As an absolute position, with no exceptions for extreme conditions, and no flexibility given context, it’s a bad thing.
I definitely want a LOT of safeguards. I want independent panels of ethics (sigh… “Death Panels”) to have veto power, to protect people from unfair persuasion. If junior seriously loves papa, and wants his suffering to end, good. If junior wants his inheritance early, not good!
I have to agree. And I also agree that others will feel differently, and their opinions and values must be respected. If someone wanted to fight on, to make the best they can of their life reading braille, God bless them. (And God bless the various Braille Institutes and libraries out there!)
For me? I couldn’t cut it. I’d rather go.
There’s a Pit thread about people jumping under trains. That’s the other side of this debate: a lot of people are making the decision to die anyway, and the harder we make it for them, the uglier they make it for us.
Safeguards? Absolutely! I would be highly suspicious of what anyone says in the first week or month after they lose their eyesight. People in extreme pain are not sufficiently objective to make these decisions. So…make your beliefs known, now, while you’re able to. Appoint legal caretakers you trust. Write down what you want.
An enlightened state should respect these wishes to the limit of its ability; it should assist these wishes to that limit.
Life has a lot of value. It does not have “infinite” value.
But how are you defining extreme conditions? Are extreme conditions just “I’ve decided I don’t want to live anymore?” How is it an extreme condition if you still have the ability to live a fulfilling, reasonably pain-free life (and I include the deaf-blind here).
Now you may be taking the position that everyone has the right to decide that they want to die at any time, for any reason. But if you’re talking about flexibility and context, where do you draw the line?
I recall that studies have shown that people who end up with extreme disabilities often want to die early in the experience, but almost all end up wanting to live after some period of time. Should we allow them to kill themselves (or be killed) in the early stages? How long should we wait before saying, “Go ahead”?
This to me is the scariest thing of all. Plenty of people in this thread are saying, “I couldn’t live if I were deaf-blind.” They might put that in writing now. But do they really know? My understanding from reading about this is that many people who thought that they couldn’t live with an extreme disability (deaf-blindness, locked-in syndrome, etc.) find that when they actually experience the situation they have a powerful desire to live, even under extremely difficult circumstances.
I’m going to withhold judgement. The story just seems kind of off. I checked online and all of the sources that are carrying this story are pretty sensationalist.
As someone else who has tremendous admiration for Helen Keller, I think there’s a huge difference in her situation vs. the men in Belgium. They grew up with limited ability to communicate (OK, as deaf people they were taught how to do so, of course, and did just fine)… and even that was being taken away.
At age 45, it’s going to be damn tough to relearn yet another new way of communicating. At age 6, Helen Keller still had a lot of elasticity in her brain, she was still growing and in full-on “learn-everything” mode.
Imagine you were told that next month, you were going to go into a form of locked-in syndrome. And you had a choice: death, or being locked in with virtually no contact with the outside world.
I know which one I’d choose. Hell, in my medical power of attorney / living will, I put in a blurb to that effect (basically “if I’m physically disabled but mentally OK, I may wish to terminate life support, this serves as notice that it is something I have already thought about”).
Would I have taken the path of these two men at this point in my life? The article doesn’t say how impaired they were and it’s entirely possible that it was a bit too early for my taste.
What horrified me most about the article was the bit at the end, about passing a law making it OK to euthanize children or people with alzheimer’s. That’s crossing a line, in my mind.
First of all, the deaf-blind can communicate by using manual sign language – sign language that is felt rather than seen. The basic concepts, including fingerspelling, are the same as traditional sign language. It is a short learning step from visual to manual sign, and these twins were not yet blind, so they had time to practice. They would hardly be unable to communicate with the world, and they were only 45, with plenty of ability to absorb new ideas.
Also, the idea that they weren’t currently in the situation that concerns them, but that it was coming, bothers me tremendously. It means that their decision was made out of fear, rather than a candid assessment of their circumstances. They can’t know what life would be like for them without sight; they made a very permanent decision based on what they think it would be like.
I don’t know what I would do in the horrific circumstances discussed in this thread (although I’m almost certain that I wouldn’t consider being deaf-blind to be unbearable), but I certainly will not make any plans or decisions until I am actually there. That’s what ultimately bothers me so much about these decisions – that they cut off an unknown future. I have more understanding in cases where the future is definitely, scientifically known, but it’s not possible to know with certainty what someone’s emotions will be; how they will react to their new circumstances.
To me, euthanizing people who have not even experienced what their new life would be like, when plenty of people live contented lives in their circumstances, crosses a line.
When I said that I just can’t see any way that being deaf and blind should be considered debilitating enough to require euthanasia; I meant require it from the point of view of the deaf-blind individual. I can’t see any reason why someone who anticipates becoming deaf-blind would feel that their circumstances necessitate euthanasia.
