I'm in favor even of euthanasia.

Yeah, uhh... if someone truly wants to die, they should be able to make that decision for themselves.

I am so glad he is dead... what a terrible person.

Life is a terminal illness, and yet we still discourage suicide, even knowing that every last one of us will go through a lot of pain between now and our natural deaths? Why? Because we value life.

This is why I am against assisted suicide - it devalues life.

If you want to die get a gun/knife/rope etc. and do it properly. There's no reason for doctors to get involved.

For me, it only gets tricky when the person may not be able to make that decision for themselves due to mental illness. Once you go down that road it opens a huge grey area. i.e. If someone suffers from treatable depression, I would lean to it being irresponsible to assist in their suicide.

Not to mention that as a skeptic I believe anything is possible, and therefore no one can ever truly be known to be terminal. Killing yourself, however, is definitely a self-fulfilled prophecy.

When it comes down to it, to answer the question "do you support assisted suicide" you have to answer the question:

"What is more important, mitigating suffering, or protecting life?"

I answer life. Because with no life, suffering loses meaning. Suffering is predicated on life.. if you see what I mean. No life, no suffering, and for that matter, no joy. Suffering is a part of life that I would want to experience.

If you don't agree that suffering too should be embrace I recommend Huxley's "Brave New World" for some summer reading pleasure.

This is not even to mention the slippery slope with euthanasia/etc.

I must repeat: thank god Kevorkian is dead.

But Thucy, what gives you the right to decide for someone else that they cannot end their suffering?

Thucy: No. Helping someone end their life doesn't devalue life, it shows that you value it by allowing someone control over their own. If someone is in insane amounts of pain in a hospital bed and simply wants to die, that is their choice to make, not yours or anyone else's. Do you really not see how absurd it is to lecture people that they should embrace their suffering?

mI think he had an unfortunate name. Maybe it's too many western horror films but Dr. Kevorkian just sounds like he's got to be harvesting dead people's souls to bring some monster back to life.

agreed...Kevorkian does have a bit of a sinister ring to it.

@thucy, where do you stand on smoking, travelling by car or living in the rougher side of Glasgow?

Of course we have the right to choose to end our lives... Consenting adults have the right to cooperate in any endeavor that does not hurt anyone else. ...and hurt/pain or any emotion is a personal experience, we should not be mandating our definition on others. Suicide may look like "hurt" to us - when, for some in some situations, it is the removal of "hurt". Who are we to tell others how to feel and how to act? Thus - assisted suicide is completely OK by me. Besides, how many here believe that there is some point where it is humane to euthanize a loved dog or cat that is in incurable and severe pain? To me, suicide is even clearer an issue than that - because the one dying is aware and in charge - unlike a dog being euthanized.

What I am saying is that to me it is more important to preserve life than to mitigate suffering in cases where the two conflict.

It seems fine, sure, to say to a dying man: sure, we will give you some lethal drugs, because X doctors have confirmed you are dying, and your whole family agrees, etc. etc.

But real life doesn't work like that because when exceptions like that get made, what is your argument for that man standing on the bridge about to jump?

He will tell you: don't I have a right to end my suffering? Would you really go up to the people that are trying to convince him to come down off the ledge and say "do you really not see how absurd it is to lecture people that they should embrace their suffering?"

The hard facts are that we humans do not actually have full agency. Sometimes society tells us to do things we don't want to do for our own good. Laws enshrine these ultimatums.

And there is a reason suicide is a against the law.

wish you would go visit you neo-nazi thug

to darwyn of course, i cant think of any other neo-nazi thugs on here

And again that is not even to get into what I think is the strongest argument against - the slippery slope idea. There are so many avenues for abuse of such a legalization that it makes my spine shiver.

