Assisted suicide and the like

[Tricen]

I think people are afraid of what would happen if you legalize it. You can set a specific criteria for when it would be appropriate, but people are going to twist it, and contort it, and so on and so forth. The amount of drugs they put people on when they go through these things is pretty ridiculous (unless I am assuming more then I should be). I guess it could just be argued that people in those situations aren't in the "right state of mind" to be making those decisions, since it's an end-all decision with no return.

[BerenTebogo]

I think people are afraid of what would happen if you legalize it. You can set a specific criteria for when it would be appropriate, but people are going to twist it, and contort it, and so on and so forth. The amount of drugs they put people on when they go through these things is pretty ridiculous (unless I am assuming more then I should be). I guess it could just be argued that people in those situations aren't in the "right state of mind" to be making those decisions, since it's an end-all decision with no return.

So, when it is illegal it will never, ever happen? Or people who would qualify and sign up for LAS will never take it upon themselves to end their own life as long as it is illegal?

I mean, I get what you're saying, but for what you say to be true then you have to assume that the only time people in these situations will actually die of non-natural causes is in fact when this procedure is legalized and then used incorrectly.

[Sylvrdragon]

I think Tricen has a good point. In this blame-crazy country, I imagine the Wrongful Death suits would be flying around everywhere. Whenever something bad happens in this country, people start looking around frantically for someone or something to blame. Losing a loved one, regardless of their physical state, is probably the most obvious example one could come up with for this situation. Even in the case of unassisted suicide, I'm sure there are tons of law suits against people that the families feel are to blame.

Some sort of Family Consent forms might serve, but then the person in pain is at the mercy of people who might not understand, and might not be able to let go. You also can't give the practitioners of Assisted Suicide any sort of immunity, as that opens the door for all kinds of abuse (License to kill, basically).

I bet the real reason it isn't already legal is the above logistics and legal issues.

[BerenTebogo]

I think Tricen has a good point. In this blame-crazy country, I imagine the Wrongful Death suits would be flying around everywhere. Whenever something bad happens in this country, people start looking around frantically for someone or something to blame. Losing a loved one, regardless of their physical state, is probably the most obvious example one could come up with for this situation. Even in the case of unassisted suicide, I'm sure there are tons of law suits against people that the families feel are to blame.

Some sort of Family Consent forms might serve, but then the person in pain is at the mercy of people who might not understand, and might not be able to let go. You also can't give the practitioners of Assisted Suicide any sort of immunity, as that opens the door for all kinds of abuse (License to kill, basically).

I bet the real reason it isn't already legal is the above logistics and legal issues.

This is a good point, but the reality is that it is a hypothetical. I agree that the situation where a loved one will not consent will happen, but to what degree? We don't know. Implementing a system like above may not be a 100% turn around so that everyone who needs it is a recipient, but what it will, without any possibility of failure, is ensure that no longer will 100% of people who need it be refused.

If 99% of patient consent forms are not signed and the procedure is not undergone, but 1% are, is that not a significant enough figure for it to be a good change in the law?

[pahnphoenix]

I think Tricen has a good point. In this blame-crazy country, I imagine the Wrongful Death suits would be flying around everywhere. Whenever something bad happens in this country, people start looking around frantically for someone or something to blame. Losing a loved one, regardless of their physical state, is probably the most obvious example one could come up with for this situation. Even in the case of unassisted suicide, I'm sure there are tons of law suits against people that the families feel are to blame.

Some sort of Family Consent forms might serve, but then the person in pain is at the mercy of people who might not understand, and might not be able to let go. You also can't give the practitioners of Assisted Suicide any sort of immunity, as that opens the door for all kinds of abuse (License to kill, basically).

