Resolved: People have the right to kill themselves

Great Debates
41

Many doctors stood up and said that the people Kevorkian assisted to kill were NOT in the right state of mind. “The right state of mind” isn’t just pulled out of a hat. There are clarifications to such a state of mind.

Obviously you and I are NOT talking about the SAME God. Cause if we were you would know that God is all loving and does NOT hate anyone! We are all given free will and that is what makes us individuals. We are not puppets to God. God has a plan for us and it is up to us to grow in the designed plan. God allows us to take our lives if we want but he has provided the tools to help us if we chose not to perform such an act.

42

** Generally, when people explain the requirements necessary to be in a “healthy state of mind”, they rule out suicide by default.

If people are motivated by their emotions (specifically, “negative” ones such as fear and pain), they’re not in their right minds. If they make a decision rationally, they’re “out of touch with their feelings” or “in denial” and not in their right minds.

Of course, we allow people to make life-and-death decisions when they’re not in their right minds all the time. For example, we expect people with serious illnesses, injuries, or diseases (or their families) to consent to medical care, but few of them could actually meet the standards for being in their “right minds”.

43

To second this, every time I have been given a psyche profile one of the questions asked was, “Are you now, or have you ever, considered attempting suicide?” If you say yes to that question, it generally automatically disqualifies you for whatever the test is being given for. There may be a dozen reasons why Dr. Kav’s patients may or may not be considered, “of sound mind” but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a right to kill themselves. It merely means that they should be directed towards counseling first, which according to everything I have read about Kav, he does do.

44

So you say. But I say that God gave each of us a beginning set of stats, like D&D, and then leaves us on our own to fight it out. Win or lose, and if we win we get to breed and if we lose we get to be worm food.

So why should we determine public policy based on your crazy nutcase view of God and not on my eminently sensible view of God?

(Note: I do not actually believe in the Invisble Sky Pixie called “God,” but I find it’s best to play along with the delusional).

Any time I hear “right state of mind” I notice that if anyone wants to commit suicide they are automatically written off as not having a “right state of mind.” So nice going with the self-referential definitions. Not.

45

Did I miss the bit where the problem of dependent children etc got ‘resolved’? - the state has an interest in preventing your demise if allowing it would result in there being a need to provide care.

46

Given the choice between spending my last years in agony from various diseases or going out in style, I’d choose the latter.

I watched a friend of mine die screaming from the pain of bone cancer. If there had been a safe and painless way of letting her go, I would have helped her myself.

There was no purpose to this death. No one was inspired. Her suffering profited no one. How much better it would have been if we could have all gathered by her bedside, kissed her goodbye, and let her slip gently, painlessly away. My last memories of my friend would have been beautiful ones, rather than nightmares.

Instead, she died screaming, all dignity stripped away. No one was able to say goodbye.

For the terminally ill, there’s no sound reason, in my opinion, to force them to live out the short time they have left in agony.

This seems to me to be one of those cases in which a religious viewpoint is dictating policy, which I object to in the strongest of terms. I deeply resent attempts by religious people to force all of us to live according to their rules.

47

Can the State force me to care for children I don’t want? Can’t I give them up before I off myself?

48

Well, the state can certainly punish you for abandoning them.
But if adequate preparations are made for the care of the children (and I have no idea how you would adequately prepare a young child for the eventuality of your deliberate death), then I suppose that would ‘resolve’ it.

49

Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that people who sommit suicide don’t care much what happens to their kids. If they are defective enough to want to kill themselves in the first place, I can easily imagine there missing the genes that mandate care of their own youngsters. Just another way their genes won’t be passed on.

50

I hear suicide machines in the distance…

Actually, I think suicide is not per se a selfish act, and I don’t believe it is immoral, either. I do believe that most people who want to commit suicide would eventually reach a point in their life, should they continue to lead it, that they would be glad they didn’t. This presents me with a dilemma.

51

Are they perchance mechanical?

52

And again I ask: should nursing mothers be able to do whatever they want to their bodies?

53

Now that I’m pretty sure I understand the OP-- and thanks for your clarification, coleburner-- I’ll take a stand. There are some things the law should not control. A person’s living or dying is one of them, in my opinion. I’m against capital punishment (the law making a positive decision to kill) and the law prohibiting suicide (the law making a negative decision not to allow the killing of ones’ self). Obviously, murder is the exception here, because that is also an outside power determining one’s living or dying.
That said, I’m not in favor of coleburner’s contention that we shouldn’t save suicide attempts if they’re gotten to the hospital. Though I don’t suicide should be regulated by law, medicine is definitely a different story, for the following reasons:

~As has been pointed out on this thread, the definition of “sound mind” is infinitely debatable. I’m not attempting to define it here, but it’s wrong for a doctor to assume automatically that the person was of sound mind in their decision.

~We save people from their self-destructive choices all the time. By coleburner’s argument, that the person has, essentially, made their own bed and should have to lie in it, we should get rid of detox centers and rehab. We should never release rehabilitated prisoners. We shouldn’t try and cure AIDS victims who contracted the disease through knowing, unprotected sex. We should never help people out of messes they’ve made for themselves. This isn’t the way the human race functions. Just because suicide happens to be the most final self-destructive decision doesn’t mean we should put it in a different category from all others.

~Not treating would-be-suicides opens one Pandora’s Box we do NOT want to see the inside of. Allowing there to be qualifications on who gets vital medical care when they’re brought to a hospital would lead to giving doctors WAY more discretion than they should have in deciding to give treatment. A doctor might not treat a guy who got in an accident while driving the car he stole-- after all, he deserved it. What about a rapist who’s brought in after he’s shot resisting arrest? Should the doctor be able to decide he’s not worth saving? What about due process? We don’t want to open the door to giving doctors the authority to decide that a person doesn’t need to be saved.

