This was inspired by the JW thread, in which I learned something about them that I didn’t know: blood transfusions are taboo.
In this country, for the most part, we think that suicide is a bad thing. If someone attempts suicide, we try to talk them out of it and get them into counseling. Only in one state—Oregon, I believe—is a person assumed to have a right to end his own life, and then only with a doctor’s assistance.
As far as I know, however, the right to refuse medical treatment, even at the cost of death to the one who refuses, is recognized in every state. There are still people around with do not resuscitate orders on file.
I’m trying to understand how this is consistent with society’s overall belief that a person should not have the right to end his own life. Not taking medicine that could save your life could be said to be a passive form of suicide. Either way, the person is giving up on life.
For the record, I support a person’s right to refuse treatment, as I believe a person should be sovereign over his own body. It just doesn’t seem consistent with the general prohibition on attempted suicide.
There’s a common perception difference between the two (At least in the US). Mental issues are not considered suffering by a lot of people and medical illnesses are considered suffering by a lot of people. If you are “Suffering” then you can commit suicide. If you aren’t, then you probably need help.
“First, do no harm” is the foundation of the medical part of the ethical debate and it spills over to the personal side.
Actively taking steps to ends one’s life is suicide. Choosing how to live the life you have left is not.
Personally, I would decline chemotherapy and radiation if I had cancer. I’d rather die than go through that hell.
aNewLeaf: for my own part, I agree with you. I’ve seen what chemotherapy does to people, and if my own experience would be similar, then, frankly, death is preferable.
But death by cancer is also hellish. If a third way out exists – a quick, painless death by a large dose of narcotics – it should be available to people who wish it.
Suicide should not only be legal, but facilitated. And, yes, also heavily regulated. There should be protections. No one should be pressured into it, or find themselves in a position where they think it’s the “only way.” All alternatives need to be made available and facilitated.
Forcing someone to endure great pain can never be an admirable moral position.
A person who is unconscious or has an altered mental status (there are checklists to determine what “altered mental status” means) and in danger of dying is presumed to have given consent to treatment. What this means in a practical sense is that if 911 is called to the scene, or if the person is brought to the emergency room, they will begin rescue treatment without waiting for consent. Bottle of pills on the nightstand? Did she take too many because she wants to die, or because she got confused and forgot she took them already, or because her pain was so bad that she took too many to seek pain relief? Not a paramedic’s job to sort it out - treat and transport. Cut wrists? Purposeful or accidental? No time to figure it out. Treat and transport. Gunshot wound? Treat and transport.
Then we have the mental health problem - having suicidal ideation (thoughts about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide) is a symptom of several different mental illnesses, including clinical depression. Most people think that we shouldn’t allow the mentally ill to do destructive things to themselves because of their mental illness. Even those who support the right to die think mental illness as the cause of that wish should be ruled out and/or treated before suicide is allowed. It’s very hard, even if they are alert and calm and logical, under our current ideas about suicidal ideation and mental illness, for a person to convince others that their wish to commit suicide is *not *because of mental illness.
We’ve gotten far enough that many of us understand and even support people choosing to end their lives for great unrelenting physical suffering, in the cases of cancer and other terminal illness - but that’s not nearly universal. And even among those who support suicide in the case of intractable physical suffering largely don’t support it in the case of intractable mental suffering, or in the case of no suffering at all.
(I personally do support the right to die, and wish that we had counseling for the patient and their families and then a humane setting in which we could help the person to end things in a clean and painless manner.)
Really? Any cancer? No matter how curable or how short the duration of the treatment? I personally know plenty of people who are living healthy, happy, fulfilled lives after enduring cancer treatment, including chemo and radiation. Sure, it sucked for a few months, but they survived, and now they’re fine (albeit with increased risks and need for regular checks). Al I know is that I’m very glad that my friends in this situation made the choice they did.