# 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:** 14
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/261 "2014-11-04T23:08:45Z")
Tone it done, people. No more personal comments. ---
**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, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/262 "2014-11-04T23:09:41Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > Therefore, a person should not have local or general anethesia when undergoing surgery. They are being cowardly by choosing not to experience the pain of surgery. And dishonest by trying to attain the benefits of surgery without experiencing the pain of undergoing the procedure. I’ve undergone dental surgery without anesthesia before. I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but I didn’t want to wait until I could have someone to drive me home afterward. That being said, surgery is not analogous to death. ---
**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, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/263 "2014-11-04T23:11:55Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I’ve undergone dental surgery without anesthesia before. I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but I didn’t want to wait until I could have someone to drive me home afterward. > > That being said, surgery is not analogous to death. Sometimes it results in death though. In those cases where a patient dies during surgery while under anesthesia, were they cowardly for electing to go under and therefore not feel their death? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/264 "2014-11-04T23:13:54Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > What I cannot fathom is the sheer number of people who comment that Brittany is going to hell for her suicide because only god has the right to decide when life ends. Its funny how God always has the same values we do. Suicide is stigmatized and also it leads to hell. However killing someone as a soldier, or killing someone on death row, or killing someone in self defense, or killing non-human life (all socially acceptable forms of murder) do not result in God sending you to hell. Homosexuality is a hellfire sin, but shellfish and divorce are ok. I can’t remember who said it, some woman said a hundred years ago ‘I am wary of anyone who claims to understand Gods will as his will usually overlaps with their own’. I wish I could find the quote. ---
**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, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/265 "2014-11-04T23:17:10Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > Sometimes it results in death though. In those cases where a patient dies during surgery while under anesthesia, were they cowardly for electing to go under and therefore not feel their death? No. Their death is no fault of their own - they put their trust in a professional who let them down, and they’re not to blame that the professional screwed up. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/266 "2014-11-04T23:21:10Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > **She chose death over dying.** That is cowardice. \*\* “She chose death over dying”.\*\*…huh? ---
**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, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/267 "2014-11-04T23:40:39Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > You say “wonderful and courageous person who lived a spirited life”. I say “one-percenter globetrotting elitist who took the coward’s way out and encouraged a culture of death in doing so”. Let’s back off of the end-of-life issue for a moment and consider birth and pre-birth issues. If you knew for a fact that your baby was going to be born with horrific defects (assuming it was born alive) that would cause it and you untold suffering and pain, only for it to die a short time later, would you still want it brought to term? Well, not everyone does, and they had to make a wrenching choice: [http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/Default.aspx](http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/Default.aspx) ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/268 "2014-11-04T23:43:20Z")
Smapti, do you spend a lot of time worried and frightened of the nothingness that existed before you were born? ---
**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, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/269 "2014-11-04T23:43:45Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Correct. Doctors should not be in the business of allowing patients to die. Fuck that. I’ve got my advance directive laid out, and my parents had theirs too. Mom is still living; she and I and my brother honored my dad’s wishes as specified in the document. Why? Because it was his choice. It was what he wanted. The doctors are supposed to follow the choices made, and it’s no one else’s business. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/270 "2014-11-04T23:45:20Z")
This is one of the most maddening threads I’ve ever encountered on the dope. I simply do not understand anyone calling this young woman a coward. I hope I can be as brave as she was if I am ever faced with such a terrible prognosis. I mean, I could almost understand thinking you have an obligation to suffer IF you believe there is a God and you need to suffer because of your sins or something. But to believe there is nothing and yet you still need to suffer such misery is completely mind boggling to me. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/271 "2014-11-05T00:56:53Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > This is one of the most maddening threads I’ve ever encountered on the dope. > > I simply do not understand anyone calling this young woman a coward. I hope I can be as brave as she was if I am ever faced with such a terrible prognosis. > > I mean, I could almost understand thinking you have an obligation to suffer IF you believe there is a God and you need to suffer because of your sins or something. snip. I can barely even understand that mindset of “redemptive suffering.” It seems so pointless. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/272 "2014-11-05T01:28:38Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Then you deal with it, because the capacity to feel pain means you exist. > > And existence is always objectively preferable to the alternative. Not if existence is going to be a fucking nightmare. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/273 "2014-11-05T01:33:20Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The scary part of death is scary because it’s _followed_ by the big nothingness. Take away the nothingness and the dying part just becomes an inconvenience. It seems to me that the big nothingness I “experience” after I die will be a lot like the big nothingness I “experienced” before I was born. Edit: dag-nabit! YogSosoth beat me to the point! ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/274 "2014-11-05T03:25:58Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The obligation to live and to strive to improve the lives of others, because this is the only life we get and ain’t noone else gonna make it better for us. But in other places you’ve put avoiding personal risk before the chance of saving or improving the lives of others. So your obligation to self trumps your obligation to others. Wouldn’t an obligation to others over self entail also taking risks of being injured, permanently maimed or killed if the probability of maximizing life included you taking that risk? Sometimes your sense of duty to both living and improving the lives of others are in conflict. It can’t always be both. ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/275 "2014-11-05T03:40:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Morality does not factor into the equation here. Cowardice is objectively defined as the refusal due to fear to carry out one’s obligations. To cause your own death is therefore objectively cowardly. I’m always surprised when people say suicide is cowardly. Killing oneself is extremely difficult, indeed it takes great courage. I could never do it. This veers OT, but most depressed people who commit suicide think they’re doing their families a\* favor\*; that their families will no longer have to deal with them and their depression. Wrong as it sounds to us, that’s carrying out what they perceive to be their familial obligation. Back on-topic, Maynard was doing the same thing, sparing her family the horror of watching her die an excruciating death. She saw that as an obligation. ---
**Author:** ![Section\_Maker\_Jupe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/section_maker_jupe/32/1424_2.png) [@Section\_Maker\_Jupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Section_Maker_Jupe)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/276 "2014-11-05T04:03:04Z")
Yes, she was a very courageous woman. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/277 "2014-11-05T05:38:39Z")
It’s nuts when people think God wants someone to spend weeks or months lying in bed in total agony, but at least it has a simplistic sort of consistency to it. “God wants us to do crazy shit that makes no sense, but he’s God so why should we expect anything he wants to make sense to us mere mortals?” I can kind of sort of see how someone could believe that. But **Smapti** ’s position in this thread, which seems to be “Brittany Maynard owed us (the rest of humanity) a few more weeks or months of her suffering in hopeless agony, and _how dare she_ deprive us of them?!” How the fuck can anyone seriously believe 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 5, 2014, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/278 "2014-11-05T06:11:53Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > Let’s back off of the end-of-life issue for a moment and consider birth and pre-birth issues. > > If you knew for a fact that your baby was going to be born with horrific defects (assuming it was born alive) that would cause it and you untold suffering and pain, only for it to die a short time later, would you still want it brought to term? Well, not everyone does, and they had to make a wrenching choice: > [http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/Default.aspx](http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/Default.aspx) An unborn baby is not yet a human life. It is a potential life. I have no issue with abortion. ---
**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 5, 2014, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/279 "2014-11-05T06:15:14Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > But **Smapti** ’s position in this thread, which seems to be “Brittany Maynard owed us (the rest of humanity) a few more weeks or months of her suffering in hopeless agony, and _how dare she_ deprive us of them?!” How the fuck can anyone seriously believe that? Agony is only hopeless if you decide you want it to be. ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765/280 "2014-11-05T06:26:29Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Agony is only hopeless if you decide you want it to be. What does that mean? Have you ever been seriously ill or injured? I have, and there isn’t any room for lofty thoughts of hope or hopelessness or making decisions. Pain is all there is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-no-brittany-maynard-thread-terminal-disease-doctor-assisted-suicide/701765.md?page=15)