
Should assisted death/suicide be legal? - abellerose
Hi HN!<p>I&#x27;m seeking opinions&#x2F;views on society opening the gate on assisted dying and depending on different circumstances:<p>1. Without requiring a person to be suffering a serious illness; if yes or no, please explain why.<p>2. Requiring a person to be suffering a chronic illness; if yes should mental illness qualify and please explain why for your opinion including if you think no in general for illnesses.<p>3. Advance requests for when cognitive or physical function has declined beyond acceptable; if so please explain and should appearance be considered a physical function because it greatly effects how people interact with us.<p>4. Should assisted dying be solely on the person alone to perform if legal and only if the person is unable to function for performing it?<p>I remind myself everyday that my experience in life is unique and mine alone. I&#x27;m not necessarily keen on people that force others to live a similar life rules as oneself unless the rules don&#x27;t harm others to a point of unacceptability. Anyway I&#x27;m in favour of assisted death.
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djyaz1200
My mother took her own life when I was a teenager towards the end of a tough
fight with cancer (it's likely she would have died eventually). I'm about to
turn 42 so I have some distance from this. She did it with a handgun and
because it wasn't legal for her to get help so she had to do it alone in
secret. I came to learn later that my parents fought about this because my dad
is a doctor and understood how to help her but would have gone to jail for it
and lost his career. I also think he just couldn't bring himself to do it, so
having legal medical help available might have changed things?

This obviously derailed my life and my sisters and my dad for many years. I
have some skepticism about if/how assisted death would have been better but I
suspect it would have been. I imagine (perhaps wrongly) we would have been
able to say goodbye and give her a peaceful end. Maybe have counseling leading
up to and through it?

I'll respectfully skip the 1-4 specifics. I just believe that people who want
to die should be allowed to do so peacefully, and no one who objects should be
obligated to help. With the hundreds of millions of guns in the US, violent
suicide is widely available here, the debate is more about if a peaceful death
is available and I think it should be within thoughtful constraints. Those
that disagree with me are entitled to their opinions though.

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theonemind
1\. yes. In general, society exists to serve a collection of individuals, not
as an end in itself, so in my view, society cannot unduly infringe on the
rights of individuals. Considering that a person may generally end their life
without assistance, but not reliably, I'd place suicide in the 'inalienable
rights' category on which society may not infringe. Also, this gives others
some vague say on whether you "suffer enough". They don't have your
experience, I don't think they get to say "you don't suffer enough" based on
apparent lack of suffering from a serious illness. I can't conceive of
anything that gives others the right to judge that.

2\. Yes. Same as above.

3\. Yes. Same as above.

4\. I don't think I understand the question.

~~~
abellerose
# 4 would be performing the treatment by oneself instead of being allowed for
someone else to administer the treatment to the person requesting it.

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w3mmpp
For me, the problem is death is final, while our experience of life is always
changing.

Reminds me of that documentary I watched about a police officer that was
working on that bridge, not sure which, in CA I believe, who have seen a lot
of people jump and die. The few that survived (and who were badly hurt result
of the jump) explained that as soon as they threw themselves in the void they
immediately regretted doing it, and later on, in the hospital, with broken
bones everywhere they were happy to have survived it and were pretty much
cured of their death wish.

Life is so full of unexpected turns.

~~~
paulcole
> For me, the problem is death is final, while our experience of life is
> always changing.

You have _no way_ to know that “our experience of life is always changing.”

It doesn’t always get better. Sometimes it keeps getting worse! Sometimes it
stays equally awful!

What’s true for you and the people you’ve heard talk about it isn’t
necessarily true for everyone. Maybe the people who died on the bridge
would’ve hated surviving?

~~~
w3mmpp
> You have no way to know that “our experience of life is always changing.”

The experience we have is always changing, even if our material condition stay
the same. That's what I mean here.

> Maybe the people who died on the bridge would’ve hated surviving?

Sure, at that moment, but what about 3 days later, or 3 months, who can tell?

So, my argument here is in life, nothing is permanent, while death is.

~~~
paulcole
> my argument here is in life, nothing is permanent

Your argument is based _only_ on your own experience and what you’ve chosen to
hear from others.

Can you acknowledge the possibility that for some people the miserable
experience of their life is permanent?

~~~
meiraleal
But can you acknowledge that these people are probably reinforcing the
miserable experience by their own? And that's why it looks like it is
permanent?

~~~
paulcole
No, I can’t.

I can acknowledge it might be true for some of those people. But there are a
whole fucking lot of people.

