My belief is that if you're truly sympathetic to those whose conditions make them want to kill themselves, but are against euthanasia, that you should devote some of your time (0.5% of your income) helping fund research into cures for those conditions.
We all recognise that we should eradicate that form of suffering, so *we should* eradicate it.
Yes, but brain stem damage is, I believe, beyond foreseeable technological improvements. Though that doesn't mean research should not continue. Just that it's not likely to pay off soon.
Locked-in syndrome is a very hard one. There is a lot that can be done, though, to enable people to communicate more effectively - including, potentially, brain scanning.
Well, come to that euthanasia means "good death". So in a sense everyone is in favour.
But this topic is about prematurely ending a life which is considered to have reached the point of worthlessness. My view is that this point is never reached. Or to be more precise, I have yet to see it.
It seems so strange to me that people can appear to undervalue any life. When, as far as anyone knows for sure, this is all that we have.
If somebody is willing to die because, say, they are participating in armed resistance against a fascist occupation, we call that heroic. We give out posthumous medals, wave flags and sing songs, talk about the relative value of dying on your feet vis-a-vis living on your knees.
If somebody is willing to die because they have a terminal illness, we call that cowardly. We ask them hang on to the last moment, to squeeze every ounce of feeling out of existence no matter how terrible it is, to lie there and feel themselves die.
That seems at least as strange to me as my position must seem to you.
No, no. Not at all. I don't think it a strange position. I think it mistaken. I'm not expressing exactly what I do think, I realize.
And suicide, contrary to popular belief, does not appear cowardly to me at all.
To drift off the subject a bit: for people who are not near the end of their lives and suffering from depression (say), it looks to me like a long term solution to a short term problem.
Yes, but brain stem damage is, I believe, beyond foreseeable technological improvements. Though that doesn't mean research should not continue. Just that it's not likely to pay off soon.
Locked-in syndrome is a very hard one. There is a lot that can be done, though, to enable people to communicate more effectively - including, potentially, brain scanning.
Yes, but the fact that the problem is far from being solved indicates that we should be striving even more aggressively. We've a moral onus to end this form of suffering. Ideally, we want a solution in time to justify the current crop of people agitating for euthanasia; so that their enforced wait is 'worth it'.
Both brainstem damage and locked-in syndrome actually have foreseeable technological solutions. It's currently a matter of time and money; this isn't like funding alchemy in the 1400s. This is more like the March of Dimes. That's why I suggest the number 0.5%
But this topic is about prematurely ending a life which is considered to have reached the point of worthlessness. My view is that this point is never reached. Or to be more precise, I have yet to see it.
I think most people would at least try to persuade them that life is good, and at least try to make their life bearable. How far would you go in not doing so?
If someone is determined to die there is really nothing that can be done. Nicklinson has demonstrated it. Notice his wife wouldn't help him. (or maybe that's another case, I forget)
If someone feels worthless, others can at least try to assure them they are not.
I think most people would at least try to persuade them that life is good, and at least try to make their life bearable. How far would you go in not doing so?
It seems silly to turn the question around like that. I assume, intuitively, that people have a reasonable degree of autonomy over their feelings, that they don't really need other people to tell them how they feel because they know them - can feel them - themselves.
It's nice to try and make people feel happier by convincing them that their lives aren't all that bad, but that's certainly situational. It may not always be appropriate and sometimes people are lying when they do that - perfect empathy is impossible and you cannot be absolutely certain how it feels to be the other person.
Borachio said:
If someone is determined to die there is really nothing that can be done. Nicklinson has demonstrated it. Notice his wife wouldn't help him. (or maybe that's another case, I forget)
If someone feels worthless, others can at least try to assure them they are not.
You make it sound like people would agree to help someone with assisted suicide at the drop of a hat. I don't think that's what most people here have in mind.
And, I think, the point where you decide to help someone to end their life is such a remote one that, for me, it never arrives. For you, it may. It's not up to me to decide. YMMV.
Let us imagine the conversation goes a little further. We leave off with:
B: "No, all life has worth, I shall help you bear it."
The 'someone' replies:
S: "I disagree, I do not think all life has worth. My life is, right now, worthless. I am better placed to judge this then you are or will ever be. After all, I know my life from the inside. I know what it was that gave my life worth and I know on what conditions my life retains worth. Right now, I can say with authority, my life is worthless. Please, let me end it."
