Then you’ve declared yourself, at least on this particular issue and possibly due to unresolved guilt over having been unable to afford the medical care that your late pet needed (which in itself is IMO not a moral failing), wilfully impervious to rational thought (which IMO is a moral failing). A good rule is that when someone shows you who they are, believe them.
I didn’t fail him because I couldn’t afford the treatment. I failed him by killing him.
And even if that had never happened, I still wouldn’t be OK with suicide.
Who is making that decision, the patient, or the doctor?
If you argue that people have a right to kill themselves then I have to argue they also have a right to NOT kill themselves, even if that refusal results in suffering. It is their choice.
There are all sorts of issues with drafting doctors as executioners, including the objection of individual doctors themselves. I also question the way you frame the question, the notion that it’s either “life saving treatment” or asking a doctor to murder a patient. The currently accepted stance is that it is perfectly acceptable to provide treatment (such as morphine) to alleviate suffering without forcing any other treatment on the patient. If the required level of medication to alleviate suffering could also hasten death as a side effect that is permitted - but the point there is to alleviate suffering, not deliberately kill the patient.
In your hypothetical, the patient can be offered all manner of pain relief but if they choose not to take it, doctors should not be engaged in killing against the patient’s wishes. If the patient wishes to kill themselves under such circumstances I would find it morally acceptable for doctors to make the means to end their life available to the patient, but they should not do the actual killing. If you are able to kill yourself do the frickin’ deed yourself, don’t ask someone else to do your killing for you.
The currently accepted stance is that it is perfectly acceptable to provide treatment (such as morphine) to alleviate suffering without forcing any other treatment on the patient. That is sort of the point of hospice. If the required level of medication to alleviate suffering could also hasten death as a side effect that is permitted - but the point there is to alleviate suffering, not deliberately kill the patient. The motivation is important, as are the details of what is being done.
Doctors are not liable for a patient’s death if the patient dies as a side effect of treatment, or if the treatment is primarily to alleviate suffering in the case of terminal conditions. Doctors are NOT allowed to deliberately kill a patient. At least the in the US (I’m not as conversant with European law) in certain jurisdictions doctors can help provide the means for suicide, but the patient his/her self must do the actual deed.
People have the right to refuse medical treatment. If the patient refuses “life saving treatment” that is their right - that’s why we allow Jehovah’s Witnesses to die when a simple blood transfusion could save their life. If a patient refuses pain relief that is also their right. If you have a right to choose to die then you also have a right to choose to suffer. No one else has a right to end your life.
Your statement is ridiculous and illogical. You do not, you can not “save a life” by ending that life. You can end suffering (that may even be the ethical choice), but don’t try to portray this as “saving” someone’s life because it’s not.
You could probably contrive a circumstance where the only possible way to relieve suffering is to end someone’s life - basically, a “mercy kill”. But in a modern hospital there are a LOT of options for pain relief, to the point I have a lot of trouble imagining a scenario with a justified mercy kill even being possible.
No.
You have the right to refuse ANY medical treatment (provided you’re capable of making the decision). That includes treatment that could save your life. That includes treatment to ease your suffering. (This is also why it’s a good idea to write down your wishes when you’re healthy - it makes it a lot clearer what to do if you can’t communicate or your ability to make decisions is questionable)
There is a difference between 1) withdrawing ALL treatment, 2) providing treatment to alleviate suffering (even if that carries the risk of hastening death as a side effect), and 3) actively and delibrately killing someone.
The difference between a mortally injured cat and a mortally injured human being is that the human being has the ability to comprehend the choices and their consequences. The other thing is that even destitute humans can be taken to an ER and provided pain relief in such circumstances even if they can’t pay.
What is this “deserve” thing you insist on? They deserve to die as punishment for causing you distress by their suffering? I don’t get this. No, no one “deserves” to die. You don’t earn a right to die. It’s not a reward you earn. It’s not a punishment. This strikes me as nonsensical as your notion that you can “save” a life by ending it. No, that’s not “saving” anything, that’s killing someone. Let’s not dress it up and make it pretty. Sometimes we have to do ugly things, and sometimes ugly things are justified, but deliberately killing a human being (yourself or someone else) even under ethical circumstances is NOT a good thing, and it’s not to be celebrated.
