill themselves” to “you should probably end it now to save your family the burden” to “it isn’t cost-effective to keep you alive.” > [@](#): > > You also seem to believe that “modern medical science” can fix anything if we just try hard enough. That isn’t true, either. If it can’t now, it soon will. We’re making giant leaps with each passing year. 20 years ago, HIV was a death sentence - now it can be managed. In the past few years we’ve successfully treated rabies victims, when before you were good as dead once symptoms presented. We’ve healed paraplegics. We kept Terri Schiavo and Sunny von Bulow alive for years, and they actually _were_ dead by any meaningful definition. Most of us will live to see the conditions that we now consider “terminal” to be fully treatable. > [@](#): > > But most seriously, and I have to say really damn frightening, is your belief that life must be preserved at any cost, no matter what the wishes of the patient and no matter what is going on in his pained and tortured mind, and no matter how hopeless the prognosis. It argues that we must deprive a human being of even as much compassion as we show a dog or a cat. I don’t believe in animal euthanasia either. > [@](#): > > BTW, that book is mainly about aging and not at all about euthanasia, but nevertheless, in discussing the quality of life issues it covers much of the same ground.) If it assumes that death is preferable to any type of life then it is based on a flawed premise. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/145 "2015-02-09T11:10:29Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > This is another thing Smapti believes - that “opt-out” organ donorship (that is, that you have to explicitly say, “no I don’t want to be a donor” in order to prevent your organs from being harvested upon death) is bad because it would lead to doctors not trying as hard to keep patients alive in order to get at their organs. I hope I don’t need to explain my opinion on that particular subject. And now we’ve got people in this thread all but advocating that doctors be allowed to talk people into killing themselves so they can harvest their organs. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/146 "2015-02-09T11:28:24Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > And now we’ve got people in this thread all but advocating that doctors be allowed to talk people into killing themselves so they can harvest their organs. No, no we don’t. You read way too far into a single statement based on your own very paranoid preconceptions. And for the record: > [@Smapti](#): > > …and suddenly my concerns about the organ harvesting business don’t sound so crazy, do they? Yes. Yes, they really, really, really do. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/147 "2015-02-09T12:10:38Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > You earlier were suggesting that pretty much all cultures have prohibited attempted suicide. There was no point given, but the implied one was that most cultures have agreed suicide is bad, so it’s probably bad. That is incorrect and a distortion of what I said, which was (including typos and missing words): > [@](#): > > Certainly, other society’s than those steeped in Judeo-Christian ethics have been more tolerant of suicide than ours, but I don’t know of any society that is favor of unjustified suicide. The allowed reasons differ, but there always seems to be some sort of criteria involved. There is no statement about “pretty much all” or “prohibiting” anything. I stated that societies that that tolerate suicide still have limits on what they consider acceptable reasons. Unless you can provide an example of a society where suicide was considered OK for any and all reasons I’ll stand by that. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/148 "2015-02-09T12:13:34Z")
Smapti, do you imagine that in Belgium you can just walk in to see a doctor, say “please help me kill myself,” and they reply “OK, we have an opening next Wednesday”? There would be a long period of counselling and other interventions first. The son who claimed his mother’s depression was largey the result of his mother’s estrangement with her children was probably wrong, and his way of coping with it. > [@Broomstick](#): > > I especially do not want to see a situation where a “right” to die becomes a “duty” to die because society becomes too lazy to make an effort to fix a problem that’s fixable. I know this has been gone over on other threads before, but since this thread is specifically about _non_-terminally ill people being given access to assisted suicide, then I think it’s relevant and is a genuine concern. > [@Smapti](#): > > Have you ever had a loved one commit suicide, or attempt it? > > I have. Perhaps an experience like that might give you a little “certainty” as well. I have, plus an unusually high number of friends who killed themselves. You’re not the only one, you know; your experience, while awful, does not trump everyone else’s. > [@AnaMen](#): > > A person without physical issues ought to be able to manage to commit suicide without help or permission from anyone. Insisting doctors get involved and society give approval seems pretty selfish. That’s the objection I find the least logical (aside from Smapti’s posts). Most non-assisted forms of suicide are very damaging to the people who find the dead person and some are physically dangerous to other people. Doctors are among the few who have real experience of and mental preparation for helping someone to die, and no doctor (in the countries that allow euthanasia) is obliged to take part in it. > [@Mijin](#): > > (FTR it seems hanging is not a bad way to go; IIRC you pass out from lack of blood to the brain before you suffocate. And that’s pretty much a method available to everyone. > Even if this is right though, and everyone knew it, things still aren’t quite that simple. When I contemplated suicide, I ruled out hanging. I live alone, and I was concerned that if my neck was not constricted enough, for whatever reason, I would hang there