Assisted Suicide - where do we stand?

[peter]

A magazine I read on a regular basis had an insert last week advertising the assisted suicide organisation 'Dignity' and promoting it's agenda of allowing us to make the choice as to the time and manner of our departure. The insert featured a number of photograps of people with the tag line "by the time you read this we will be dead" and then a paragraph by each extolling the choice they were making in the face of their certain forthcoming death by disease, and the whole was topped of by an empassioned statement by author and alzheimer's sufferer Terry Pratchett.

OK. I'm in two minds about this (a state of indecision really) and would like to chew over some of the pro's and cons if anyone is up for it.

[lorin]

I don't know about your options. Undecided and against. What about pro?

I am pro as long as a person is counseled prior to the decision.

[Harbinger]

I think you slipped up on your poll. There is no way to vote "FOR."

Therefore, I didn't vote.

[Lady Revel]

I think that I am pro, although there are good arguments for the other side.

Pro - tremendous pain and suffering can be avoided
Family pain and anguish, while still traumatic, can be concluded
Patients can die with dignity
Perhaps organs could be used for transplantation, that would have deteriorated otherwise.

Con - Health insurance companies putting pressures on doctors to avoid heroic measures....money talks.
When doctors are given too much power, their decisions can be wrong or unethical.
This is what really worries me....so I feel that laws would have to be carefully constructed to prevent the abuse of power....but when are laws EVER constructed carefully?

Sticky topic...but I think that a patient who is terminal should have the right to end their lives with some dignity, and not as a shell of who they once were.

And yes, I know I am missing other pros and cons, this is no way a comprehensive list, but these are the things that have occurred to me.

[Cambo]

I'm very much pro. The execution (no pun intended) is sticky, true, but that doesn't change that it's right in principle.

[Holsety]

I think I would have to hear people advocating for it for themselves, and to feel that there wasn't external pressure. This would be the converse of the situation where, say, someone who is up for the death penalty doesn't resist the death penalty as a punishment (i.e. doesn't make an appeal). That's about all I can think of.

[Avatar]

Ok, I fixed that poll. (The first field is the poll question, then come the poll options.)

I am, unsurprisingly for it.

And to be honest, I think a lot more people need to be for it to make it work better.

I can recommend Terry Pratchett's award winning documentary, Choosing To Die if you want to see what it's like now.

Much as I support it, it's still a bit grim. Widespread public acceptance would improve that I think.

And finally, shouldn't this be in the 'Tank? Or the Close?

--A

[deer of the dawn]

In Holland, assisted suicide quickly became doctor-controlled. Elderly, ill patients have often been "assisted" when their families were not consenting (or even informed). I'm totally against it. The pressures put on everyone are horrifying. "Dignity" makes it look like a person controlling their destiny, but the decision too often winds up in others' hands.

First the elderly, then the infirm, then the handicapped, then anyone who doesn't "contribute".

[sgt.null]

deer is correct.

abort the young, assist the old. hell of a world we have here.

[lorin]

Did you ever watch the Front Line documentary called The Suicide Tourist?

www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/suicidetourist/

Craig Ewert, who suffers from ALS writes about his impending suicide;
There are people who will look at this and say, "No, suicide is wrong. God has forbidden it. You cannot play God and take your own life." Well, all right, fine. But you know what? This ventilator is playing God. If I had lived without access to technology, chances are I would be dead now, all right? When premature babies are born, they are given intensive medical treatment. Their lives are saved because doctors and nurses are playing God. They're saying, essentially, "God's plan was that this person would die right now. We're thwarting that. We're playing God."

And you know, they never say, "We have to stop organ transplants. We have to stop saving premature babies. We have to let them die." Oh, no. For that, it's OK to play God. It's only when it might ease somebody's suffering that, "Oh, we can't play God" comes out.

Very well done film. Hard to watch and very sad.

[Lady Revel]

Lorin, that is pretty powerful. And a side of the story that is not often thought about.

[Orlion]

I'm for it, with the following caveats:

1) It applies only to terminal and painful diseases.
2) A doctor certifies that the disease is a)incurable/untreatable b)treatment for the disease has low success rate and/or is as painful/moreso than the condition itself (or, it adds even more suffering to the current condition with little hope of actually helping).
3) A psychologist certifies that the patient is of a clear mind to make this decision. It has to be the patient that makes the decision, not family or loved ones. Otherwise, it's assisted-killing, not assisted suicide.
4) Any doctor, insurance agent, psychologist, or family member (and others I may have forgotten) who abuse this system will be punished extremely. Essentially, for indirect contribution the professionals will lose their license permenantly and the family member will be legally dissolved from being a beneficiary of any sort of will... for any direct involvement, the death penalty will be called for. No life imprisonment, no fines, you unjustly destroy a life without the person's consent, your life gets destroyed.

[Lady Revel]

Orlion.....regarding number 4.....If this were the case, no one would touch assisted suicide with a ten foot pole. Too much to lose. I see the point you are trying to make. There have to be fail stops. But, not a single doctor would go near it....and could you imagine the price of malpractice insurance?

[wayfriend]

I am "for".

I would insist that the beneficiaries of a person who takes this option can collect the life insurance as if the person had died of their disease.

[deer of the dawn]

Lorin, in all the cases the ALS guy cites where doctors "play God", it is to save life, not destroy it. There IS a difference. I ache for the man; a friend of mine who once rappelled with my son and taught him how to pole-vault can barely speak now. But he does keep speaking, and trying, and due to revolutionary treatments has now lived years beyond anyone's wildest dreams. So there is that side to it too.

[Vraith]

I'm for it...for many reasons, the prime one being [as I've said in a different context] if we have no right to our bodies, our selves, we have no rights of any kind at all.

Except for rationality to choose, I'm not sure it even needs to be terminal or painful...but I'd probably compromise and allow those requirements.

It does need to be the person's choice, though...not family, doctors, insurance folk.

Hell...we have, we're told, the right, as individuals, to kill other people in at least some circumstances. Society has the right to kill us we're also told. And Society has a right to both order us to risk our lives and order us to kill others.

As things stand, the only person who has NO right to see us dead under any circumstance is ourselves.
And that is just plain stupid.

[aliantha]

And finally, shouldn't this be in the 'Tank? Or the Close?

That was the first thing I thought when I saw it. Happy to move it, but I'm gonna leave it up to peter to decide. But if it goes anywhere else, it's going to the Close.

Deer -- so it's okay to play God when God would let someone die? We have an equal ability to heal and kill. And we can't know what's in God's mind. I can see assisted suicide being a compassionate action for a terminally ill patient faced with a slow, painful decline, and a cruelty to prolong that same person's life just because we don't want him or her to die.

I think that as soon as you start saying that one outcome (i.e., preserving life) is always Good in all cases, then *all* medical procedures tread an ethical knife edge.

Erm...I voted pro. I guess you guys figured that out by now.

[Orlion]

Orlion.....regarding number 4.....If this were the case, no one would touch assisted suicide with a ten foot pole. Too much to lose. I see the point you are trying to make. There have to be fail stops. But, not a single doctor would go near it....and could you imagine the price of malpractice insurance?

If the government can force insurance companies to insure those with pre-conditions, they can probably force them to offer assisted suicide options as well. As far as malpractice insurance? I do not think that'll be the problem, since the sentence for abusing this treatment would be death.

Ultimately, though, as long as certain procedures are followed, I imagine it would be very hard to prosecute anyone of this crime. In fact, to specify, if someone chooses this option because the insurance company won't cover 'experimental treatments' or the like, that would not count as abuse.

Something that would be abuse is if the patient is not found to be rational, but a family member says to kill him anyway because 'he told me so beforehand...blah, blah, blah, has nothing to do with the life insurance pay out!"

[sgt.null]

I am "for".

I would insist that the beneficiaries of a person who takes this option can collect the life insurance as if the person had died of their disease.

why should an insurance company pay for suicides? i can see this being abused as family members "assist" their loved ones for cash money.

[Vraith]

I am "for".

I would insist that the beneficiaries of a person who takes this option can collect the life insurance as if the person had died of their disease.

why should an insurance company pay for suicides? i can see this being abused as family members "assist" their loved ones for cash money.

Heh...so the insurance company should have the right to say "No, we insist they keep suffering just in case they outlive their coverage, and then we won't have to pay a dime!."
Life insurance has ALREADY taken into account the risk of the policy owners death...that is what they base the policy premium on.