Sadly, that is false. I have one for you. To be clear, this is not an attempt at a hypothetical “gotcha,” Dave was a real friend of mine whose death I mourned.
Dave was a lifelong celibate pedophile. When Dave was diagnosed with a fatal and degenerative mental disease, he committed suicide rather than take the risk that he would commit a sexual offense against a child as the disease forced him into a diminished mental state. Now you have been clear that you don’t believe that Dave avoiding his own suffering is adequate reason for him to have killed himself. What about preventing the potential rape of an innocent child? Does that change your moral calculus at all?
Wrong interpretation. They may not be allowed to force you to speak but in special cases where you need to be heard, they give you a representative. You know: right to remain silent, right to an attorney (and still remain silent).
You mean having a highly trained professional, with a clear bias for you, to speak in your behalf during an investigation or trial, is not a manifestation of free speech?
I just want to be clear: you’re saying the reason behind your “therefore” is the claim that we, as a civilization, have agreed to this?
Because — just for the record, here — I don’t agree that suicide should be illegal. And, granted, that’s just me; but, as far as I can tell, it’s also plenty of folks in this thread; and, if it’s what’s really doing the work in your thinking, then what are you to make of, say, a ballot initiative that gets enough votes?
If the ultimate justification for your view is that we agree to it, then exactly what happens to it when enough folks mention that they don’t agree?
So: is that point truly relevant to your position? Or would you discard it as soon as enough people — ‘we, as a civilization’ — disagree with you on suicide?
It’s a manifestation of wanting fair & just trials, or the appearance thereof at least. You can have those even in a society without free speech (and vice versa - you can have a society with free speech but unfair trials).
(1) After seeing my parents go, and judging by comments from the hospitals - that is not so rare among older people, and also for many cancer patients.
(2) Any suicide seems so stupid to those who are left behind. And if they wanted to hurt someone, that usually fails, while their loved ones are left with the anguish. The most frustrating thing is that you can never make it good.
(3) There is always the big question as to whether there financial pressures behind an assisted suicide. For example, lengthy hospitalizations can eat up the estate of the future dear departed and the heirs might want to accelerate the natural process…
Sorry, but if I’m sick with no hope of a cure who’s going to die a long drawn out death, I should have the final say. FULL STOP. I also hate to point out doctors have for a long time “aided” a person to end their suffering. King George V was injected with fatal doses of morphine and cocaine to assure him a painless death. And I also hate to point out that active act of euthanasia is considered humane when an animals is suffering and there is not hope for a cure. Yea, under your “never acceptable under any circumstances” you’ll allow a person to suffer in pain for months, years with no hope. With the only thing to look forward too is pain.
If I decide to end my life at some point it’s my decision, neither you nor the government has the right to stop me.
And I have stage 3 colorectal cancer. To be blunt without mrAru and his career military eternal medical insurance I would be screwed at the cost not covered by his current job medical benefits. I can afford treatment.
If I had no access to treatment, that 15 cm mass wrapped around and invasive of my lower intestine would choke off the ability to crap, think of trying to crap through a ssmaller and smaller opening until you end up having to tear tissue to pass a crap. There was a reason people were known to die screaming in agony.
Screw anybody wanting someone to have to live in agony when it should be their choice to end it.
Here’s what you said: Kimstu:* “Nobody desires to not exist; what they desire is to not exist in terrible pain and misery. If you can’t remedy the terrible pain and misery, then nonexistence is merely the next best option. Humans, being rational, are able to choose death as the preferable option in such a situation, but that doesn’t mean we intrinsically desire nonexistence.”
(underlying for emphasis by CP)
I took that (perhaps incorrectly?) as implying that it is not the case that anyone would want to commit suicide unless they were trying to escape pain. I disagree.
But beyond that, I hold that public policy should support an absolute legal right to commit suicide. I support a mandatory hold for counselling, followed by the unfettered ability to bump yourself off without further effort at figuring out if you are “rational” or not.
Current policy essentially follows a position that a desire to commit suicide must be an irrational decision, (with some wiggle room for “possibly rational” if you are escaping pain or imminent death). And I think that your position generally follows that line of thought. You are correct that we don’t know how to figure out for sure if someone is “rational” but the reason is that there is no absolute standard for “rational.” It’s a construct we invented as humans, occasionally–but not always–derived from average behavior within a given culture.
An absolute legal right to suicide should not depend on a third party deciding if the individual is rational. An outside party should have very limited leave to interfere into the personal decisions of another. What we do right now is decide that, if you are suicidal, that’s *prima facie *evidence you are “irrational,” and if you irrational we are going to take away your privilege to end your life.
If Kimstu told me she’s going to kill herself because CP has driven her crazy with his stupid arguments one time too many (and that would make me very sad, LOL), I could sign off on keeping you locked indefinitely if you refused to change your mind (even sadder). I support a waiting period for you to realize I’m not worth killing yourself over, but if you don’t budge, I don’t think I get to keep you locked up forever (and in restraints if you keep grabbing at stuff to kill yourself with).
