Exactly.
I said it upthread and I’ll say it again. This joker will never understand, there will be no convincing. The only chance of any revelation won’t happen until he’s on his own deathbed. The last person I had this conversation with was the same way and she simply never got it into her own self-absorbed noggin until she was dying from cancer and couldn’t move, begging for morphine (dose maxed out - and it was fentanyl - more would be lethal) until the end.
The bill addresses the question of coercion, which was the only reason I might have had to oppose it. There are sufficient protections to keep anyone from participating in this who might not actually want it.
Also, California already guaranteed the right of anyone to refuse medical treatment. Anyone can just stop taking meds, or demand life-support be unplugged, or whatever. So we already had a “right to die” guarantee under our law.
A friend of mine lost his father recently: the man (very old and in hellish bad health) chose to stop eating. That’s also perfectly legal. What would opponents ask? Forced feedings?
I hope you never find out exactly how wrong this statement is.
I haven’t read the text of the bill, but in other states there is a provision that protects the individual. A MD helps the patient access the medication, but that’s the end of it. No one can help the patient take the medication, as that would be a homicide. The entire EOL act must be solely done by the patient. So, basically, an unconscious person can’t self medicate and no one can assist them in that regard…legally.
I’m starting to think think Smapti is Lord Voldemort.
Fucking nanny statism.
That’s one of the provisions in the CA bill. Also, coercing someone to end their own life is a felony, and it requires the recommendations of two different doctors. Lots of protections.
(Personally, I’d have liked to make it a little easier for someone to pre-assign responsibility to a family member, to allow this to be done for comatose patients or others who cannot self-medicate. A variant on “do not resuscitate” directives. But I can understand why that wasn’t included, and I’m not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This seems to be a good bill.)
From what I remember, Smapti had a close relative who committed suicide (father maybe?) and decided right then and there that suicide was the coward’s way out and was never right.
At one point, he admitted that this biased his thinking, and that maybe he should, at the very least, not participate in these threads. And I was willing to let it go. But he keeps doing it.
More a reverse Jesus: others must suffer so he may live.
I’m sorry sir, I have some bad news for you. 
They did not choose death. They did not kill themselves for the sake of killing themselves, their deaths were an unfortunate consequence of their efforts to directly save lives.
Note to other posters:
Do not try to debate suicide or assisted death with Smapti - his opposition is deeply rooted because of an incident when he was 10.
You can smash your head against the proverbial brick wall all you want. A position dating back to the most formative age of a person is unlikely to have any effect.
If and when Smapti is facing a horrid, painful future, he (?) might change his mind. Not until.
Smapti - my deepest sympathy for your trauma - it came at the most crucial time of your life. Maybe you should just skip threads about suicide and/or assisted death.
I strongly disagree that all governance is simply hurting its citizenry because it feels it knows more than it’s constituency. Again, I must say again the philosophy is sociopathic. You clearly state that someone that you don’t know or care about ceasing to suffer diminishes your own life. Absurd and absurdly selfish. It’s all about you then.
But some are and you’re so without empathy that you’d not only wish them to suffer but scare them to death. Nice.
You’re repeating yourself. We have determined you only care about yourself. How does it affect Smapti, even when it doesn’t remotely affect you.
Ahh, so you saw Logans Run and thought it was a documentary. That explains a lot.
I’m not seeing any encouraging going on except in your fantasies. Cite for people being encouraged to kill themselves rather than deal with their problems.
**Smapti **literally walked in on his mother’s suicide attempt when he was, I think, 10 years old. While he himself is now a grown man, these posts are the manifest fears of that 10 year old child. He will literally never be convinced by anything anyone can say, by no amount of logic and reason and appeals to compassion, until that hurting child heals.
I think there may be some value in continuing to address his arguments for others to read rebuttals and know they are not alone in supporting death with dignity, but please don’t feel frustrated, or even particularly put out, if/when you’re unsuccessful in breaking through his armor. It’s the only thing holding his psyche together.
Suicides have happened since humanity has been around; how has this affected millions of other lives? I’m pretty sure all of them made such a decision. Since suicide predates governments who decided that they didn’t have the right? Who gave them the right to decide this?
(Too late to edit, but I finally found the link to Smapti’s tale: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18116633&postcount=106 )