54

I’m not understanding exactly what you’re asking, but if the question is: Should a nursing mother be able to take drugs, or what have you, I’d say no, simply because it endangers her baby.

If she wants to kill herself, the fact that she’s nursing makes little difference. Her baby will not be substantially harmed by having to be fed with a bottle.

55

I don’t think any depression can be “easily cured” through counseling and medication. If it’s situational, then it will go away on its own when the situation changes. If it’s chronic, years of therapy and medication may not even make a dent.

Isn’t death a part of life? Aren’t we free to live our life as we see fit? Granted, we cannot harm other people, but that only applies to physical harm. It would be a scary society indeed that legislated emotional distress in a criminal, as opposed to civil, sense.

An example was brought up of the Father who was so distraught by his child’s suicide he died wandering in the woods. So what? I see absolutely no logic or merit in that argument. Should his child be forced to suffer a miserable existence to make his father happy? Assuming that were done, and the child was forced to continue living, presumably in a locked psych ward, I would argue that the Father was causing as much pain to the child as the child’s suicide would have caused the Father. To carry it further, the example seemed to blame the child while holding the Father blameless for his own suicide, which he accomplished by wandering in the woods. That’s the height of hypocrisy.

As for a waiting period, it’s already in practice. Terminally ill people must wait until they die “naturally” before being allowed to die. But let’s say for the sake of argument that the one year wait was instituted. How is it not morally repugnant to inflict a year of suffering on someone? Because they might change their minds? Because we are uncomfortable with death? Because their life is so uniquely valuable? And what would the “literature” for and against suicide consist of? A copy of Final Exit and a Bible? (That’s in jest; Final Exit is about methods, and the Bible doesn’t condemn suicide. The Church does, but the Bible does not. Please correct me with chapter and verse of where the Bible condemns suicide.)

As far as the nursing Mother goes, there’s no teeth to that moral hotbutton. Extend it to pregnant women. And yes, pregnant women and nursing Mothers should indeed have all the rights of non-Mothers. Being a Mother does not strip you of your personhood. (Though I’m guessing it may sometimes feel like it does.) But just think about it for a second…any pregnant/nursing Mother who wants to kill herself…should we really force her to raise that child? What possible good could that serve? To what kind of upbringing are we sentencing that child?

As for the debtors being forced to pay off debt before being allowed to suicide - haven’t we outgrown the notion of debtor’s prison? Are we to create a labor camp for suicidal debtors? Or would you rather them be your employee? I tend to think bankruptcy laws are a more offensive avoidance of debt than suicide.

I agree that all mentally ill people deserve treatment, just as all physically ill people deserve treatment. The key difference is that physically ill people are allowed to refuse treatment. Mentally ill people should be able to refuse treatment as well, but far too often the treatment is imposed upon them without their consent. The justification, as has been pointed out, is that by definition “they are not of sound mind”, and therefore can be forcibly committed and medicated against their will.

Cole Burner, it would surprise me in the extreme to find out that suicidal people have no concern for their children’s welfare. The suicidal parents I have communicated with express terrible pain at the thought of their child’s future: either they will have to grow up with a parent who suicided, or they will stick around only to ruin their child’s life.

Isabelle, you said “No one has the right to help people in desperate situtaions (especially those who are not in the right frame of mind) kill themselves.” Ignoring the caveat, you are saying: “No one has the right to help people - who are in the right frame of mind - kill themselves.” Why not? Or do you subscribe to the official party line that all suicidal people are by definition in the wrong frame of mind?

56

My bad, I wasn’t addressing the main point of the OP, but rather the assertion that people should be able to put whatever they want into their bodies, abuse them however they like, etc. Should people be allowed to abuse their bodies if that causes direct harm to another person’s body?

I agree that nursing wouldn’t be revelent to the decision of whether or not to commit suicide.

57

In the scheme of things, a year is not a long time. Especially in relation to the permanance of suicide (eternity).

A waiting period would be neccesary to ensure its a heartfelt decision, instead of a spur of the moment thing brought upon by a temporary depressive episode.

58

Do any of you understand, that suicide is not an intellectual exercise? If a co worker or a school mate takes their life, it doesn’t really affect you. Oh you might be a little sad, but since it was a personal decision by the individual, you silently applaud. Even if you have strong feelings about taking life. It doesn’t effect you.
But hope in your deepest heart you never get a phone call telling you the person most important in your life is no longer.
Do any of you know “what happens next?”
You talk to the police a lot for a few days. You go to the house to get affairs in order, but all you do is wander around, looking… Looking for something. What is it? It isn’t there.
And you may have to identify the body. Everyone in that scene are like you, intellectual about it. Tears embarrass & frighten them. They can get you a shot if you need it. You don’t need a shot. You need to not be seeing the body of the other half of your heart. You can’t look. They make you. They, after all, have paper work.
You look and can’t turn away. They want you to leave but how can you leave and not take your heart with you?
You have to plan a memorial. Buy a coffin. Buy a bit if ground. You have to tell people. You have to tell your mother, your father, your children. How can you tell what you don’t believe.
Then you have to put the reason YOU had to live in the ground.
You have to clean out their apartment, because the landlord wants the stuff out by next week so he can rent it again.
You have to keep on living, because you would never want to put anyone who loves you through what you just endured and will endure forever.

59

“Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the belltolls; it tolls for thee.” John Donne

60

picunurse I am truly sorry that you (or obviously someone close to you) had to suffer through the results of a suicide. However, if you claim to love someone, as much as it appears in that post, and yet desire for them to suffer so that you will not, then that isn’t really love then is it. The inverse of that is also true.

It is after all, still their life, and not yours.