What if we get to a point where it becomes so common and acceptable to end your own life once you're diagnosed with terminal diseases that:

-some people who don't really want to end their own lives and would like to hold out for that tiny chance they'll make it and/or have something left to do or experience instead are pressured into ending their own lives, whether socially or financially?
-some people who did not really consent to ending their own lives, or are in no real state to make such a decision, are said to be, and their lives are ended?

and the greatest horror of all:
what if someone would have made it through, but instead killed themselves?

to me this is just as bad as executing an innocent man, and the atrocity is such that as long as there is any chance it could happen (which there always will be in both cases), the whole practice should be avoided.

feel free to disagree but i oppose these sorts of laws on the grounds that it fosters acceptance of the idea of suicide and death. these things are anathema to the foundations of our society.

@Thucy

Perhaps it would help to look at it this way:

You're 80 years old. You've live a great life, but you currently have a terminal illness. There is no reported case of anyone in your condition recovering.

You are constantly in so much pain that you have a continuous IV drip of Morphine, so you are barely coherent. You can't eat because you are constantly throwing up. You are constantly shitting and pissing yourself because you've lost control of most bodily functions.

Thanks to modern technology, doctors can keep you in this condition for a few months. That means a few months of being bedridden in pain. A few months of watching your friends and family suffer as they see a loved one slowly wither away. Not to mention, absurd medical costs that eat away at your savings, which you had intended to use to let your grandchildren attend good colleges.

Why would you live like that? Would you not want to die with some dignity?

to darwyn in case you missed my answer above, in answer to the question:

"But Thucy, what gives you the right to decide for someone else that they cannot end their suffering?"

The same right I have that tells me you cannot kill yourself in normal circumstances, or for that matter kill another person.



On abortion, I have given ground and become more permissive in recent years on the grounds that fetuses are not necessarily fully developed in terms of consciousness and so on.

But with the sick and infirm.... these people are certainly persons. And another thing that definitely worries me about this sort of thing is that these people will be making these decisions when they are at their weakest, and when they have a state of mind very far from their normal selves.

What I am saying is that even I may find myself in pain and asking to be killed if I, say, had all my skin burned off. But I would hope no one would actually do it, and furthermore I'd hope such a thing would be illegal.

I would hope so for reasons outlined above.

"Why would you live like that? Would you not want to die with some dignity?"

This is a common "refutation" that I've come across over and over.

For one, I happen to believe that it is more dignified to struggle with death until it finally does overtake you, as long as your mind is awake. (so when it comes to vegetables... this is a very different thing).

But for another thing, as I've said, you HAVE TO ADMIT that it is at least possible for me in such a state to pull through.

If you admit that, then for me, the case is closed. There would be nothing worse than for that to happen. It is just as bad as executing an innocent man, because a life was ended where a life need not have been ended.

I do not for one second want to belittle the pain and suffering that these people go through and that I myself may one day go through. But as I said, I think life should be more important that suffering.

Also you mentioned that your mind is addled by the drugs - is that really a state you can expect someone to make a good decision about whether to KILL THEMSELVES?

I mean jeez... I don't know about you guys but I think everyone at least once in their lives at a low point at least contemplates suicide, however flippantly. Thankfully we usually snap out of it because, you know, we're healthy in most other ways and are able to.

But if I am in unprecedented pain, can't think straight, AND am under pressure financially and socially to end my life, I bet I would. But that's a shame. I'm telling you in advance that I would hope no one would allow me to do that. But, if it was legal, it could happen.

It could maybe even happen against my will. And the possibility of this too happening is a good enough reason to stay away from it.

You're entitled of course to your opinion but this is mine.

"Why would you live like that? Would you not want to die with some dignity?"

This is a common "refutation" that I've come across over and over.

For one, I happen to believe that it is more dignified to struggle with death until it finally does overtake you, as long as your mind is awake. (so when it comes to vegetables... this is a very different thing).

But for another thing, as I've said, you HAVE TO ADMIT that it is at least possible for me in such a state to pull through.

If you admit that, then for me, the case is closed. There would be nothing worse than for that to happen. It is just as bad as executing an innocent man, because a life was ended where a life need not have been ended.