If something is a right it’s not something you “deserve”, it’s something you have. You can “deserve” a privilege or a punishment, you don’t “deserve” a right.
I can agree that there are circumstances where suicide is the lesser of two evils, but I suspect I’m going to pick a lot fewer situations where that’s acceptable than you will.
Eh, I don’t think it’s a black and white as that. People who are suicidal can still be surprisingly rational about some things, even if they aren’t about others. If they were totally incapacitated they wouldn’t be able to act sufficiently to do the deed.
But I do agree that in the case of mental illness there is a disease or dysfunction involved. I’ve come to view my sister’s suicide as that - she died of a complication of her disease. Just as someone with diabetes or heart disease can die as a consequence of their disease. Not everyone with diabetes or heart disease dies prematurely as a result of their illness but some do, and likewise those with mental illness.
Why do you equate hospice care with assisted suicide? I’m actually very pro-hospice.
Hospice is about relieving suffering - even if that means, at the end, drugging someone into a coma which would pretty effectively relieves suffering. Although with modern techniques that’s not required as often as people assume. My own spouse was able to reassure us a half an hour before his death that he was not in pain, despite the cancer having moved to his bones at that point which, without pain relief, generally would have a person screaming KILL ME KILL ME NOW. My father-in-law died of bone cancer, but again, said his pain wasn’t unbearable at the end. I suspect the problem is more one of access than modern medicine’s capability. Does that mean everyone can be treated such they are both conscious and free of pain at the end? No - but it is permitted to provide sufficient medication to relieve pain that the person is rendered unconscious. That is still different than deliberately killing someone.
But beyond that - even if it doesn’t involving writhing in agony terminal illness is an area where I could consider suicide an ethical choice. But that would be providing the means to someone, not asking someone else to do the killing. Even if you have a right to kill yourself that does not mean you have a right to insist someone else kill you.
They allow people to kill other people?
If mental illness is the problem why can’t these people kill themselves? Why does someone else need to kill them? The patient isn’t physically incapacitated, right? I don’t understand the rationale here.
I can acknowledge that there might be justification for suicide - I can’t condone the killing of people by other people even for terminal or unfixable conditions if the patient is capable of doing their own killing.
That is absolutely horrifying. I think I’m actually, physically nauseated now. I had no idea that any European country allowed doctors to kill physically capable patients.
You keep saying that: “inherently irrational.”
How so? I thought the idea was, we can evaluate the rationality of a choice by asking someone for their reasons and their reasoning: if it’s due to this goal and this belief it’s rational; if that goal and that belief, irrational.
Like, if you see me grab a six-pack of Coke, and then you see me put it back on the shelf and grab Diet Coke instead, you can ask me why; and if I say I’d like to lose a little weight while drinking the same amount of soda, and I then lay out a sensible chain of reasoning about caloric intake in between answering questions about said preference, you can nod and call it rational — but if I say I want the magic power to sprout angel wings just like Superman does, and I then lay out a chain of reasoning that involves Superman being real instead of fictional, and getting his powers from root beer, and so on, you can cautiously back away from me while of course deeming the whole thing irrational.
But you think choosing one outcome over another is inherently irrational, and your reason is — what? Say a man who’s been in tremendous pain explains, correctly, that he’ll be dead in two days, tops. Say, too, that he agrees with your claim: either way, he won’t exist two days from now. Say he then adds that, since he won’t exist two days from now, he has a choice: he can be in tremendous pain for hours or even days before he ceases to exist; or he can skip straight to that ‘ceases to exist’ part with considerably less ‘tremendous pain’.
Say he then (a) explains the extent to which he thinks each option lines up with his goals, and (b) relays his preference, given his reasons and his reasoning. As I see no error, I therefore prepare to say he sounds rational; but you step in to declare that, no, what he proposes is irrational. Okay, I reply; why?
