The inability of opponents to distinguish between people in difficult lives that can and could be changed - job loss, depression, business failure, etc. - and those who are facing months to years of nothing but drugged-to-the-eyebrows pain, suffering and near-zero quality of life, with absolutely no cure or release short of death, indicate that we have a long ways to go to cure stupidity.
Yes it means I am a rational person.
The entire human race, in other words.
Then don’t opt for assisted suicide. It’s not mandatory, you know.
Woah. You really feel that way? I feel crazy sorry for you now, and I understand your POV a bit better.
Still disagree with it completely, by the way.
That is a total misstatement. My mother had a end of life document that she wanted me to honor. I didn’t want to. I dreaded that the day might ever come. But it did. And the doctors and nurses at the hospital took the time necessary to explain to me that she would never recover, but suffer possible pain and indignity from that point on. But, by removed her from support, she would likely die - just sooner. I refuse to believe that I “ordered” her death by giving permission to remove it, nor than any other family member who honors the wishes of a competent member for end of life options “ordered” their death.
If you think these are easy decisions for family members, then you’ve been greatly mislead.
For now.
I don’t think it’s a decision a family member has the authority to make.
My mistake, although the first part of my post still applies and I guess you can change the OP being upset to “something that others might get upset about”.
Aside from my father in law’s last few months dying of cancer. I have personally never met someone who was currently facing “facing months to years of nothing but drugged-to-the-eyebrows pain, suffering and near-zero quality of life, with absolutely no cure or release short of death” It does not describe my current condition and I bet it does not describe your current condition. What is your point with this remark. Nobody is suggesting in this thread that we kill healthy functional people.
I read the OP and wondered why this was posted in the Pit. Then I started reading, and it became obvious: Smapti. It didn’t start here, it was moved here.
Sound?
Some people just don’t do well when their preferred Morality Dispenser loses its “Because I Said So” Mandate.
Anyway, I’m fully in favor of Jerry Brown’s decision and I hope the right to die with dignity is recognized at the Federal level very soon. (Demographically, of course, this is practically a foregone conclusion, on two fronts… )
What release from your current state of existence are you expecting? Do you anticipate a golden chariot descending from the heavens to escort you into the bosom of Abraham while angels sing glories of your ascension?
Death is all that any of us have to look forward to, and pain is all we can expect to experience in the meantime. The only difference is the degree of it we’re experiencing at the moment. This is all we get - we can either make the most of it, or we can chicken out.
Let me try this again. The “person” makes the decision, the family just follows their wishes.
I don’t think that’s a decision that a person has the authority to make, either.
You have not only lost this argument, you’ve thrown away whatever respect most of us once had for you.
The nice, generous interpretation is that you’re totally irrational on this subject, due to operating from premises so divorced from reality any conclusions you draw from them are similarly alien to actual experience.
The interpretation most people will have is that you’re a singularly incompetent troll who’s taking a position so extreme that it destroys the uncertainty trolling is built on: Is it real or is it a put-on?
In short, if a good troll involves claiming Trump is a foreign policy genius, you’re on the level of shouting your admiration for Josef Mengele at Yad Vashem.
If a person doesn’t have the right to decide what to do with their own body, what do they have the right to decide? Assisted suicide laws give people control over what is quite possibly the most profound and important decision they’ll have to ever make. What on earth has it got to do with you, the government, or anyone else?
When has a person ever had “the right to decide what to do with their body”? Governments regulate all sorts of things people do to themselves - what they can eat or drink, what chemicals they can use, what operations they can undergo.
It has to do with all of us, because it relates to what value we place on human life.
Just… Wow.
That doesn’t answer the question. What I’m asking is, if the government has the right to tell you how you are allowed to die, why doesn’t it follow that they also have the right to tell you what to eat? Or what activities are too “dangerous” for you? If the government ruled that we all had to eat a mediterranean diet to maximise our longevity, or that we weren’t allowed to do extreme sports, would you be ok with that? After all, it would certainly send a very strong message about the value of human life.
“We” don’t have a right to place any level of value on other human lives. We only have a right to place a value on our own. If a person suffering a painful and humiliating terminal illness decides, in their final weeks or months, to check out early, the only moral choice is to respect that decision.
It certainly does - and I’m far more comfortable with that than with the idea of the government deciding when our lives are no longer worth living, which is the consequence of your way of thought.
Then democracy is invalid.
No, the moral choice is to alleviate their pain and eradicate the cause of their illness.