Over the years, I’ve signed off on plenty mandatory lock-ups and restraints, and with a clear conscience since most people do change their mind. But in my opinion, there should be an absolute legal right to suicide because it’s a greater good for society to hold personal control over one’s life over almost all else.
I don’t want to trivialize suicide, depression, and etc etc. You know I am kind of exaggerating to make a point. But yeah; I hold that suicide should be a legal right, rational or not.
PS: You are wildly incorrect that mentally competent people are generally able to kill themselves on purpose. Most people are lousy at committing suicide. Perhaps that is the universe protecting us from CP’s stupid public policy that would give them the absolute right to try. LOL.
Would you really want to wander through the post apocalyptic nuclear wasteland dying slowly and agonizingly of radiation poisoning? What the hell for?
I am saying that I understood why the slave might want to kill herself and would not condemn her for it. “She would have been freed eventually” ? How can you know that? Not everyone can hold out for decades the way you seem to think they can, or should.
I appreciate that suicidal people are not rational, or by our standards at least, but … choosing to hurt your loved ones through the most irrevocable of actions?
I would not concede to this point, as it is reducing a complex problem to one scenario.
Some suicidal people are far more rational than the people who claim to be working in their benefit. While this may be primarily limited to people in terminal situations is is a significant portion of suicides and is even more under-reported than other types.
I live in a state where more than half of the hospitals and major medical systems, including hospice facilities, will be subject to moral restrictions imposed by Catholic bishops. Nation wide 1 in 6 people will also be serviced by a Catholic hospital,
Almost universally, people won’t celebrate suicide by those suffering from depression but we have a system where people with terminal conditions are forced to prolong their suffering due to a fetish around a perceived godliness of suffering.
They inflict their personal beliefs on large segments of society, actively choosing to extend this suffering, which has no chance of improving purely due to their personal religious beliefs.
In the case of my area, they actively sought to purchase competitors to help them extend their reach of these perverse, inhumane actions.
While I have no problem with people choosing their on beliefs, the sainthood of Mother Teresa, who’s entire organization was based on glorifying suffering instead of relieving it to the point of withholding pain medication is an example.
One cannot simply reduce the topic of suicide down to the problem of depression while ignoring the very real human costs of extending a terminal persons life merely to pay tribute to a religion that the patient doesn’t share.
I sat with my grandfather for weeks when the esophageal cancer, caused by life long acid reflux ate away at his soul. He finally convinced them to halt intravenous feeding, so he had the pleasure of not only suffering from the pain of cancer, but the pain of starving to death.
Suicide is a very serious issue, and it needs to be addressed with far more vigor but do not trade this horror for another. People would be sent to prison if they treated a pet the way that we often treat or loved ones.
What if your choice is living in excruciating pain for a few more decades or ending that pain permanently? Choosing to end it IS a rational choice. After trying every conceivable treatment to try to alleviate your pain, choosing to end your life IS a rational choice. If there is no making you “comfortable” until you die, choosing to hasten death IS a rational choice.
Not wanting your friends and family to have to continue to take care of you, IS considerate and rational, not selfish.
What if your depression is caused by the chronic pain you experience? If there is no making the pain better, would you tell this person that there are treatments for depression that would make living with the pain more tolerable?
Deciding for someone else that they should live with whatever is barbaric.
And the idea that all suicidal people are not rational is just B.S.
While suicidal thoughts can be (and arguably often are) a sign of an irrational mind they are not always such. There are times/conditions where have thoughts of suicide might even be considered normal, in the sense that it’s a not uncommon reaction.
(People just after an accident that renders them quadriplegic, for example, can be suicidal - Christopher Reeve, to mention a well-known person with that condition, said on a couple occasions that he had thought about death being preferable to living as a quadriplegic in the days just after his life-changing accident. The thing is, for a lot of people those thoughts/feelings are transient, even if their physical condition doesn’t improve, as happened with Reeve).
My father recently passed away, but he had been gone for quite a while due to several strokes. He did everything right he had his will and living will finished. He had the no resuscitate order and all his ducks in a row.
However, he still managed to fall between the cracks. The later strokes were not enough to use the no resuscitate order but were enough to kill off the person that he was. He could no longer do what he enjoyed like reading or listening to music. His short term memory was gone and his long term memory was disappearing. He couldn’t do anything on his own. Adjust himself in his chair. Roll over in bed. Go to the bathroom. Etc.
What he didn’t want was to be the way he was. He also didn’t want all the money he saved to be sucked up by nursing homes and constant medical appointments and prescriptions. He was no longer the person who was my father and my mothers husband. He was a body forced to be kept alive against his wishes. If I didn’t fear being locked up, I would have had no problem assisting in his moving on.
I can’t help but think of the scene in Soylent Green where Sol learns the truth and decides he’s ready to go. He goes to a facility sees video of the way the world used to be, listens to classical music and his given a cocktail then slowly drifts off. I think my father would have liked to go out that way rather than how he did.
Of course if someone is mentally ill, we should try our best to help them. But if someone makes the decision while they are healthy then their wishes should be carried out. We don’t need people like Jeb Bush or Smapti and forcing empty shells to be kept alive just because we can do it. The compassionate and humane thing to do is to say goodbye.
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”