I do not for one second want to belittle the pain and suffering that these people go through and that I myself may one day go through. But as I said, I think life should be more important that suffering.

Also you mentioned that your mind is addled by the drugs - is that really a state you can expect someone to make a good decision about whether to KILL THEMSELVES?

I mean jeez... I don't know about you guys but I think everyone at least once in their lives at a low point at least contemplates suicide, however flippantly. Thankfully we usually snap out of it because, you know, we're healthy in most other ways and are able to.

But if I am in unprecedented pain, can't think straight, AND am under pressure financially and socially to end my life, I bet I would. But that's a shame. I'm telling you in advance that I would hope no one would allow me to do that. But, if it was legal, it could happen.

It could maybe even happen against my will. And the possibility of this too happening is a good enough reason to stay away from it.

You're entitled of course to your opinion but this is mine.

Heh got a internal server error sorry for the double post.

We need a Futurama-style coin-operated suicide booth. We can recycle old phone boots to make them.

Yeah that reminds me, has anyone seen Soylent Green?

It may make you laugh but think about what happens to the old man - his "son" (or whoever the protagonist is) doesn't actually want him to kill himself, but he feels he is too much of a burden and goes ahead with it.

And sure they're very nice to him and say "right this way Mr. ___" and so on and give him a nice slideshow of nature as he dies. But for me... it was pretty clear how horrible such a thing is. And society becomes accepting of the idea of assisted suicide, that picture of life is not too far off.

If you are okay with that, well, then... geez. I don't really know what else to say.

My personal opinion is that this sort of thing is the whole idea of fundamental rights and individualism taken to its extreme conclusion.

I.e. - I should be free to do whatever I want, so if I want to kill myself, who are you to tell me I shouldn't?

Yeah...

@thucy, i don't know if you saw my question above? I asked what is your view on driving a car, smoking, living in glasgow etc. You see the thing is everything we do has a risk attached to it. We risk killing ourselves and killing others every day and in the case of driving we risk killing someone just so we don't have to get wet going to the shops. If we actively try to help someone end their lives for a better reason then that is a risk I'd take,

"But if I am in unprecedented pain, can't think straight, AND am under pressure financially and socially to end my life, I bet I would. But that's a shame."

Where's the shame in that?

"On abortion, I have given ground and become more permissive in recent years on the grounds that fetuses are not necessarily fully developed in terms of consciousness and so on."

But your argument seems to rest on the fact that life is more precious than anything and that it needs to be saved at any at all costs to the detriment of anyone involved. How do you compensate for this contradictory juxtaposition?

Are you talking about saving life or consciousness? cuz that seems to be the only difference in your opposing viewpoints involving ending life.

Last month we had this case: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13289119
concerning this character: William Melchert-Dinkel.

Would he be found guilty if asisted suicide was made legal?

Yeah, and everything is poisonous in large enough quantities.

Of course we draw arbitrary lines in all aspects of life.... it's the same with "How long into a pregnancy is it ok to have an on-demand abortion?"

What's happening here is we are disagreeing about where the line is.

Just because I place a higher importance on life at the expense of suffering than you do doesn't mean I don't value concerns about suffering at all.

For instance the "suffering" (or negative suffering - utility here) that I mitigate by going to Boston next weekend is to me great enough to justify the risk of a plane crash or developing cancer from high altitude radiation.

This is a point that I think most people are agreed on - that it is an acceptable endangerment of life. We of course always work to mitigate the danger.

So it's no surprise to me that we disagree on where the boundary lines are - that's all these moral dilemma arguments are.

But to say that because I disagree with your personal line I must then retreat all the way to the opposite extreme... that's insane.

That's the same as saying: oh, you think abortion is ok?

Well then CERTAINLY you MUST HAVE to be ok with abortions two days before birth, for no reason other than convenience or morbid fascination! Right? Right?

No. Come on. Lol.