I bet the real reason it isn't already legal is the above logistics and legal issues.

two things:

a) i feel that you wanted to use the word 'litigious' in the above post.

b) you understate how bad our litigious society is. it's not simply that people need to find someone to blame when something bad happens. it is often that people will take any and every advantage they can. many people would sue after an assisted suicide simply because they think they can get money out of it. this is rather sad.

it's natural to look for people to blame (the world gives us so much tragedy that a lot of the structures we cling to are made to look/feel/even actually be absurd... this is difficult to tolerate, so blame is a way of making sense of the senseless). but this understandable, human tendency is not what's behind the liability obsession in america. as with most problems, the culprit is capitalism and economic inequality.

bonus c) assisted suicide is so obviously fine that it's tedious to even talk about. if assisted suicide were murder, agency would be such a loose concept that everyone in the world would basically be individually responsible for every human action whatsoever. the difference b/w me assisting someone's suicide and causing the death of some foreign soldier/civilian by paying taxes is tiny if it even exists (edit: if this sentence is not clear, if i help someone commit suicide, they are killing themselves w/ my help. ie someone killed them, and it wasn't me. just as even though my tax money might go to defense, i am not the one who killed such and such foreign soldier, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of said killing. i supported it, i went along with it, i helped allow it to happen, but i didn't do it. agency, like explanation, stops somewhere, usually somewhere not far from where it starts).

[Sylvrdragon]

Yes, that word fits perfectly.

Vocabulary +1.

[Shenrien]

You watch Penn and Teller: Bullshit? They did an episode on Old People this past week and they talk about assisted suicide.

I love their show, fucking awesome.

OT -
I think assisted suicide should be something we should allow when conditions are right(person needs a machine to live, cant live without being fed with a tube for the rest of their life, unable to breath on their own and need tubes shoved in their body pumping oxygen into them.) As one other said, life isn't precious enough to have to live a miserable life where you are dependent on a machine or tubes of oxygen. No one would want to live a life like that, I cannot imagine they would be happy at all, and I'm sure those individuals at one time or another think about what they are putting others through to keep them alive.

[Plow]

I bet the real reason it isn't already legal is the above logistics and legal issues.

There's a shitload of reasons, but the easiest, most direct answer is this:

It's not going to be legalized because it's beyond impossible to prove someone that wants to kill him or her self is sane.

I love their show, fucking awesome.

OT -
I think assisted suicide should be something we should allow when conditions are right(person needs a machine to live, cant live without being fed with a tube for the rest of their life, unable to breath on their own and need tubes shoved in their body pumping oxygen into them.)

Again, that's not assisted suicide, that's refusal of life support, and it's perfectly legal. The only issue with what you're talking about is when the person is incapable of expressing their desires a la Terri Schiavo.

[BerenTebogo]

There's a shitload of reasons, but the easiest, most direct answer is this:

It's not going to be legalized because it's beyond impossible to prove someone that wants to kill him or her self is sane.




Again, that's not assisted suicide, that's refusal of life support, and it's perfectly legal. The only issue with what you're talking about is when the person is incapable of expressing their desires a la Terri Schiavo.

Second part is true, first part...ehhhh

Forms like the "DNR" exist because in extreme situations patients are often unable to make rational choices regarding their situation, therefore before the situation exists a decision is made preemptively. Legal documents such as a will exist for somewhat similar reasons.

I see no reason that, following a full physical and mental check-up, as a person prepares his finances and plans out life (ie a 30 year old writing a will even though they don't plan on dying anytime soon) a document outlining the standards of health that, should they fall below and be unable to participate in their own evaluation, be allowed the procedure.

Obviously only a narrow set of standards like going above and beyond what the maximum legal amount of morphine can handle in regards to pain on a chronic basis, terminal and degenerative diseases, etc. Other shit I can't think of since I'm not a med student.

Anyways, I can't see how that wouldn't be a reliable source of state of mind.

[Darus Grey]

I endorse suicide in all it's forms.

[Cadsuane]

I think as long as the law can distinguish between legitimate suicides and otherwise it's fine to allow it, so maybe we should start talking about what that is. People with terminal illnesses and no hope of recovery, etc., pretty easy to justify a mercy killing. People of unsound mind, maybe under the compulsion of someone else, probably not. What about mercy killing someone with no diagnosed mental illness, calmly disposed, otherwise healthy and who request it under their own free will?

[BerenTebogo]

I think as long as the law can distinguish between legitimate suicides and otherwise it's fine to allow it, so maybe we should start talking about what that is. People with terminal illnesses and no hope of recovery, etc., pretty easy to justify a mercy killing. People of unsound mind, maybe under the compulsion of someone else, probably not. What about mercy killing someone with no diagnosed mental illness, calmly disposed, otherwise healthy and who request it under their own free will?

