Skeptic Ginger
Nasty Woman
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2005
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- 96,955
Do you not have any kids? Teenagers do not make the best decisions. They still need parenting.
Merged Euthanasia
- Thread starter applecorped
- Start date
Do you not have any kids? Teenagers do not make the best decisions. They still need parenting.
Yes we do and a quick search finds that there are such in the Netherlands. Is that your solution for her illness, that she should have been committed to a hospital so she would be under 24 supervision because she wanted to kill herself? I think what she decided was a terrible decision but I really can't bring myself to say someone who wishes to commit suicide should be what is effectively "locked up".
Seriously say she underwent further treatment, but at age 21 still wanted to end her own life, do we continue to lock her up? Let another 5 years of being locked up and 5 years of treatment pass and she is 26 and still wants to kill herself?
I've found her case heartbreaking and like others think if her decision could have been delayed there is a chance in say 5 years time her illness might have been controllable and she might make a different decision. But I don't think I have the right to say to anyone "you can't decide when you have suffered enough".
Would I say it was fine? No. But I don't think it is up to me to decide when someone has suffered "enough", that should be up to the individual.
As I said above, for how long do we keep someone locked up in such a hospital and force treatment on them?
You keep her alive today. Then you deal with later later. Depression is a treatable mental illness. Treatment might not have worked for her, and as a mature adult she might well have made a rational decision to end her own suffering. But a 17-year-old can't even sign a contract. Absent an terminal physical illness, she's too young to decide that she can never get better and can never find pleasure in life.
Under the age of 18 in the Netherlands the parents have to be involved in the decision to allow someone to lawfully decide they want to die.
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
You're talking about taking away her freedom, though.
Depression is treatable, for some people, but not all and even treated it may mean someone suffers more than *they* are willing to put up with.
Perhaps the harshest way to put it and, if unsolicited, certainly the most unwelcome.
I wonder if there was any other method or any other words that could have been employed/used to deliver a similar message of recovery?
Well, with a bit more effort on her behalf, if she was my daughter. I'd have moved mountains.
But what?
Then again my late best friend found psychiatric hospitals (and he was sectioned many times) frightening and uncaring places where the kind of care you describe was simply unavailable.
As regards your assertion that "many people don't get the help they need, those who do are usually ready to face life again when they leave the hospital, and ongoing therapy continues to provide the tools and resources they need to put their traumas behind them." - the number of repeat admissions and the rate of suicides and other premature deaths leads me to think that "usually" is a vast overstatement.
But we do know that at 17 the brain is still developing. There is good evidence that people do 'grow out of' adolescent behavioural disorders. The majority of people with anorexia will recover given time.
On the other hand I am sure the people concerned did do due diligence before progressing with the individuals request.
I guess until someone manages to kill themselves my some other means that makes us feel less *icky* than them being allowed to choose euthanasia.
Of course that method may cause the person far more pain and suffering and, depending on how they choose to kill themselves, may have a greater impact on a larger number of people but the key thing is that we shouldn't feel uncomfortable.
Teenage suicide will never stop, and much (perhaps not enough) is being spent to minimise this happening. The issue here (and I’m repeating myself) is the government saying “fair enough, go ahead” when there is no terminal disease. Is this not normalising teenage suicide? Is this not the slippery slope the euthanasia opponents talk about?
I think yes to both questions. It is not outlandish to imagine many troubled young people seeing this young girl attracting celebrity, sympathy and sorrow (things denied to them) and deciding “this is my path”. This is a horrible outcome.
I trust this event will lead to review of these laws.
As I said earlier, I am pro-euthanasia but with restrictions. This is not a harsh or unreasonable position to hold.
I think yes to both questions. It is not outlandish to imagine many troubled young people seeing this young girl attracting celebrity, sympathy and sorrow (things denied to them) and deciding “this is my path”. This is a horrible outcome.
I trust this event will lead to review of these laws.
As I said earlier, I am pro-euthanasia but with restrictions. This is not a harsh or unreasonable position to hold.
No. I don't think so
The ability for her to do this was written into the law from day one.
Nothing has slipped to allow it.
Every other country that has legalised euthanasia haven't got such open qualification.
Including the one I mentioned going through parliament here at the moment.
Which you have to be of sound mind, a shed load older, the ability to communicate and suffering from an terminal illness which specialists say you have no more than 6 months alive.
Any changes would have to go through parliamentary process (and there is little evidence the vast majority of other countries that have it wish to change theirs) and would no doubt lead to a public referendum as well. In fact the current bill will be lucky to go through
The slippery slope argument is convenient, but it is purely base on the hypothetical "what if?". Which to be blunt is utter BS
Perhaps, but the trouble with laws is that they can be amended and the amendments do not attract the attention of the public. Also they have “exceptional circumstances” provisions, like those that allow young, non-terminal people access to euthanasia.
I’m betting that most people in the Netherlands never imagined the law would be applied in this way. If my belief is true, this event is has become a rapid slippery slope.
That is a bit like me saying they are allowing women to fight in combat in the military
This is a slippery slope to them allowing 10 year olds and people who are blind
Edit: As I also pointed out.
Nothing has changed in their law
She has fit the criteria from day one
By all means bitch about her case, but it is the fault of the people who passed the original bad law and the Netherlands public who allowed it
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