until I starved to death.) One of my friends committed suicide by hanging and that was a horrific thing for her GF to discover. Facial bloating, eyes popping out, etc. I once saw a hanging suicide that had happened in the woods and the time it had taken for him to be found had reduced the bloating but had let animals knaw at him. In fact I’d say it’s among the worst ways for the people who find you. That was not a great year for me - it seemed like I was surrounded by suicide everywhere I turned. > [@Broomstick](#): > > There’s also the side issues of, say, the engineer being hauled into court, or losing his profession, railroads and/or municipalities being sued for not putting sufficient preventive devices in place, and so on and so forth. No, in countries where suicide by train is popular as a method, the engineer doesn’t et hauled into court apart from possibly giving a statement at the inquest. In London it’s common enough to have a nick-name, a “one-under,” and a code that every commuter knows, that the service is delayed due to “passenger action.” It is traumatic for the driver, though and they usually require intensive counselling. None of this is an argument against committing suicide with a doctor’s help - quite the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/149 "2015-02-09T12:14:46Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > As a general rule of thumb, if your only example is “the nazis” then you usually don’t have a very strong argument. Except that sometimes it is. I provided an example of a state conducted euthanasia program that quite a few people think got way out of hand. Dismissing it as “just Nazis” is ridiculous, they don’t have the monopoly on evil. If it happened once it could certainly happen again. It doesn’t _have to_ turn out that way but it demonstrates that yes, it can get that bad. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/150 "2015-02-09T12:37:13Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Well is organ donation now an “organ harvesting business”? Because no-one mentioned doing this without consent. They do, in fact, call the extraction of donor organs from corpses on life support “harvesting”. Just because in the West there have not been abuses of organ harvesting does not mean it has never occurred elsewhere, or never could. India has had a problem of poor people being induced to sell their organs, usually a kidney, then never getting paid. China has been known to take organs from the condemned without the consent of either the condemned or their families - in contrast to the US where someone on death row is not allowed to donate their organs, at least in part to avoid any incentive to kill more people. I realize that some people add in possible organ donation to make things more palatable, apparently unaware that this will cause horror in some other people. Those same people don’t seem to realize that death by pill overdose will almost certainly render the deceased’s organ unfit for donation, either due to outright damage or chemical contamination. That’s the other reason people in the US who are executed aren’t organ donors - lethal injection renders the person’s organs unfit for donation. It’s people who do things like shoot themselves in the head with a low caliber pistol who make good organ donors. One way to avoid abuses is to avoid temptations towards abuse. If we do not allow organ harvesting from suicides that will reduce incentives to nudge people towards suicide. > [@Smapti](#): > > “Dying peacefully at home” is a fantasy. Actually, my mom got to do that. Admittedly, it is rare but that’s largely because people don’t know when to stop the medical locomotive and say “enough”. > [@](#): > > If it can’t now, it soon will. We’re making giant leaps with each passing year. 20 years ago, HIV was a death sentence - now it can be managed. Yes, IF you have access to medical care and can afford to obtain the necessary medications - if not, you’re SOL. > [@](#): > > In the past few years we’ve successfully treated rabies victims, when before you were good as dead once symptoms presented. If by “successful” you mean with the first 25 attempts two people survived at all, and the second 10 attempts, under a slightly revised protocol, netted another two survivors. All such survivors have suffered some degree of neurological damage, some quite severe and disabling. There are two hypotheses, one that the survivors were infected with a weaker strain of rabies, and another that some humans have some genetic resistance to the virus that enabled their survival. > [@](#): > > We’ve healed paraplegics. I’m sure \*\*Ambilvalid \*\*will be thrilled by this news so he will no longer be thwarted in his mobility by things like staircases. Except we haven’t, except in very few cases and in a very limited manner. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/151 "2015-02-09T13:08:32Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Smapti, do you imagine that in Belgium you can just walk in to see a doctor, say “please help me kill myself,” and they reply “OK, we have an opening next Wednesday”? There would be a long period of counselling and other interventions first. I don’t know Belgian law. I know that it took Brittany Maynard a grand total of nine months from being diagnosed with cancer to being legally prescribed a fatal drug in a state she moved to specifically so she could kill herself. The job of a doctor whose patient says he wants to kill himself is to _stop him_. When a doctor says he’s willing to help a patient die, what he’s really saying is " I am incapable of doing my job". ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/152 "2015-02-09T13:13:17Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Please review your history of Germany in the late 1930’s, then come back when you have some better appreciation of how things can go wrong. > > I’m thrilled that modern state-condoned euthanisia seems to be working as intended with no coercion, but [we do have at least one](http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005200) [historical example](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/714411/T4-Program) [of things going](http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-euthanasia.htm) [off the rails.](http://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/center-study-genocide-conflict-resolution-and-human-rights/nazi-euthanasia-program) thus, it is NOT “abject nonsense” but rather a cautionary tale. > > Unless, of course, you think the Third Reich had “the highest regard for the dignity of life and self-determination”. Yes, I did just invoke the Nazis, but there you have it - a recent example of state-sanctioned euthanasia in Europe. No, I’m not talking about the death camps, I’m talking about what happened in hospitals and care facilities prior to the Nazi expansion. I just hope we don’t repeat their mistakes in regards to end of life care and treatment of the disabled members of society. That is an absolutely ridiculous argument. I feel silly even debating this, but what you cite is in no way an example of “how things can go wrong” or “things going off the rails”. It was not some well-intentioned program that went wrong because Hitler lacked the wisdom that you claim to be articulating. It is a “cautionary tale” that warns us we should not elect Nazis, especially Nazis led by a deranged lunatic named Adolf. If you wish to claim that the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, in unanimously ruling on the right to die _in extremis_ as a matter of human rights and security of the person, are unwitting neo-Nazis who are unleashing a latter-day Holocaust, then you’ve just proven why Godwin’s Law was framed to describe that kind of argument. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/153 "2015-02-09T13:33:39Z")
That’s for having a totally inappropriate knee-jerk reaction. As I said, the Nazis did not and do not have a monopoly on evil. I realize it makes you feel safer to feel they were exceptional sorts, perhaps not even entirely human, and thus the risks of them are eliminated but that is pixie-dust fantasy. Most Nazis were pretty normal human beings who did horrible things. A few were deranged, but we still have crazy people in the world. The fact you think that someone is named “Adolf” has an impact on leadership or morality of movement shows how ridiculous your counter argument is. T-4 was done with the best of intentions by people who believe it was for the benefit of their society. You’re a fool if you think people today are incapable of doing great wrong with the same motivations. I have called no one a neo-Nazi, not anyone in this thread and not the Supreme Court of Canada. I have, more than once, emphasized the need for safeguards in any so-called euthanasia program to _prevent_ abuses. T-4 is one of the reasons why. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/154 "2015-02-09T14:25:54Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > That is incorrect and a distortion of what I said […] > There is no statement about “pretty much all” or “prohibiting” anything. I stated that societies that that tolerate suicide still have limits on what they consider acceptable reasons. Unless you can provide an example of a society where suicide was considered OK for any and all reasons I’ll stand by that. I don’t think that is a misparse, but even accepting this explanation of what was meant, what is your point? So virtually all developed countries place limits on the kinds of suicides that can be assisted. We are discussing in this thread whether such limits are appropriate. What could you possibly be saying other than “Lots of cultures think it’s bad, so it’s bad”? > [@](#): > > One way to avoid abuses is to avoid temptations towards abuse. If we do not allow organ harvesting from suicides that will reduce incentives to nudge people towards suicide. I haven’t really thought this specific issue through, but I think I agree with you. It’s easy to think of scenarios where a person could feel under pressure (even without other people meaning to apply such pressure) to off themselves and give their organs to someone that could use them more productively. So even though I am in favor of an opt-out organ donation system, I can at least see good reasons why we could put an exception that suicides are not eligible. Having said that, I don’t believe that this is the case today. And I have not heard any accounts of someone committing suicide just to help another person either directly or financially. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/155 "2015-02-09T14:35:53Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Except that sometimes it is. I provided an example of a state conducted euthanasia program that quite a few people think got way out of hand. Dismissing it as “just Nazis” is ridiculous, they don’t have the monopoly on evil. If it happened once it could certainly happen again. It doesn’t _have to_ turn out that way but it demonstrates that yes, it can get that bad. Okay, so here’s a question: what was the purpose of this euthanasia program? Was it to help the suffering? Or was it to purify the German race? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/156 "2015-02-09T14:53:03Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > That’s for having a totally inappropriate knee-jerk reaction. It seems to me that the “inappropriate reaction” was falling prey to Godwin’s Law and invoking the Nazis. > [@Broomstick](#): > > The fact you think that someone is named “Adolf” has an impact on leadership or morality of movement shows how ridiculous your counter argument is. No, it shows a bit of sarcastic humor while having to respond to that bit of hyperbolic Godwinizing. > [@Broomstick](#): > > I have, more than once, emphasized the need for safeguards in any so-called euthanasia program to _prevent_ abuses. **Of course** there need to be safeguards. Has anyone ever said otherwise? Have you read the Supreme Court decision or even my summary of it? First of all it lays out some basic conditions under which physician-assisted