Assisting a Suicide Medically?

please provide the references for that ^^^

thank you

I live in a state with legal Physician Assisted Suicide. I get the Death with Dignity newsletter and I also read their end of year reports. The system here is pretty complicated and very difficult to abuse. In fact, I've never heard of it being abused even once.

It is true that the law does not extend to everyone who might want to use it but that's really to prevent the law from being abused.

This is bullpucky. People seeking assisted suicide have spent most of their last days, weeks, months and years fighting for their lives. Assisted suicide is NOT an alternative to fighting for their lives. It is the recognition that the person has a choice to end their continued suffering and continuing medical failures to improve their quality of life.

In most cases, it is not an alternative. It is a last ditch effort to die with dignity and end their painful suffering.

Assisted suicide is not something "offered" to them. It is a very long legal and medical process they have to fight for, even in states where assisted suicide is legal.

The OP obviously has a pre-conceived agenda here. The notion that assisted suicide is somehow "offered" as an alternative to suffering is ludicrous. Most sufferers in extremis have to beg and plead to be allowed to end their suffering.

It is actually offered as an alternative to suffering; but not as an alternative for fighting for your life.

You have to have a diagnosis that you are terminal within 6 months.

You also have to be of sound mind and able to take the lethal dose by your own hand.

At least in Oregon you do.

The Supreme Court of Canada has recently changed a decades old stance, and now not only support an individual's right to medical assistance in ending their lives (if they are in extremis) but have instructed the House of Commons to draft enabling legislation.

Yes. Since suicide is legal in this country, I believe that being an accessory to it should be legal, too.

My life belongs to me. I can do with it whatever I want. And if I want to end it, that too is my decision, not yours. To be sure, there need to be safeguards to make sure the patients are mentally competent and acting of their own free will. (No bullying by greedy heirs!) But as long as they are, I take a laissez-faire position on physician-assisted suicide.


No, but there are many reasons to end one's own life other than money being considered more important than living. I'm surprised you're singling this one out.


If it actually is the best offer, as judged by the patient's wishes, then yes. Otherwise, no. Again, I am surprised that money is the only reason for physician-assisted suicide you apparently can think of.

To be honest, I don't even think in extremis should be required. If somebody decides they don't want to spend their last few years or decades "living" in a home, eating medicine for food, shitting in a pan in a hospital or whatever and having their ass wiped by somebody else, maybe the humane thing to do is to let them make their own decision about their own life, and provide the most humane avenue to pursue that decision. It beats the hell out of a bullet through the brain or an overdose of sleeping pills, either of which can easily prolong the agony, rather than relieve it.

Sure, measures are needed to ensure that the person is in his/her "right" mind at the moment of the request, but that's easily resolved by independent psychiatric evaluations. I'd like to know that I could blink out painlessly when I decided that the quality of life no longer exceeded the agony of it.

100% in agreement with you, FBM.

This is 2015. You can use any printer you like.

Bravo!

Alright, I see your point in this, and I do agree with some of it. I would probably not want to live in the circumstances you provided ('eating medicine...wiped by somebody else'), and would try to find an alternative. However, I do think that this way of leaving should be looked at as a good option. I do see what you are saying though, that ending the pain is better than living the agony of it.

Yes, of course, I meant that I would have exhausted every other option. In this: "However, I do thing that this way of leaving should be looked at as a good option." Did you mean to say "not"?

To answer each part:

First answer: I do see your view on how it is your life, and you should do with it what you choose. I agree. My only problem is that I do not feel other people should be involved with this choice. (I would feel awful if I helped someone kill themselves, even if it was what they wanted.) Yes, it is free-will, but involving other people in a death isn't exactly morally okay.

Second answer: I realize there are other reasons, this was just one of my examples. The drugs used can cost around 75$-100$, which is MUCH less than hospital treatment (obviously). Some people considering this option can be persuaded to choose it because of the low cost. Many people may be suffering and that will be there reason for considering it, but the money factor could possibly be the one that confirms their decision. This may not be the case, but can possibly be it.

Third answer: I see your point. If it is the best possible, then maybe, but otherwise I say no. If a person if suffering to a certain point, then their choice in this matter to keep fighting is theirs.

Thanks for responding and sharing!

Some of my info for my answers were from:

Marker, Rita L., and Kathi Hamlon. "Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Should Not Be Legal." Assisted Suicide. Ed. Noël Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Frequently Asked Questions." Patients Rights Council, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.

I am sorry, typo, yes I did!
And thank you for sharing your opinions/ideas with me!

So sorry, here you go!

Jackowski, Rosemarie. "Patients Who Lack Hope Need Advocates, Not Suicide Help." The Right to Die. Ed. Tamara Thompson. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2014. At Issue. Rpt. from "Assisted Suicide Is Not the Answer." VTDigger.org. 2013. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.

I read in the article below that it was abused. I assume that this could mean over a period of time, or could be cases involving the elderly on the verge of death. I see your point on the law extension. Thanks for sharing!

Jackowski, Rosemarie. "Patients Who Lack Hope Need Advocates, Not Suicide Help." The Right to Die. Ed. Tamara Thompson. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2014. At Issue. Rpt. from "Assisted Suicide Is Not the Answer." VTDigger.org. 2013. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.

Physicians who assist a patient who wants to commit suicide are not involved in the choice. They are involved in helping patients, after they made their own choice and requested help enacting it, to enact it.


That's perfectly understandable. Don't do it, then. No law, currently on the books or even just proposed, imposes a duty to assist in suicides on any doctors.


And the solution to this moral problem is . . . to criminalize the putative victims of the involvement, the doctors? I'm not following.