But when it comes to this, I’m not going to be so arrogant and self-centered
as to say something that I believe applies to _all_ of them.

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b_t_s
1/2) What's to allow? Anyone who is reasonably mobile always this option and
needs no assistance. If they want a doctor to read the google results for
"What's the best way to kill yourself" or write them a script :shrug: but they
should take the final action themselves if physically capable.

3) This is the most important case. If you can't rely on someone else to put
you out of your misery when you're incapable, then you have to do it yourself
before it's actually necessary, while you still have the ability. Otherwise
you risk being trapped in agony for the remainder of your life. That's a cruel
gamble, betting on the probability, duration, and pain of your own sow death,
vs how much worthwhile life you're potentially giving up. It's also very
unreliable as there are all sorts of things that can take you from fine to
permanent agony in an instant. I don't see why appearance would matter.

4) If capable, you should do it yourself. If incapable, someone should be
allowed to assist. Assistance should always be from a qualified professional
who has no conflicts of interest to keep the line between assisted suicide an
murder as clear as possible.

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djshcur8
1\. Yes, of course. No government, religion, or society should have control
over another's life or death. See below.

2\. Yes. And yes mental illness like depression should qualify (See below).
But mental illnesses where person is extremely disillusioned should not.

3\. Yes. Appearance sure, it is their life.

4\. Sure, see below.

However, I think person who is committing suicide still has responsibilities
to society including not causing emotional harm to their loved ones, not
leaving a mess behind for others to clean up etc. As a society, we should
establish guidelines for suicide. I like Hindu practice of suicide called
[Prayopavesa][1].

Prayopavesa is basically slow suicide by fasting to death. This may take days
or weeks. This solves the big problem of people changing their mind after
pulling the trigger or jumping off the ledge. If at any point suicidal person
changes their mind, they can start eating.

Also if a person is disciplined enough to fast for days, we can trust that
person has emotional maturity to make such a big decision. In other forms of
assisted suicide like injecting drugs, an emotional person may sign up with a
service, then they might even go through extensive paperwork. I personally end
up doing things like sky diving just because I signed up to do them while
drunk. I didn't want to do it later, but felt ashamed asking for refund. I
imagine, emotionally unstable person may go through paperwork even when they
are having second thoughts.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayopavesa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayopavesa)

~~~
abellerose
Starving to death is arguably torture depending on the culture you grow up in.
I think I've read about Prayopavesa and I'm not sure if lighting yourself on
fire is related but methods of that sort are not really acceptable for all
types of people that would just want a drug making them fall asleep with
eventually death following. Some people go their whole life without obtaining
the discipline to put down the spoon. So I'm kind of wondering if some people
just cannot do what you're suggesting.

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Normal_gaussian
4\. Qualified professional, or oneself. The former to ensure it is done
correctly both morally and medically, the latter to prevent suicides being so
negative. Though there should be a legal obligation to intervene where
possible in a suicide and a legal protection from intervention when the
professional is acting.

3\. Yes; though only conditions that result in a loss of mental capability or
communication should be part of an advance request. Reason: an advance will
reduce the standard of investigation required by the professional to "do they
meet the conditions of their advance directive", but at the time the directive
is made it is unlikely that the person is a valid suicide candidate, so fewer
checks and balances can be in place.

2\. There should be no white or blacklist to assisted suicide. The person
should only have to meet certain criteria along the lines of - they have tried
to live with their reason, they have no realistic positive treatment options,
etc.

1\. As 2

The overarching reason is that your life is your own. But this is tempered by
the fact that people are all limited in experience and knowledge, and as a
society we should act to help each other make the most out of it.

This is why, despite being wildly in favour of assisted dying and suicide in
my own country, I am a lot less keen to see my unrestricted flavour in other
countries, countries who do not look after the other members of their society;
countries who have debtors prisons and predatory medicine are places where
open suicide laws will be used to escape the hell of their tormentors instead
of overthrowing it.

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nasmorn
I believe it should be legal. If a person is committed to it for an extended
period they should be able to do it. It should not be a quick process
obviously given that a lot of suicide attempts seem to be calls for help. If
you are able bodied you can do it anyways so the current ban only really
applies to a minority anyways which seems pretty unfair. Bad enough for them
that they are going to have to follow some external process but that seems
unavoidable we cannot have people killing others with a signed death wish
note.

If death is medically certain and the person is only trying to escape a
painful death this would be a hindrance. In this scenario it feels hard to
have any due process unless you decide it beforehand. When my father in law
died he didn’t want morphine because he was correctly assuming it would kill
him. At one point though he was willing to make that trade off though. He
would not have wanted this before he was really trying to hang on even through
the pain until he wasn’t. In such cases I feel you should have a right to pain
management even if it jeopardizes your life. But in this situation where you
are deteriorating in the hospital a legal System style procedure would not
help you at all.

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akater
1\. Everyone (except maybe for murderers and insane people) is a master of
their body, so other people have no right at all to decide whether a sane non-
murderer should be able to end his or her own life. This has nothing to do
with any illness.

2\. See 1.

3\. When cognitive function is damaged severely, the person cannot make
decisions on their own, including decisions on whether they should live or
die.

4\. All voluntary interactions are fine.

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paulcole
1\. Yes — it’s their choice just like any elective medical procedure. If
there’s enough demand for a legal service, somebody will offer it.

2\. No — I don’t need to have a chronic illness to know that I hate my life
and would rather die painlessly. Mental illness is not always treatable. If
someone wants to die that opportunity should be available to them.

3\. Don’t understand your question here.

4\. No. Killing yourself usually leaves somebody else a mess to clean up, both
literally and mentally. Plus I’m not skilled at killing myself and there’s a
good chance I would fuck it up. If it’s a legal service, somebody will take my
money to do it and that option should be available.

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sloaken
1 / 2 / 3 - I think they should be terminal in some manner, myself I have told
anyone who will listen, when I cannot do the basics on my own (like go to the
toilet, have a conversation), or have a terminal (painful) condition, and
there is no prospect of improvement, please let me die some how. Do not keep
me drugged up.

Mental illness is a different kettle of fish. I supported taking Terry Shivo
of the equipment that kept her alive.

4 - I expect when I would want to go, I would not have the physical capability
to do it.

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Foober223
1\. not sure. 2\. not sure 3\. not sure. 4\. not sure.

In some cases it's not really a choice between life vs death. The choice is a
speedy death or a slow torturous death where they let you die of dehydration.
Generally I think it's good to be legal, edge cases and what-if's aside. There
are already negative "what-ifs" under the status quo, such as people being
left to die of dehydration. Even pet dogs get a more merciful death.