Don’t just give me your conclusion; give me your reason and your reasoning.
We, as a civilization, have agreed that human beings have certain rights, simply by virtue of existing, which are inalienable. The foremost of these, according to the Declaration of Independence, is the right to life. Absent this right, all other human rights are abrogated. Therefore, it is the duty and obligation of a just society to preserve the lives of all its subjects first and foremost, that they might enjoy the other rights to which they are entitled.
If a terminally ill person has two days to live, then that is two days in which they are entitled to live and enjoy the benefits of life. To permit them to die is to deny them the experiences and the impact on others that they might have had in that time; and in a larger sense, it denies the entirety of the human race the right to live, instead offering that power to governments and corporations that may decide that any given person’s life isn’t worth preserving from a profit standpoint.
That last part is just your opinion, and it will always be no more than an opinion. Your opinion on suicide is reasonable and appropriate for yourself. It’s not reasonable or appropriate to mandate that your opinion is law for every single human under any circumstances. For some hopefully small number of people, ceasing to exist for all of eternity would be preferable to continuing under the present level of suffering they experience. Their opinion is reasonable for themselves, and your opinion is reasonable for yourself. You shouldn’t be forced to kill yourself, and those of sound mind who wish to end their lives rather than continue to face incredible suffering that cannot be remedied shouldn’t be forced to continue to suffer just because someone like you thinks they ought to endure it.
Exactly. The *right *to life. Not the duty of life. And the second right is liberty, which means I get to take **my **life if I feel like it and you don’t get to say a word about it nor deprive me of that freedom. Neither does the government.
Ah yes, the wonderful experiences of endless pain or watching your brain melt away and your memories erode and not being able to recognize your spouse any more. Who wouldn’t want, nay, crave those experiences ? Or the happy fun experience of one’s brain telling oneself over and over in a never quiet loop how one is a failure, a stupid waste of skin who shall never be loved and will forever be lonely - 'cause depression is such a killer experience to live through day in, day out for 20 fucking years, yeah ?
As for the impact on others : fuck others. I’m not alive for y’alls selfish benefit. This decision has nothing, and I mean nothing whatsoever to do with anybody but the person making it. To some people, life is torture, plain and simple. You don’t get to decide for them that they have to continue with the torture because if they don’t you’ll have a cry.
People can “miss” themselves and end up experiencing a lot of pain doing so. Also people throw themselves on train tracks or in front of cars or out of high rise windows, which is a traumatic experience for the driver(s) (to say nothing of the poor blokes who have to clean up the mess). And then there’s the awful thought “my loved ones are going to find my corpse hanging from the rafters, I wonder if it’ll be my wife or my son ?”.
Doing it cleanly, with a professional who can ensure you’ll just peacefully go to sleep and never wake up seems like a better idea, no ?
Well, look, I of course think you’re wrong about pretty much all of that — and I’ll of course do my best to explain why later — but I want to stop and remind you that I was asking why you think it’s “inherently irrational” for a man to choose one instead of the other. That man can hear you out on the Declaration of Independence and what duties you think are owed to subjects and so on, and I figure he can still reply “but here are my goals, and here’s what I think will happen if I select Option A, and here’s what I think will happen if I select Option B; here’s my reasoning.”
And I figure he can be correct in all of that, which I’d tentatively call rational.
Why would you call it irrational? And inherently irrational, at that?
I don’t like absolutes because they are so unforgivably rigid, so to say that assisted suicide should never be allowed under any circumstances doesn’t sit well with me. However, the flip side of the coin can be a slippery slope. Who decides whether or not assisted suicide is acceptable in individual cases? Sure, giving the okay for someone with an incurable disease that will inevitably result in a long and painful death seems like a “no-brainer”, but what about cases like suicidal depression? That can be treated with medication so, in that case, killing the patient isn’t the proper “cure”.
I don’t agree that a person’s desire to die is an inalienable right because many people who want to die aren’t capable of healthy decision making and, yes, that means that there are occasions where people need to be protected from themselves.
