"Assisted Dying" debate

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Australian State Lawmakers to Vote on Assisted Dying

No. Just no.

I understand that many people suffer in the course of terminal illness, and I agree with the goal of ending suffering, which is why I support hospice/palliative care (i.e. care that focuses on quality of life at the POSSIBLE expense of length of life). But ending the sufferer is a different matter altogether, for a few reasons:

1. The "right to die" would run a serious risk of turning into a "duty to die" for monetary reasons. Insurance companies are notoriously greedy, and once assisted suicide is an option, they might not cover end-of-life care, because that costs more money. In fact, it's already happened at least once: http://nypost.com/2016/10/24/terminally-ill-mom-denied-treatment-coverage-but-gets-suicide-drugs-approved/ Even with single-payer healthcare, the state would start acting exactly the way private insurance companies do now, if not worse.

2. Abuses of a "voluntary" system happen, even when there are supposed to be safeguards. At least one Dutch doctor has killed a patient without consent (see http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/23/dutch-doctor-forces-assisted-suicide-dose-sedated-protesting-patient/), and half of Belgian euthanasia nurses admit to it as well (see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285423/Half-Belgiums-euthanasia-nurses-admit-killing-consent.html).

3. The "death with dignity" movement depends on the notion that the worth of a person's life depends on their "quality of life," which does not bode well for disabled people like us. It is seen as better to be dead than disabled. According to a survey done in Oregon, people who chose assisted suicide cited pain as a reason only 28% of the time, being a burden on others half the time, and loss of autonomy 93% of the time (see https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-disability-advocates-say-no-to-doctor-assisted-death). In the Netherlands, disabled babies can be killed at birth per the Groningen Protocol (http://pjsaunders.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-groningen-protocol-for-euthanasia.html). What does that say to the living disabled about their worth and dignity? How long before we, especially those of us who are "low functioning," are seen as burdens on others with little to no "quality of life"? In Belgium and the Netherlands, mental problems are now a common reason for euthanasia: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/europes-morality-crisis-euthanizing-the-mentally-ill/2016/10/19/c75faaca-961c-11e6-bc79-af1cd3d2984b_story.html?utm_term=.61185a66c18f

4. The "death with dignity" movement makes suicide an accepted solution for illness, and thus presents a broader message that it's desirable to give up in the face of suffering. What does that say to depressed people, bullied teens, the non-terminally sick, and people with other dire life circumstances? (Don't we tell bullied LGBT teens that "it gets better"?) We ought to help the human spirit triumph in the end. And yes, I understand that for the terminally ill things (almost always) really won't get better, but promoting them dying suggests that there is nothing worth living for, which implies that life is not worthwhile in and of itself. Ultimately...

5. The very name "death with dignity" implies that the dignity of the human person is fragile, that it is conditional upon certain factors (implied to be autonomy and ability in this case). No! It is inherent and unconditional. Atrocities--rape, slavery, genocide--are justified by dehumanizing the victims. You shall know the tree by its fruit.

I could go on about human dignity, but I would have to bring religion into it, so I'll stop here (for now). I wish the best for all.

You seem quite well-informed about all of this, and I am curious about what you mean when you mention "care that focuses on quality of life at the POSSIBLE expense of length of life". In my own experience, my mother was coerced into choosing hospice (to die) in place of continued treatment when other people believed her so-called "quality of life" could/would only continue to deteriorate no matter what she did...and then her reversal of that hospice decision was ignored the following day. So at least in her case, hospice was used to bring about death sooner than it would have otherwise come...and in fact, she never even regained consciousness following the sedation given to her for the transport from hospital to hospice.

We are discussing free choice which is not going to physically hurt others. I am for it in the case of terminal illnesses with uncontrollable pain. For disablities it is very problematic as often the problem is as much internalization of sociaties stigmas as the disability itself. Aspergers should in no way be considered the equal to a terminal illness.

There has been great progress made in pain management. I fear because of doctors overprescribing opioids and the ensuing epidemic a lot of this progress is going to be undone because of overcorrection. If you are terminal so what if you get addicted.

To pass "Euthanasia" laws, while continuing to ban and make illegal some very effective "end of life suffering" medications, is revolting.
Where is the "free choice" in that? The compulsion is built right into the systems foundations.
How can you claim it's a persons "Free Choice" while society is actively blockading their other, less extreme, options?

In your mother's case, her doctors were intruding on her rights. While no one has the right to kill themselves, "extraordinary measures"--i.e. treating the disease--may be stopped if there is no reasonable hope of recovery and if the patient consents to it.

What I mean by "possible expense of length of life" is that while active killing is not permissible, letting the patient die can be okay if they have no reasonable chance of long-term survival. A patient in pain may legitimately be given high doses of morphine, even at the risk of depressing their respiratory system and shortening their life, because the goal is not the patient's death, but relieving pain. A possibly sooner death is an unfortunate side effect.

I hope this helps!

Yes, and I thank you. My confusion came from my distinguishing between so-called "quality of life" and mere pain management since the two are not synonymous even if the first can be somewhat dependent upon the other.

A person's life-choices should be made only by that person. It's astonsihing and disappointing that this is even an issue.

If someone decides that, by hir (his/her) own standards, hir quality of life can't be adequate, then s/he rightfully should have access to medical assistance for assisted dying.

(By the way, anytime when there's a quality-of-life reason causing someone to choose death, then that isn't suicide, by any reasonable definition. It's medically-necessitated auto-euthanasia. Calling it "suicide" falsely implies irrationality, and tries to equate it to the act of someone who kills themself for no similarly justifiable reason.)