What do you reply? Well, I suppose something like this:
B: "You are wrong. Although you think your life lacks worth you are sadly mistaken. Were I in your shoes I would not think my life lacked worth. I would believe my life still had worth and would not seek to end it. I cannot, then, allow you to end your life"
The patient might respond:
S:"You are not in my shoes. Your capacity to gain worth from a life is not the same as mine. Those things which give your life worth are, so you say, not contingent on your being able-bodied. I envy you. Those things which gave worth to my life were contingent on my being able bodies. My particular goals cannot be realized in the position I am now in. I am depressed and in pain, the bad in my life far outweighs what good is left. If I was like you perhaps I would be able to find worth in my life, but I am (alas!) not like you. Being who I am, my life is worthless. Please, let me end it."
B: "Perhaps you are not able to cultivate meaningful goals in your condition, given who you are. That is unfortunate. But it does not mean your life is worthless. All life has worth. All life is, in some manner, sacred. This is what I believe, and because of that I cannot allow you to end your life."
S: "I can see that that is what you believe. But I do not share your beliefs. This is not because I have not listened to arguments in support of your beliefs. I have, and I fully appreciate such arguments. But I reject those arguments. They are not sound and they fail to convince me that all life is of worth. Again, I am much better placed than you to judge whether all life is of worth. I am living a particularly bad life. From the inside, I can tell that this life is not of worth. Please, let me end it."
B: "You reject my beliefs and I accept I have lack the insight into your life you indubitably have. But I will enforce my beliefs upon you anyway. I will not allow you to end your life. I will make you keep on living this life you deem worthless, because I think you are wrong. More than that, I, through the state, have the power to overrule you. I will use this power to frustrate your goals and disparage your beliefs".
Is this really how we want the conversation to end?
B: "You reject my beliefs and I accept I have lack the insight into your life you indubitably have. But I will enforce my beliefs upon you anyway. I will not allow you to end your life. I will make you keep on living this life you deem worthless, because I think you are wrong. More than that, I, through the state, have the power to overrule you. I will use this power to frustrate your goals and disparage your beliefs".
Is this really how we want the conversation to end?
But, I repeat I cannot, in practice, enforce my beliefs upon you anyway. I cannot prevent you from ending your life.
My own position is not a religious but an ontological one. Any life is better than none. Life is all we have, as far as we know for sure. Why would this appear a religious belief to you?
To seek death is to seek nothing. To prefer nothing is to be in an abyss of despair*.
To say to someone I will help you to end your life is to say there is nothing I can do to alleviate your despair. To say, you are right, you are truly worthless. There is no hope for you. Nothing I can do.
Would you end it here?
Shall we continue with this?
Should I just admit you are right?
*believe me I understand this despair, and I don't dispute that there are circumstances where nothing may be preferable. But in a modern medically-equipped civilized world? Really?
I think I see what you're getting at. There's a difference between someone who's a quadriplegic who wants to die and someone who has late stage pancreatic cancer who wants to die.
Perhaps it would be better if the person who's going to spend several months dying excruciatingly painfully to partake in euthanasia, but a quadriplegic can still live for a long long time, probably as long as if they weren't in their condition.
THere is a difference between allowing a dying man to die and actively ending his life. Not providing a treatment that would keep someone alive is not euthenasia. Injecting him with a drug that will stop his heart is.
Alot of soldiers say they would rather be killed than lose their legs or be otherwise maimed. But guys who do lose their legs usually go on to live fine lives. In those first moments of painful realization though, a man could express a will to die. He should not be indulged. Are we wrong for applying the turniquets and evacuating him when his wishes at the time are too die on the battlefield?
Is this a fair comparison to cancer patients and other seriously ill people? I agree with others that keeping someone on lifesupport who is for all intents and purposes dead, isn't doing anyone any good. At what stage of care and under what conditions do we say its OK for a patient to make that decision?
So long as it is illegal to assist in suicide, someone who is physically incapable of helping themselves to die must continue to live against their will.
That is enforced by the state and the punishments are severe. The state takes a position and enforces it, which causes terminally ill people who are in pain to suffer inside the prison of their own bodies against their will even though they have committed no crime.
If you were truly convinced of your position but then were to state that you won't enforce those beliefs, you'd support making assisted suicide legal so others can make the choice for themselves, even if they disagree with you.
I do realize it may seem strange to assert this, but it is true that someone who is utterly determined to end their lives will do so. They will out-wit you at every turn.
Of course, you could bring up force-feeding and other artificial means of keeping someone alive - I don't think a compassionate system would resort to this, so I shall dismiss it. But even so the determined suicide will defeat you.