Wouldn't that just be regular suicide? I think, apart from a lot of other factors I'm probably neglecting, one possible aspect of the need for a program is that you may be in so much pain / degenerated / whatever that even if you want to, you can't actually do it yourself.

[Cadsuane]

Wouldn't that just be regular suicide? I think, apart from a lot of other factors I'm probably neglecting, one possible aspect of the need for a program is that you may be in so much pain / degenerated / whatever that even if you want to, you can't actually do it yourself.

Regular suicide is killing yourself. A mercy killing is asking someone to do it for you. People are unable to kill themselves for all sorts of reasons besides physical limitations.

[BerenTebogo]

Regular suicide is killing yourself. A mercy killing is asking someone to do it for you. People are unable to kill themselves for all sorts of reasons besides physical limitations.

Pretty narrow definition legally. If I just hand someone a gun and ask them to kill me, and they do, that's manslaughter.

I think branching out into this area is gonna get us on a huge tangent, lol.

[Krandor]

The issues holding this back are legal protection for the doctors involved (Kevorkian, nuff' said) and religion.

Protecting the doctors involved is doable once their is enough public support for this, but as mentioned above this is something we probably really won't see take prevalence for another 20-30 years once our (assuming most of us posting here are in the mid 20s-early 30s) generation is the people in power across the government landscape. Prior to that point there's just too many older people who find the whole concept inhuman running things.

As for religion quacks, we'll sadly never get rid of those unless the government finally takes "separation of church & state" seriously and only let's atheists run the show. I realize of course the public will still have religious people bahhing against it, but it's nothing a good advertisement campaign and news media support can't solve. It worked for Obama.

[Kaeko]

I was in on a surgery just yesterday with a young girl (couple years younger than me) with a non-resectable tumor that consisted of maybe 40% of her total body weight and had mets'd to just about everywhere. She had no ability to convey thoughts, but can clearly still react to pain (press on belly, patient guards). She's septic and is on 4-5 antibiotics. Whether she knows wtf is going on is beyond me. Family refuses to let her go and they have her power of attorney. No living will or DNR. My attending says it costs about 500,000 USD a day to keep her alive with cost of bed, surgeries, tons and tons of meds, etc. It's really sad to even look at her.

I haven't been in the hospital that long, but this seems to be fairly common. I've been in on quite a few cases where the person's basically dead and a machine is keeping them alive (and they are still getting surgeries!). This isn't a case of assisted suicide though - it's about living wills, power of attorney, and DNRs. These are all legal ways to let someone die by simply withholding care like a machine breathing for you. I have a feeling this was what the OP was going for. There's a big difference between withholding care and asking someone to actively put in something or do something to you to kill you.

[Meresgi]

No, they don't.

There is a tremendous difference between choosing against life support and the general term assisted suicide.

No one is choosing life support. My grandfather (well stepfathers father) died recently, he had cancer and was up in Hospice for 2 weeks. Hospice is basically the end of the road and they don't want you there for very long because they only have a few beds and they need to cycle you out. So they cut down on your food and water slowly while putting a good dose of drugs into your system. Basically pushing you slowly to the edge but not booting you completely over. I can see how that isnt technically "Assisted suicide" as he had no idea of what they were doing to him, but i'm not sure what you could view that as.

[ClarkSammich]

...Basically pushing you slowly to the edge but not booting you completely over. I can see how that isnt technically "Assisted suicide" as he had no idea of what they were doing to him, but i'm not sure what you could view that as.

A family member decided this, and not the institution he was in, right?

[notorious bum]

One the most memorable pbs frontline episodes I've ever seen. Basically sums up the whole debate for me.

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


Oh, and since I live in FL, I had to listen to the whole Terry Schaivo case that played out everyday in the news. That shit was sickening.

[Tymon]

I think the Kevorkian concept of having a family sit at a table with a machine that gives a person a lethal injection after they tearfully press "yes" 5 times to a bunch of different questions to relating why you want to kill yourself is extremely morbid, and I would never agree to anything like that.

The concept, however, of giving someone that is going to inevitably die and wants to get it out of the way before they suffer any more than necessary, is understandable, and if done humanely, I would support it.

I've yet to see a concept that's very humane, though. It's all pretty morbid.