Yes, the standard objection is that others will coerce the auto-euthanasia. Insurance companies, family-members who want to save money, etc.

So then, we deny someone the right to make their own life choices, because someone else might coerce them? That sounds a lot like shooting your dog because, if you don't, someone else might shoot it.

What good is it to try to protect the patient from coercion, by imposing coercion to continue suffering in a life without life-quality?? What kind of reasoning is that?

If you're concerned about coercion, then enact additional legislation to prevent it.

Denying a basic individual right in order to prevent coercion is good only for a standup-comedy joke.

Michael829

nobody chose to be born, we should at least have the choice to undo that.

I am dealing with this myself. I live in Canada, where it is legal to choose to die in some circumstances. For a brief, I think, 2 day period a couple of years ago it was legal to do so for the mentally ill.
But that is just mcguffin.
Dying is as natural as being born. I don't understand the fear of it. People say we want a "culture of life." I like life. I like flowers and ponies. But does that mean death is bad? I hope not, because it's coming to all of us.

Death is bad because you are stuck where you are, and cannot move. Death is a claustrophobic place of eternal darkness.

That is.....unless you believe in a “heaven” or something....

Why is it an unfortunate side effect if the person is not going to recover? It would be more fortunate if their death takes longer and thus they suffer longer? I mean sure life is valuble...but if someone is suffering/not going to recover, the kind thing to do seems to be put them out of their misery.

Death isn't bad, without death there isn't life.

I suspect people fear it and see it as bad because its unknown, no one really knows what death is like except for the dead thus its a thing to fear because its uncertain. Maybe you are just no more, maybe there is some kind of soul or essence that will carry on in some kind of existence but no one knows for sure.

Kraftie, you must believe that every one of us is in for a pretty awful eternity.

Everyone agrees that death would be like sleep. Sleep occurs nightly. It isn't bad.

,,,and where do you get "eternal darkness"?

Well, I guess most of us turn the lights off when we turn in.

Timeless comfortable, peaceful and quiet sleep, yes.

Well-deserved peaceful, rest, sure.

I'll remind Kraftie that when there's no time, there's no boredom, or impatience.

Above, I said that everyone agrees that death would be like sleep. Someone could answer that there are all sorts of beliefs and theories about what it's like. Sure, I didn't say that there aren't theories about dreams in that sleep.

Shakespeare mentioned that there could be dreams. He didn't literally mean dreams like those of ordinary sleep. He meant the word more generally. When I speak of "dreams" in this post, I'm not referring only to the dreams that we have in ordinary sleep. I mean it more generally, as Shakespeare must have, to refer to any eventful perception when someone doesn't have waking consciousness.

So sure, the sleep at the end of life could have dreams. There are many beliefs and theories about that.

People who nearly died, and who had near-death experiences (NDEs) nearly always report that their experience was quite good, not at all bad. Given that that experience was at the beginning of death, it suggests that death isn't bad.

That's the only testimonial evidence about death--the beginning part of death.

As for theories about the dreams ( experienced after the experiences described in NDEs) would be like, there are several theories, of course.

Some believe that it would just be plain sleep, without dreams. Nothing bad about that.

The Christian and Hebrew religions, unless I'm mistaken, speak of a Heaven or Hell, depending on what the person deserves.

Hinduism and Buddhism suggest that nearly everyone will be reincarnated. (No, don't dump on me if you disagree. I'm just reporting a widespread position on the matter)

Hinduism and Buddhism also say that a very, very few people, who are so life-completed that they have no remaining wants, needs, lacks, or un-discharged consequences, won't be reincarnated, but will go to that peaceful, quiet, restful sleep. They say that every one of us will reach that point, after many lives.

So those are the various theories about what death is like. Note that none of them sounds at all bad, and actually all of them sound quite good. ...unless there's a Hell, and you're one of those unfortunate enough to qualify for it, by having done some pretty heinous things to others.

By the way, saying that death isn't at all bad shouldn't encourage suicide (by which I mean self-caused death without a good justification, consisting of a disease or injury that ruins your quality-of-life). For one thing, NDEs of people who attempted suicide were mostly all largely bad.

I suggest that suicide makes for a really bad experience, because you'd know that you've put yourself through a difficult discomfort-ordeal, to gain...what? Nothing? For that reason, even in unconsciousness, there'd likely remain a nightmare realization that something really bad had happened, and that it was your doing.

People say that they want to commit suicide to achieve oblivion. But there's no such thing as oblivion. You never experience a time when you don't experience. You never experience the time when your body is entirely shut down. Only your survivors experience that time. There's no such thing as oblivion. All that suicide (as I've defined it above) can achieve, is a really bad time, a prolonged ordeal (...considerably worse than whatever emotional conditions you're trying to get away from).

...and I needn't remind you what Christianity says happens to people who commit suicide.

Sorry to end this post on a negative note, but I felt that it was important that speaking favorably of death not sound like encouragement of suicide.

(Lest anyone think I'm contradicting myself, going to sleep doesn't mean reaching oblivion, because, as I said, you obviously never experience a time when you aren't experiencing anything.)

Michael829

I agree with everything you said in this post, Michael. It should never be up to anyone but the person themselves to decide whether or not their life is worth living. People shouldn't be forced to commit suicide by painful and extreme methods as is the case today.

To quote Mark Twain - I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit.