
A Design for Death - hecubus
https://www.1843magazine.com/people/a-design-for-death-meeting-the-bad-boy-of-the-euthanasia-movement
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kibwen
Last week my grandmother had a stroke in her sleep--the most major of a series
of strokes that she has endured for slightly over a year that have sent her
slowly sinking into dementia. After several days in the hospital without
having regained consciousness, her advance directive was enacted and her
feeding tube removed. She's at home now in hospice care, surrounded by her
husband and children. There's nothing left to do now but wait for death.

Of my two grandmothers, she's the lucky one. The other was T-boned while
driving by a pickup blasting through a stop sign. Her body was shattered and
her freedom and mobility irrevocably taken. She spent the last two years of
her life sequestered away in a nursing home, her mind deteriorating, her few
nearby children visiting once a week at most, her husband dead 15 years hence.

Death sucks. But the hell on Earth we force people to endure while waiting for
it to arrive doesn't seem much preferable.

Have an advance directive, folks.

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DoreenMichele
I can't manage to read this. At one time, I likely would have taken the
euthanasia option if it had been available to me.

My life remains a living hell in some ways, but mostly for financial/social
reasons. My physical suffering is substantially less.

I can't begin to express both how very much I am for the right to die and how
very much I know that, given an easy out, most people won't do the hard stuff.
So something like this can easily go very bad places.

There was an American, I think also nicknamed Dr. Death, who was providing
euthanasia (illegally). A lot of his patients/clients were chronically ill
women who didn't want to be a burden on their family.

One woman in particular seemed like she wanted to die primarily because she
had a shitty, unsupportive family, not because her medical issue was really so
serious that suicide seemed like a reasonable choice.

Chronically ill or disabled men are much more likely to marry someone and let
her physically take care of him, especially if they were able bodied at one
time and have a decent income still. It doesn't even have to be a great
income.

I read an article once about a study of children in some less developed
country where boys were valued more than girls. Boys were fed slightly better.
Boys were taken to the doctor slightly sooner -- like in the evening versus
"Oh, let's give it a few hours and see how she feels come morning."

Although this was not a case of girls being horribly abused, it was just a
case of boys being a little bit pampered, the difference in outcomes could be
measured in mortality.

In a world where racism, classism, sexism, etc are still rampant, a death
machine has all kinds of potential for horrifying unintended consequences. And
those consequences are a sort that are hard to talk about without sounding
like a loon or conspiracy theory nutter because the forces at play are fairly
subtle and human psychology innately tends to handwave them off as not
important.

~~~
ad404b8a372f2b9
It's a sentiment that I share and is echoed by many disabled people. We're
made to feel like we have no place in society. At some point euthanasia ceases
being a choice when everyday the feeling that you shouldn't be alive is being
reinforced.

~~~
DoreenMichele
It's something I'm trying to do something about. I was homeless for years. I
run a number of websites and am starting some Reddits to try to put out useful
information.

Thank you for commenting. It means something to me.

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jelliclesfarm
The taboo against euthanasia is mostly after the spread of abrahamic
religions.

Throughout history of our world, there has always been ways to end one’s own
life, their loved ones and those of enemies in battle ..and during times of
famine and pestilence.

The ‘immortal soul’ that has to meet the monotheistic maker changed everything
because euthanasia means banishing saved souls to hell and hence becoming
unsaved.

Edited to add: perhaps after spread of xianity. The Old Testament begins with
a sacrifice after all. I am not terribly familiar with details re
religions..correct me if I am wrong?

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skinkestek
The secular problem with this:

How do we make sure that people aren't forced into this?

~~~
sysbin
I think it would be great if people were required to answer a questionnaire
with even a psych evaluation in person for wanting to end life.

I don’t think any person should ever be refused their request to die. I just
think the information is valuable to obtain for going forward by designing
society to be more favorable for people to want to live. Currently a lot of
people with tremendous psychological pain are being forced to continue being
in pain because people don’t want to let them end their life. People with
depression should be able to have free will over their own life.

~~~
ekianjo
> People with depression

Depression can usually be treated and results in less will to kill oneself.
There is a good case to make that when you suffer from depression you are not
yourself anymore.

~~~
ThrowawayP
By some estimates, a third of people who have depression have it in a
treatment-resistant form:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4518696/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4518696/)
How much treatment would you require these patients to endure before granting
them freedom?

~~~
S-E-P
You’re sense of “freedom” is kind of fucked.