Well, when you’re faced with that circumstance yourself, if you want to be accorded the freedom and dignity of making your own decision… respect others making their own in the meanwhile.
The responses in this thread fucking horrify me. I have PLENTY of friends with Usher’s Syndrome (deaf-blindness where you go blind in your teens) and they live rich full lives. It was hard for them to lose their sight, as we Deaf ARE very visual…but they adapted to it! You can ADAPT to something like this.
Yes, you can. Of course you can, that’s not even a question. We all grew up with inspirational stories of Deaf, Blind and Deaf/Blind people. Hell, I went to Helen Keller Elementary School! We learned a whole lot about our namesake, and she was my primary childhood hero.
The question isn’t, in my mind, if someone can adapt and live a full rich life. Of course they can. It’s if they *want *to. If they don’t, then, no, I don’t have a problem with them killing themselves, and I don’t have an ethical problem helping them do it in the most dignified and painless way possible. (I do have a legal problem with it, as I like my nursing license.)
First of all, that presumes that there’s no form in which the individual consciousness (what the religiously-inclined would refer to as spirit or soul) survives after death.
Second of all, this line of reasoning is SCARY. Why limit euthanasia/assisted suicide to people with terminal illness or nasty disabilities? Why would we try to talk someone who’s depressed - say, he just lost his job, or his wife left him - out of suicide? Why would we discourage a game of Russian Roulette? Hey, he won’t live to regret his decision, will he? Does the lack of ability to regret mean that an action will always be in the subject’s best interest?
Peremensoe:
My post was not speaking to the specific case of the twins, but rather, to the posters who seem to regard Americans as ethically backward busybodies for not being sanguine with euthanasia/assisted suicide.
I don’t know that I agree. Supporting ongoing life means a continued outlay of expenses, and it means that if the client is not satisfied with the quality of his care, he could conceivably take his business elsewhere, the profit motive ensuring some degree of acting in the client’s interest. Euthanasia/assisted suicide is a one-time (per client) act, after which with no recourse for bad service (I’m assuming that speed and painlessness, and not merely the fact of death, is part of the expectations of an assisted suicide).
Trinopus:
And I don’t have a problem with that point of view. But that’s not the attitude to which I was objecting earlier.
Sometimes I worry with news reports like these that the process isn’t clear, which makes it seem like these decisions are taken lightly. I get that idea when people word it like “they were euthanised”, which sounds like they were pets, or like they were murdered.
The process to request euthanasia is very thorough. Several doctors need to approve, I think in this particular case it was three. The whole process takes a fair amount of time and obviously comes after much evaluation, both medical and psychological.
The twins lived with their parents, and had a strong support network. It’s not like their parents just dropped them off at the vet or something. They made an informed decision.
Also, regarding the mention of children and Alzheimer at the end, don’t take it to mean that there will be a law passed that means people who are non compos mentis will be offed. AFAIK it’s about looking into ways of solving a problem. It has been noted that in the cases of children and people with Alzheimer, there is a legal problem for them to end their life on their terms, with dignity and less suffering. So you try to solve it. In what way could you make it possible to respect someone’s wishes, how do you determine their wishes, what cut-offs do you want etc? For example, in the Netherlands children can decide from 12 along with their parents, and entirely for themselves at 16. But that does mean that a 10 year dying of cancer might have to suffer terribly, just because they are denied the right to end their life. I’m certainly not saying I have an answer, but it is a legitimate problem to discuss.
So far, the data do not show that family members take advantage of their relatives by having them murdered by doctors. I don’t know how that could ever happen, since only the patient can decide.
If they were Americans, I suspect they’d have to do themselves in. As discussed in the recent “you’re going to be executed” thread, there are any number of painless ways to end one’s life, and a fair number of those lend themselves to DIY.
As a practical matter, if someone really wants to end their own life (and is reasonably resourceful), it’s virtually impossible to stop it.
IIRC, the only EU country which allows people from overseas to take advantage of legal assisted suicide is Switzerland, in all others you need to be a citizen, or at least long-term resident to meet the criteria.
The best known company that arranges this- Dignitas- states that 21% of its clients that actually go through with it have no terminal or progressive illnesses at all, so it seems quite odd that this case is getting so much attention.
But if just saying “I don’t want to live the full, rich life that is possible for me” is enough for someone to help you die, under what circumstances would euthanasia be refused? What psychological condition would prevent it? Depression? Schizophrenia? These are the very conditions that people are saying should allow them to kill themselves. What medical conditions would lead to a refusal? Really good health? But what if you don’t want to live a normal, healthy life? I’m not getting the disconnect between “If you don’t want to live, you should be allowed to kill yourself,” and “There is a thorough process to request euthanasia.”