Many people consider euthanasia on compassionate grounds. I advocate more compassion: to enable people to die as naturally as possible, with as little discomfort as possible, maintaining their sense of worth and dignity. I do not think euthanasia can do this.
Many people consider euthanasia on compassionate grounds. I advocate more compassion: to enable people to die as naturally as possible, with as little discomfort as possible, maintaining their sense of worth and dignity. I do not think euthanasia can do this.
The problem is that is an utterly subjective viewpoint, and not a universally shared view, including among many who have watched the process of someone dying slowly, inevitably and painfully up close.
You stated in your OP that "the modern world is far too isolated from dying, as a rule, for it to be accepted as a normal part (albeit the end) of life". I think the exact opposite is true. As populations age, and as medicine improves, surely more people are more exposed to exactly how medically extending a slowly diminishing life actually works. It's not pretty, why expect everyone to feel that lingering through pain and indignity is worth it just because you think this?
It also seems like you're okay with someone being given so much painkilling medication that it kills them (which is what end of life palliative care actually consists of), but aren't okay with that same person asking for something which specifically kills them. What's the important distinction here to provoke such passion?
Yeah. Palliative care at end-stage cancer is palliative for the family not the patient. As far as the patient is concerned, they're medicated to the extent that they might as well be dead. Oh but the family just sees a restful sleeping body.
Except that is NOT what they see. They see your shrivelled up bald corpse slowly breathing in and out passing the hours until you die. As far as I'm concerned, I'm dead once I lose consciousness and never regain it. If that means a week of so much opiates that I'm not awake, I died then. so give me the dignity of actually dying then rather than having my family change my diapers and feed me through a hose.
My all-to-resent personal experience tells me that it is murder on the next-of-kin.
My father died this year of lung cancer. He was 58 years old, which is far to early for a man with that much life in him.
His biggest fears were that he would be unable to live actively, not that he would die.
When he was 35 he was miss diagnosed with advanced Parkinson's disease, which is a death sentence (and at the time, there were no way of helping patients with the disease). He was completely handicapped. He was not able to take a shower or go to the toilet by himself. He was barely able to read a book, because his head were shaking so violently and he needed help to turn the pages. He couldn't smoke, eat, drink, read, walk, or anything else by himself.
Luckily it turned out it was "merely" Wilson's disease, which is not curable, but treatable*.
He has always been an active person, but being trapped inside his body supercharged this.
He started the national Wilson Patients Organisation (and was chairman for it until his death), was chairman for the Danish organisation Rare Diseases and sat on the board of directors in Eurodis. Of course, he also had a full-time job, a house in Copenhagen and a holliday house in Sweden.
Being trapped in his body was definitely not to his liking.
So, when he was diagnosed with lung cancer**, his fears were primarily of him being trapped inside his body once again.
Seeing such a vibrant man, so full of life, reduced to what is best described as a living mummy, is not something anyone should go through. Hell, I'm crying right now just thinking about it.
The last couple of weeks of his life were hellish. His spine collapsed due to a metastasis eating through the bone, which meant he was trapped in bed. He was in a lot of pain, obviously, and the doctor did hurry his demise by giving him plenty of painkillers. The last two days he was in a medical coma.
It would have been better for all involved in he had been euthanized two weeks prior to his death.
For my part, I was extremely sad the last two months of his life. I felt trapped, with no outlet for my sadness, and no release just waiting for him to die.
It is a horrible feeling to want someone you love that much to die. It is not a feeling anyone should have to have. I know I was not alone it feeling that way. Anyone close to him felt the same.
Two weeks before his death, at my birthday dinner, yeah life sucks sometimes, he said goodbye to his brother and his mother, the latter has dementia, which was a blessing for once. He knew this was the last time he would see them, as his condition was deteriorating rapidly. He couldn't keep his spirit up, which was the first, last and only time he couldn't do that in front of me (he was determined not to burden me with his disease/impending death, that stupid man), and he had a hard time following the discussions.
Why can I put my pet to sleep, out of pure love, to end its pain and misery, when I cannot do the same to my father, whom I love more than anything?
Why force me, my family and my father through unnecessary pain?
A brilliant man put it far better than I could ever do:
*He was a medical zebra, yes, viewers of House MD, that is an actual medical expression.
**He was in such a good shape, it was the metastasis on his spine that alerted the doctors to his condition. He had at the time, at least five secondary tumors.
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