Don’t load questions like that, it’s painfully annoying.

Anyway death is not freedom; what good is freedom when you aren’t around to
enjoy it? Foolish notion

~~~
nsomaru
I salute anyone with the conviction to plan and take their own life. What
other sovereignty does another human have save over their own life?

Also your snark reveals some inherent metaphysical assumptions. They may or
may not be wrong, but why assume we all hold them?

~~~
S-E-P
My snark more comes from years of trudging through some pretty horrible
experiences as well as a slew of mental problems.

I live with trauma that I deal with on a daily basis. Paranoia for days and a
lot of pain.

I dont salute those who take there own lives; I’ve thought about taking mine
for a decade before giving up on the idea. If you mean something to someone;
don’t take your life, it hurts them way more then it hurts you to go on
living. You can’t help anyone if you are dead; it’s rather selfish.

Suicide is for assholes or cowards; I award no points, your life is precious,
make it worth living.

~~~
ThrowawayP
Well, if you're going to be snarky about it, all I'll reply with is the famous
Big Lebowski quote: " _Yeah, well, you know, that 's just, like, _your_
opinion, man._"

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ggm
Nitschke's other (previous, drug perfusion) death machine was on display in
MONA in Hobart. its an otherwise pedestrian installation of a suitcase sized
box, and a bag on a stand, next to a chaise longue. I found it very
confronting. Normalized but somehow not normal.

He's a polarising figure. Saying something rational, but causing immense
community disquiet when people come close to voting. (I believe he has the
right of it, but successive State, Territory and Federal governments have
shied away from the topic, the impact of the church on Australian polity is
pretty big)

~~~
cyberferret
Dr. Nitschke is from my home town right here. He was so close to getting
voluntary euthanasia laws enacted in the Northern Territory, but the
government backed out in the end.

I remember watching him demonstrate V1 of his 'machine in a suitcase' that
people could use to end their lives. It was controlled by a PC, and the
interface that the patient would use to click the confirmation dialogs to
begin the last things they would see in the world was written in.....
<shudder> ... Microsoft Access.

~~~
benjohnson
Really old versions of Microsoft Access could use Clippy via VBA:

    
    
      Set Clippy = Application.Assistant.NewBalloon
      With Clippy
        .Heading = "Human Deletion"
        .Text = "It looks like you're trying to kill yourself"
        .Icon = msoIconAlertWarning
        .Button = msoButtonSetOK
        .Show
      End With

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
> The front-runner in the one-way journey to Switzerland is a New Zealander
> whom Nitschke has known for years. She’s not terminally ill, but is becoming
> increasingly disabled by macular degeneration – something she finds
> intolerable after a lifetime of reading for pleasure.

I am not so sure society is ready to embrace commercial euthanasia for non-
fatal, non-painful diseases. Should someone with age related deafness be
offered euthanasia because they find not being able to listen to music
intolerable. Or how about a former runner with hip and knee problems?

~~~
sokoloff
Why ought people not be able to request their own euthanasia? It seems like
that's the ultimate form of self-determination. (I'm all for _reasonable_
controls around it to ensure that it's a properly considered decision and not
done on a whim or in an acute bout of feeling poorly, but I don't think that
it needs a societally acceptable explanation, just a consistent, considered
choice by the patient.)

~~~
defined
And from the article: "But I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to be
stuffed full of tubes with doctors hovering over me, pleased with themselves
for keeping my heart beating for another five minutes, eking out every last
painful second. That, to me, is dystopia.”

My feelings exactly.

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S-E-P
The ends don’t justify the means. Sometimes to live and suffer a fate worse
than death is better to die.

Also I hate this idea the they’re making death slick.

And the way the article is romanticizing a man who will assist you in, for
many; a coward’s way out.

This worries me greatly; have we so quickly forgotten the past?

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RiversHaveWings
Needs to be combined with prompt cooling for cryopreservation.

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cryptozeus
I am 100% for the uber for death. People are suffering due to lack of
resources and lack of innovation in medical field. Haven is better than hell
on earth.

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Freeboots
Off topic, but that double exposure feels out of place.

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Gatsky
I think it is of note that voluntary euthanasia is becoming a more important
issue at the present time. Due to various medical advancements and improved
analgesia and supportive care, suffering is less now than at any other time in
history.

One possibility is the particular life experiences and trajectory of the
boomers is driving the phenomenon. Or maybe it is just the growing number of
elderly and increasingly infirm.