~~~
abellerose
I'm guessing I would be interested in what makes you unsure if the rest of
your comment doesn't cover it all. In all seriousness I think we all have a
death we're destined to experience. So I sort of approach the topic as an
evolution question for how we can experience death compared to if our exact
genetic makeup to make us came earlier in time of a less evolved society.
Maybe that makes sense?

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Meph504
My option is on its surface simple, anyone should have the right to self
terminate. This isn't something anyone should have to justify to someone.

I think selecting a method and location that doesn't cause a burden on those
left behind is important.

And I could see legal grey areas when it comes to those found to be mentally
unsound, and those who might be late stage pregnant.

But in general when possible, we shouldn't tell others how to live or die.

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mikebos
Both my father and great grandmother died with the help of the docter. The
first due to quality of life issues related to advanced parkinson and the
latter due to advanced cancer with only a lot of pain too look forward too.

Assisted dying should be a function of healthcare. I like the way we have set
it up in the Netherlands, there are strict guidelines, there is oversight and
it's process to make an informed decision.

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Debtless
Just as it is ethical for lawyers to assist with bankruptcy, it is ethical for
doctors to assist with suicide. Bankruptcy discharges financial obligations;
suicide discharges moral objections. Discuss.

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meiraleal
1\. Of course not! The mental state of someone at a given moment should not be
allowed to be used as an excuse to end his/her life forever

2\. Also no, because multiple times chronic illness is related to lifestyle
and can be fixed or at least improved a lot. Laziness and lack of willpower
(even because of suffering) is not an excuse to be legally allowed and
assisted in death

3\. The same as above.

4\. Also the same! Giving up of life doesn't need to be assisted, anyway. But
definitely the state should not in ANY circumstance incentive suicide.

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Koshkin
Unable/unwilling to help them live, help them die??

~~~
abellerose
I can only do the guessing game with your comment because there are multiple
interpretations depending on how a person thinks approaching what you wrote. I
think it's untrue people ending their life while wanting to die are always in
a situation that's possible to be helped. Maybe the only way of helping just
prolongs a person wanting to die and while that person is upset from not
having the option to die? I mean some people finding nothing special about
what's observable or being experienced and wish to die. That's not a fallacy.
Why we have suicides in society isn't a black or white answer and can be
unique per person.