suicide would be allowable. The ruling then concurs with a lower court finding that the safeguards in place in other jurisdictions elsewhere in the world do, in fact, work. Finally, the specific safeguards that will be in place beyond the limitations already in the court ruling will be a function of the specific legislation which the court gave the government until year-end to enact, and I have no doubt that there will be strict safeguards in abundance, and that they will work as well as they do everywhere else. So I really don’t see your point, except perhaps to suggest that it will all fall apart and will somehow become just like Nazi Germany, and that my reference to “the highest regard for the dignity of life and self-determination” is just a sham and the true intent of the court ruling is something far more conspiratorial and insidious. At least, that’s the way it came across to me. Perhaps you meant it differently. But your use of terms like “so-called euthanasia” seem to suggest a general opposition to the whole concept on principle. ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/157 "2015-02-09T15:17:30Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Or the state can provide the means, or whatever. > I was just responding to the earlier point that physically fit people can commit suicide at any time, so why legalize it? The answer being that currently many people only have access to suicide methods that are scary, or painful, or have risks of complications. > > And, of course, some people traumatize others by jumping in front of a train. Perhaps some of those that do so are not deliberately trying to hurt others in doing so and have picked that method only because it is a quick and certain way to go. What is inhibiting their access to the normal stuff that kills people every day? Of course they should not be forcing others into a position of running them over or whatever, but since there are plenty of other options already, I’m not convinced that legal euthanasia would cut down on those. I suppose my initial reaction was too cynical, because of course I do believe we all have the right to end our own lives whenever we please, laws or no laws, and the idea that this right could be legally protected in any way seems too good to be true. The number of busybodies that intractably object to the idea that we are our own property, not wards of the state, is non-trivial and vocal. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/158 "2015-02-09T15:53:38Z")
> [@AnaMen](#): > > What is inhibiting their access to the normal stuff that kills people every day? > > Of course they should not be forcing others into a position of running them over or whatever, but since there are plenty of other options already, I’m not convinced that legal euthanasia would cut down on those. Which other options do you have in mind? A fatal dose of sleeping pills is not so easy to acquire in many countries, with it being such a well-known method of suicide. And even if you manage to get hold of the requisite pills, there’s a chance you’ll vomit some of them up (particularly if you’re combining with alcohol) and then survive with anything from liver failure to paralysis. Hanging and inert gas, like I said, seem fairly OK ways to go, but there’s not so much awareness of that, plus, like I say it takes a degree of faith to accept all that. I personally ruled out hanging because I couldn’t be 100% sure I would constrict the neck entirely and not hang there and starve to death. Gunshot is only an option in countries like the US with little gun control. And even then, shooting your own brainstem is harder than it seems, and people often botch it and take half their face off instead. What else? ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/159 "2015-02-09T16:16:18Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Which other options do you have in mind? > > A fatal dose of sleeping pills is not so easy to acquire in many countries, with it being such a well-known method of suicide. And even if you manage to get hold of the requisite pills, there’s a chance you’ll vomit some of them up (particularly if you’re combining with alcohol) and then survive with anything from liver failure to paralysis. > > Hanging and inert gas, like I said, seem fairly OK ways to go, but there’s not so much awareness of that, plus, like I say it takes a degree of faith to accept all that. I personally ruled out hanging because I couldn’t be 100% sure I would constrict the neck entirely and not hang there and starve to death. > > Gunshot is only an option in countries like the US with little gun control. And even then, shooting your own brainstem is harder than it seems, and people often botch it and take half their face off instead. > > What else? I talked about these options to someone in a theoretical way and they went ahead and offed themselves with my top choice. I’m glad they were able to painlessly end their suffering and I don’t think their situation was ever going to improve, so I have no regrets about this, but I’d rather not make specific suggestions to countless strangers. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186/160 "2015-02-09T16:44:12Z")
> [@AnaMen](#): > > I talked about these options to someone in a theoretical way and they went ahead and offed themselves with my top choice. I’m glad they were able to painlessly end their suffering and I don’t think their situation was ever going to improve, so I have no regrets about this, but I’d rather not make specific suggestions to countless strangers. Fine, but think through everything you just said. You wondered out loud why people don’t just use simple methods of, let’s call them X and Y, and instead do dumb things like jump in front of trains. When I’ve asked you what X and Y are, you say you don’t want to give people ideas. So doesn’t that answer your own question: people don’t do X and Y because they aren’t aware of those methods. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/euthanasia-for-non-terminally-ill-patients/710186.md?page=9)