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"Assisted Suicide"

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Tue 14/06/11 at 15:19
Moderator
"possibly impossible"
Posts: 24,985
After the BBC programme last night with Sir Terry Pratchett following the quest of one man to end his life via the famous clinic in Zurich and the outcry that followed this, I thought I'd start a thread to discuss views on the subject.

Even before the programme started there were those calling to ban it. Admittedly, it did seem to romanticise the idea of assisted suicide a bit and didn't really present the opportunity for the opposing argument, but that wasn't what this programme was about.

The Newsnight episode after this did give some voice to pro-life groups however, so there was a little sense of redressing the balance in presenting the issue. However, would the BBC commission something similar for pro-life groups where they show someone living through the pain? It's doubtful whether these groups would want to present something like this because there is just no way you can romanticise the issue of living with the final months and days of a dilapidating disease, it's hard on families as well as on the individual.

While I'm personally against assisted suicide for me, I'm not a fan of telling others what they can and can't do with their own lives. What I DO have a problem with is a call for assisted suicide to be made legal in the UK without really thinking about how it would work. It's not as easy as setting up a clinic and saying 'right, you can do it now'. There are many differences between the Swiss and UK when it comes to business and there would be millions of rules and laws that would need to be made to protect both the public and the company who carries out the task.

It's a complete minefield when you consider the implications of proving that someone is of sound mind to make their decision, how you regulate the company that takes your money and how to ensure that the patient is not being pressured into it by relatives keen to see them off (however harsh that may seem, pressure on the carer can lead to many things).

So what are your thoughts on the subject? Are you pro-assisted suicide or pro-life? Do you think it should be legal here and, if so, how would the government go about it?
Wed 15/06/11 at 07:37
Regular
"I like turtles"
Posts: 5,368
Morning guys,nice cheery topic we have going on here....

Can't really imagine how someone in so much pain they really would rather not be here would actually feel so therefore I think it's very difficult to comment.In an ideal world one human being should never take the life of another but unfortunately we live in a far from ideal world.Ask someone if they believe Iain Huntley deserves to still be drawing breath and some would say he does not.Is taking the life of another human being a barbaric and outdated act or in some situations is it justifiable? If it was an animal that was facing the rest of it's days in unbearable amounts of pain or had killed 2 innocent young girls it would be put down without as much as a second thought,some could argue is there really all that much difference?
Wed 15/06/11 at 01:04
Regular
"Twenty quid."
Posts: 11,452
Sonic Chris wrote:
Well I think suicide on it's own is particularly selfish. No matter how tough life gets, there is always somebody worse off than you. Look at people in foreign countries starving to death and watching their children die. There's also the fact that somebody out there cares about your existence and maybe even depends on it, and to choose to end your own life is a disgusting choice knowing this.

Bring this on to assisted suicide, it's pretty much the same points, but it sickens me even more. To ask someone to help you die; how could you do that? That's also selfish. You don't have a clue how the person is going to feel after doing that, and they have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

Suicide or assisted suicide=No. There's always a better alternative.


No one should have the choice to die, in the same way that no one had the choice to live. It just happens. It's nature. Regardless of wether you're disabled, you still have life. Wether you feel a burden to somebody or not, or you don't enjoy life, it is the greatest gift of anything, and to just decide not to have it, and ask to die, it just makes me feel sick.

That's a pretty firm stance you've taken there. We don't have a choice to die? Why not? We supposedly have choices about everything else in our lives, why not how we end them, too?

It's easy to say that suicide is 'selfish,' but should someone who is desperate to die for whatever reason really be expected to ignore their feelings so that other people don't lose out? The way you say this is as if every single person in the world has family, parents, children or whatever who would be destroyed by their death. Believe it or not there are plenty of people who have nothing to live for and there are a great number of them who have friends and family who would no doubt be upset by, but understand their choice.

Asking someone to help you die doesn't automatically compel them to do it; they have a choice, too. If someone is in terrible pain on a daily basis and lives on painkillers and other drugs simply to be able to make it through each day (and I know more than one person like that), are they supposed to just 'grin and bare it?' Animals are put down all the time to ease their suffering, and they don't ask for it.