I’m going to say that it’s not a human right and here’s why. Human rights are not just things that government has no right to interfere with, but that private people have no right to interfere with. Let’s look at some human rights.
The right to life - obviously if I prevent someone from living, I’m violating their rights.
Right to not be enslaved - If I enslave someone, I’m violating their rights.
Right to not be tortured - See above.
Right to move where they want - If I imprison someone, I’m violating their rights.
Suicide though is different. If I see someone standing on the edge of a bridge and grab them so they don’t jump, am I violating their rights? I would claim no. If my son has a gun in his mouth and I grab it, am I a human rights violator? I don’t think so. It seems to me that suicide then is not a right. Maybe you could say it’s a privilege for those who are sane, have taken a long time to consider their decision and have rational reasons for doing so, but that’s not the same as a right. If my son (provided he’s 18) wants to move to a different city, I don’t say, “That’s your right only if you are sane, have taken time to consider it and have a rational reason for doing so; otherwise, I’m locking the door to your room.” Rights are things you have respective of your frame of mind or reasons for wanting them. Suicide I would claim isn’t independent of those things, so it isn’t a right.
The part where you’re alive.
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Did you even read anything I said about my mom’s condition towards the end? She was in a lot of pain, on an IV, could no longer eat, could no longer eliminate, had a catheter bag, and they had to insert a nasal tube to get all the stuff out of her stomach.
She stated that she knew she was dying and could not take the pain any longer. I totally understood that. We all did. I don’t know why you can’t.
For her, being alive was completely undesirable.
Okay, another scenario… a nuclear bomb is logged onto the major city where you live or perhaps at several hundred miles away from where you live, but the best thing that could happen is if you died in the blast. Trying to live in a poisoned world with poison air and your own body breaking down in utter Agony from radiation poisoning is not a circumstance I would want to be in, ever. Why would you?
That was directed more at Smapti, or at least at people who seem to think that we have to do EVERYTHING within our power to keep people alive, on ventilators and such. (Think Terri Schiavo)
I am not a slave, therefore I have ownership of my own person.
If I own a thing, I have the right to destroy that thing.
Therefore, as owner of my life I have the right to destroy my life.
What if there is no benefit to be had in that two days of life?
I’m far from pro-suicide, but I can think of a couple scenarios where there doesn’t seem to be any upside to continued existence. I believe such circumstances are extremely rare (I hope they are!) but they do exist. Under those rare circumstances, where there is no benefit in existence, I don’t feel I can stand in the way of someone choosing to end their life two days earlier than it would otherwise end. I wouldn’t be glad about it, but it would seem to be the lesser evil.
lobbed, not logged*
*phone fingers
I’ll disagree with the second premise. Pretend for a moment that the President and I get in a poker game and with some legislative trickery and a wave of a magic wand, I somehow end up in possession of Yellowstone National Park. Can I just go ahead and mine that puppy to oblivion? I think that there are responsibilities to higher powers/concepts that preclude a simplistic ‘right’ to destroy what you own.
I guess this really comes down to us needing a definition of what ‘rights’ are, where they come from and how exactly does one get them.
One more scenario:
A slave woman has no means of escape, there is nowhere to run, and her life is nonstop cotton picking in intense heat, not enough to eat, her master rapes her, and she is often beaten. She wants to die and asks another slave to help her. He refuses. Later, her master forced the other slave to beat her; she asks the slave to do it hard and not stop until she is dead. He refuses. Her master then beats her severely. The other slave is found by friends who know he used to be a free man. The woman is left behind.*
*(See 12 Years a Slave, and no, it’s not fiction.)
In such circumstances, can you not understand why being alive isn’t so great after all for this woman–or for many others?
I think you are conflating being alive with living, or being alive with existing.
They’re not all the same thing.
Think of someone with severe and permanent brain damage, in a vegetative state, being kept alive with machines, no hope of recovery, not cognizant of anything. This is existence but it is not desirable to me in the least. What is the point of being alive when you don’t even know that you are alive?