# What? No Brittany Maynard thread? (terminal disease, doctor-assisted suicide) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2014, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765 "2014-10-19T05:46:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/181 "2014-11-04T20:32:55Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Suffering is how we know we’re alive. What? Are you tripping on acid right now or something? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/182 "2014-11-04T20:35:39Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Smapti, let’s test your views with a hypothetical. > > Let’s say there’s someone with locked in syndrome who experiences constant, excruciating pain. They can’t move, they only experience pain, and their life is nothing but constant suffering. > > ANd let’s say, hypothetically, that in order to keep this person alive, we need the spare resources of every single human being on the planet. All 7 billion people must work every day to their physical and mental capabilities - most people will work for 18 hours a day, and sleep for a few, only to return to work. Everyone eats nothing but the most basic sustenance, and no one has any luxuries, comforts, or recreational activities. All of these people must give up all those resources so that we can keep that miserable person alive. > > Would this be a worthwhile endeavor? If the value of being alive is infinite as you say, and trumps any suffering, then logically, it would be. > > If you admit that it’s not, then at some point you’ve decided that some amount of suffering trumps being alive. In which case you lose your absolutes - it becomes an argument about where to draw the line. > [@Smapti](#): > > Yes, provided that each one of those people has the guarantee that the same amount of effort will eventually be provided to preserve their own life. Nope. You don’t get to dodge the question with an obvious impossibility. Now, answer the question as it exists in the real world. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/183 "2014-11-04T20:37:01Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Nope. You don’t get to dodge the question with an obvious impossibility. > > Now, answer the question as it exists in the real world. Then I can’t answer the question, because it’s not something that exists in the real world. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/184 "2014-11-04T20:39:02Z")
He’s already admitted he’d kill everyone else in the universe, or subject them to excrutiating pain, to extend his life for one second – I’m not sure if there are any hypotheticals that could cast a worse light on him. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/185 "2014-11-04T20:39:08Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > From her perspective the obligation no longer exists because she doesn’t exist. > > From our perspective, the obligation exists, and she broke it by killing herself. From _your_ perspective, I think you mean, since you’re the only one that actually holds that as an obligation here, or so it seems. That aside - you’re going to need to change your answer to that previous question, then. If obligation exists even prior to death, there’s certainly a big difference between that 2 and 1 second idea, isn’t there? [QUOTE=Smapti] She is a coward because she refused to face that which would have come to pass otherwise. [/QUOTE] She had two options - life, something you consider lacking in fear and easy, and death, the thing that you literally cannot conceive of there being anything worse than, the thing you fear most. And picked death, now. Again, I ask; in what sense is she a coward, in that she chose to hasten what you fear the most? Per you, she picked the _hardest_ selection. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/186 "2014-11-04T20:39:28Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > There is no afterlife. There’s no pearly gates and guys with wings wearing togas and strumming on harps all day. > > There’s no pit of fire. > > There’s no lurking around in abandoned houses and scaring kids who go in there on a dare. > > There’s not even eternal darkness and loneliness. > > One day, you just fall asleep and never wake up again. > > That terrifies me more than _anything_ I can possibly conceive of and I can’t imagine how anyone else couldn’t find it as terrifying if they stopped to think about it, and I can’t imagine a state of existence to which that would be preferable. Well, there’s the difference between us. We both looked into the abyss… but _you_ blinked. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/187 "2014-11-04T20:42:22Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > That aside - you’re going to need to change your answer to that previous question, then. If obligation exists even prior to death, there’s certainly a big difference between that 2 and 1 second idea, isn’t there? She had two options - life, something you consider lacking in fear and easy, and death, the thing that you literally cannot conceive of there being anything worse than, the thing you fear most. And picked death, now. > > Again, I ask; in what sense is she a coward, in that she chose to hasten what you fear the most? Per you, she picked the _hardest_ selection. No, the hardest selection, the brave selection, would have been to live and to endure everything that came thereafter. Not only did she take the easy way out, she did it in a way (drug overdose) that shielded her from the actual experience of death. She could have at least killed herself painfully if she wanted to be honest about it. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/188 "2014-11-04T20:43:37Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Then I can’t answer the question, because it’s not something that exists in the real world. Nope, you don’t get to dodge it that way either. There is no reason why the postulated scenario (one person could be kept alive, albeit in misery, only by the combined efforts of the remaining population of the planet) can be dismissed as impossible. Given that postulate, your response that everyone else should be guaranteed access to the same benefit (if that’s what you call it) clearly _is_ impossible, since that which requires the entire world’s resources to provide to one person clearly cannot be provided to two people, much less to everyone. Now, then, answer the question. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/189 "2014-11-04T20:44:19Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > From her perspective the obligation no longer exists because she doesn’t exist. > > From our perspective, the obligation exists, and she broke it by killing herself. I’ve always liked what Robert Heinlein said about duty and obligation, and I think it applies here: > [@RAH](#): > > Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. > But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants “just a few minutes of your time, please — this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time — and squawk for more! > So learn to say No — and to be rude about it when necessary. > Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. > (This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.) The only one who knew what her obligations and duty to her family, friends and society were was herself, and the only one who could determine if and/or how much they were fulfilled was, of course, herself. Not you. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/190 "2014-11-04T20:45:10Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Nope, you don’t get to dodge it that way either. > > Now, then, answer the question. The person who _asked_ the question was satisfied with my response. I have no obligation to respond to your gotcha-yas. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/191 "2014-11-04T20:46:40Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Nope, you don’t get to dodge it that way either. > > There is no reason why the postulated scenario (one person could be kept alive, albeit in misery, only by the combined efforts of the remaining population of the planet) can be dismissed as impossible. > > Given that postulate, your response that everyone else should be guaranteed access to the same benefit (if that’s what you call it) clearly _is_ impossible, since that which requires the entire world’s resources to provide to one person clearly cannot be provided to two people, much less to everyone. > > Now, then, answer the question. You’re technically right, but I don’t think this is an important distinction. He’s already said he’d make billions of people experience the worst possible suffering to extend his own life one second. What do you think you’re going to find at that point in the form of meaningful discourse? He didn’t really try to weasel out of the question, he just sort of added a useless caveat to give some sort of air of philosophical merit to his stance. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/192 "2014-11-04T20:46:47Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I’ve always liked what Robert Heinlein said about duty and obligation, and I think it applies here: Monstrous pseudo-Randian bullshit. A duty that is assumed voluntarily is next to worthless; our greatest obligations are those which we assume through no choice of our own, but because we _are._. > [@](#): > > The only one who knew what her obligations and duty to her family, friends and society were was herself, and the only one who could determine if and/or how much they were fulfilled was, of course, herself. > Not you. Perhaps if we lived in a state of anarchy that would be true. We do not. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/193 "2014-11-04T20:47:26Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The person who _asked_ the question was satisfied with my response. I can’t help it if someone else overlooks a painfully obvious evasion. The question stands. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/194 "2014-11-04T20:47:47Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > No, the hardest selection, the brave selection, would have been to live and to endure everything that came thereafter. Make up your mind. You’re saying she had an easy life, jetsetting, that she had merely first-world problems. You’re saying that death is the greatest fear that you not only hold, but that you cannot think of anything that you fear more than it. So why is it brave for her to pick what you’ve repeated over and over would be easy and simple for her? Why is it cowardly for her to pick the thing you fear the most? You can’t **both** castigate her for throwing away an easy life and say that choosing it is the brave thing to do. Pick one. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/195 "2014-11-04T20:48:26Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > No, the hardest selection, the brave selection, would have been to live and to endure everything that came thereafter. > > Not only did she take the easy way out, she did it in a way (drug overdose) that shielded her from the actual experience of death. She could have at least killed herself painfully if she wanted to be honest about it. That sounds…sadistic. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/196 "2014-11-04T20:50:02Z")
Smapti, another hypothetical if you’ll indulge me. Given your opinion that destroying the universe doesn’t matter if you’re already did, I already suspect I have this answer to my question, but: If you had to live the aforementioned locked in/agony life for the rest of whatever your natural lifespan would’ve been, but your sacrifice gives every other person on the planet 20 years more life, would you do it? I guess what I’m asking is - is it life that’s precious to you, or your life? Would you give up one second of your life if it meant adding a hundred years to everyone else’s? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/197 "2014-11-04T20:53:04Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Perhaps if we lived in a state of anarchy that would be true. > > We do not. Oh, well, then. What she did is perfectly legal where she did it. If you’re going to invoke higher authority, then by your own argument, that settles **that**. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/198 "2014-11-04T20:54:14Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > You’re saying she had an easy life, jetsetting, that she had merely first-world problems. You’re saying that death is the greatest fear that you not only hold, but that you cannot think of anything that you fear more than it. > > So why is it brave for her to pick what you’ve repeated over and over would be easy and simple for her? Why is it cowardly for her to pick the thing you fear the most? You can’t **both** castigate her for throwing away an easy life and say that choosing it is the brave thing to do. Pick one. Your lot keep insisting that killing herself was the only rational choice because she was in such intense pain and agony that her life was no longer livable. If that is true, then she was a coward because she chose the easy way out of the situation she was in. If she wasn’t in such pain, then she was a coward because the mere _possibility_ that she could experience such pain in the future was sufficient to drive her to OD in order to avoid experiencing it. In either scenario, you cannot deny that she certainly wasn’t acting like a person in dire pain and out of options. She spent the time between her diagnosis and her death moving her family to another state, jetting around the world, engaing in political activism, and visited the Grand Canyon the week before her suicide (which having done myself while in perfect health is _not_ something I can imagine a severely ill cancer patient doing). ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/199 "2014-11-04T20:58:01Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > If you had to live the aforementioned locked in/agony life for the rest of whatever your natural lifespan would’ve been, but your sacrifice gives every other person on the planet 20 years more life, would you do it? I think I could. It would not be an ideal life, but we’ve known locked-in people on this very board in the past who have been capable of pursuing intellectual stimulation and social interaction thanks to modern technology. > [@](#): > > Would you give up one second of your life if it meant adding a hundred years to everyone else’s? Yes, I could do that. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/200 "2014-11-04T21:01:00Z")
> [@Eutychus](#): > > There is a difference between fearing suffering and not wanting to endure needless suffering. No one should have to endure needless suffering. Suffering sucks, misery sucks, and being forced to stay alive/in existence because someone else is put off by the idea of your desire to die really, really sucks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765.md?page=11)