Can I assume that you're able bodied? I have no idea whether you are or not, so please forgive me if you're not. I am physically disabled, I have FSH muscular dystrophy, and my muscles are slowly wasting away. Each day, week, month or year I lose the ability to do something through lack of strength; I can no longer drive a car, walk, stand up, dress myself, wash myself, cook for myself or do a great may other things that I was once able to do easily. I have difficulty making myself understood to people who have just met me because my facial muscles are weak. Eventually I will die because I won't be able to breathe for myself; before that day it's a pretty sure thing that I will have deteriorated to the point of barely or not being able to move or speak and I have no intention of existing tied to a machine purely because someone tells me that suicide, assisted or otherwise, is wrong.
Tue 14/06/11 at 23:36
Regular
"Monochromatic"
Posts: 18,487
I'd really like to contribute to this but I spent a large portion of last week on another forum talking about the same thing and I don't fancy going over all that again.
There are so many problems to this issue that in my mind it's near impossible for the law to cover something so subjective.

-------------------------
People who are paralysed aren't dying, they're terminally injured,. They're understandably miserable, so is being unhappy a good enough reason to end your life

which leads me to

People with depression. Physically debilitating, mentally devastating, not dying though. If being miserable is going enough for those who are paralysed...
--------------------------

Is someone who is depressed in the right state of mind to make a decision about their life anyway?

Does subjective tolerance for pain play a part any decision and how do you adequately measure someone's tolerance.

Is it ethical to end the life of someone who may recover when research is finding new treatments all the time?

If you have a degenerative illness but choose not to end your own life when you can, is it then fair to ask someone else to do it?

If suicide becomes socially acceptable, does it send out the wrong message to the general public and would at home suicides numbers increase?
Tue 14/06/11 at 15:42
Regular
"How Ironic"
Posts: 4,312
No one should have the choice to die, in the same way that no one had the choice to live. It just happens. It's nature. Regardless of wether you're disabled, you still have life. Wether you feel a burden to somebody or not, or you don't enjoy life, it is the greatest gift of anything, and to just decide not to have it, and ask to die, it just makes me feel sick.
Tue 14/06/11 at 15:35
Moderator
"possibly impossible"
Posts: 24,985
Ok, take this example into consideration:

You have a partner who has a disease which has completely stopped their limbs from moving and every motor function has stopped. In short, they are simply a brain in a non-working body and have to be looked after 24 hours a day by you.

They've previously discussed the plan for assisted suicide and would prefer this to being a burden any further, considering their quality of life is next to nothing anyway.

The clinic would take them and look after them through the treatment and you would be able to choose whether to be there at the end or not.
Tue 14/06/11 at 15:27
Regular
"How Ironic"
Posts: 4,312
Well I think suicide on it's own is particularly selfish. No matter how tough life gets, there is always somebody worse off than you. Look at people in foreign countries starving to death and watching their children die. There's also the fact that somebody out there cares about your existence and maybe even depends on it, and to choose to end your own life is a disgusting choice knowing this.

Bring this on to assisted suicide, it's pretty much the same points, but it sickens me even more. To ask someone to help you die; how could you do that? That's also selfish. You don't have a clue how the person is going to feel after doing that, and they have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

Suicide or assisted suicide=No. There's always a better alternative.
Tue 14/06/11 at 15:19
Moderator
"possibly impossible"
Posts: 24,985
After the BBC programme last night with Sir Terry Pratchett following the quest of one man to end his life via the famous clinic in Zurich and the outcry that followed this, I thought I'd start a thread to discuss views on the subject.

Even before the programme started there were those calling to ban it. Admittedly, it did seem to romanticise the idea of assisted suicide a bit and didn't really present the opportunity for the opposing argument, but that wasn't what this programme was about.

The Newsnight episode after this did give some voice to pro-life groups however, so there was a little sense of redressing the balance in presenting the issue. However, would the BBC commission something similar for pro-life groups where they show someone living through the pain? It's doubtful whether these groups would want to present something like this because there is just no way you can romanticise the issue of living with the final months and days of a dilapidating disease, it's hard on families as well as on the individual.

While I'm personally against assisted suicide for me, I'm not a fan of telling others what they can and can't do with their own lives. What I DO have a problem with is a call for assisted suicide to be made legal in the UK without really thinking about how it would work. It's not as easy as setting up a clinic and saying 'right, you can do it now'. There are many differences between the Swiss and UK when it comes to business and there would be millions of rules and laws that would need to be made to protect both the public and the company who carries out the task.

It's a complete minefield when you consider the implications of proving that someone is of sound mind to make their decision, how you regulate the company that takes your money and how to ensure that the patient is not being pressured into it by relatives keen to see them off (however harsh that may seem, pressure on the carer can lead to many things).

So what are your thoughts on the subject? Are you pro-assisted suicide or pro-life? Do you think it should be legal here and, if so, how would the government go about it?

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