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Merged Euthanasia

JoeMorgue said:
And I don't disagree in the abstract, or even in the practical really.



All I've ever been saying is that it's kind of off that in order to be comfortable with assisted suicide/euthanasia and still treat traditional suicide as tragic we've just had to create two different "types" of suicide that don't really have any defining characteristic beyond how much of a warm and fuzzy we feel about it after the fact and that is something we should be able to talk about.



I'm not saying we should deal with suicide as a problem and I'm not saying people don't have the right to end their own life (but even those look at how weird that statement is one the surface) I'm just saying the idea the Person A is a hospital bed saying they want to die and Person B just sitting at home saying they want to die are that much of a different scenario is something I'm not 100% sure if I agree with.
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I really don't see the difference, suicide or euthanasia is tragic, I've known people who have said about a person who has killed themselves "at least they are no longer suffering", just as you would if someone had been killed by euthanasia.
 
Darat said:
I really don't see the difference, suicide or euthanasia is tragic, I've known people who have said about a person who has killed themselves "at least they are no longer suffering", just as you would if someone had been killed by euthanasia.
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Yeah and I still don't get how under your standards suicide is ever "wrong."
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yeah and I still don't get how under your standards suicide is ever "wrong."
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Why do we have to think of it as being wrong or right? The nearest I can get to a right or wrong judgement is that I think it is wrong if people don't have access to medical treatment and therefore they have no chance of being treated.
 
Darat said:
Perhaps think of it from another perspective: your child is suffering intolerable torment every single moment, all treatments have been tried and were unsuccessful, why wouldn't you want your child's suffering to end?
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But what is the reason for the suffering? Severe physical illness may well be untreatable. That's what "terminal" means. Some chronic conditions could become unbearable. But psychiatric disorders are not in themselves deadly. They can often be treated with medication and therapy, particularly depression resulting from trauma. The first question to ask here is whether all treatments have really been tried? If there is anything a responsible doctor or therapist would propose that has not been tried, then the answer is no. The second question to ask is whether someone who is suffering can be made more comfortable without dying. Did that happen here? In the U.S. marijuana and cbd are being used to treat all kinds of pain. I'm sure that would be an option in the Netherlands. Did they try it?

Someone who is 17 has never lived on her own or made many big decisions for herself. I would like to know a lot more about the family dynamics here. She didn't get into this abyss on her own. Age 17 is too young to give up on life.
 
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TragicMonkey said:
I love this thread! We went from expressing emotions over something that didn't happen to mindreading the dead and speculating what various others were thinking after reading hearsay anecdotes. The scanter the material the stronger the opinion!
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The best for me were the frequent mentions of anorexia despite the fact that the reason she was starving herself was in order to die. It reminded me of that other famous anorexic, Mahatma Gandhi.
 
Darat said:
Why do we have to think of it as being wrong or right? The nearest I can get to a right or wrong judgement is that I think it is wrong if people don't have access to medical treatment and therefore they have no chance of being treated.
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Okay then in what situations should we try to stop someone from committing suicide that doesn't contradict the "They have a right to end their life" argument?
 
I really don't draw such a distinction between mental illness and other illness (as long as they retain the capacity to be able to make rational decisions) so I would say depression for some people can be as intolerable as living in agonising "physical" pain.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay then in what situations should we try to stop someone from committing suicide that doesn't contradict the "They have a right to end their life" argument?
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I touched on this earlier, I'd say we should intervene if someone has not had treatment and if it is a spur of the moment decision.
 
Darat said:
I really don't draw such a distinction between mental illness and other illness (as long as they retain the capacity to be able to make rational decisions) so I would say depression for some people can be as intolerable as living in agonising "physical" pain.
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This is probably going to sound like a harsh/stupid point as I don't know enough about mental illnesses, but surely a mental illness by definition rules out any possibility of knowing whether someone has retained the capacity to make rational decisions?

Or are there some that don't?
 
Dancing David said:
Treating mental health issues is possible, now if a child had neurological damage that caused incessant pain that would be different.
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People keep saying things like the highlighted as if the possibility that suffering could be alleviated, even if repeated attempts to do so have failed, is enough to justify denying someone the right to end their suffering by choosing to die. The logical end to this is depriving such a person of their freedom by locking them up until they're feeling better, or forever.

If I spend years in pain (physical, mental, and/or emotional) despite treatment, pain that I decide to stop by taking effective steps to ending my own life, my liberty shouldn't be taken away because treatment might work someday.

I value life and certainly wouldn't advocate suicide as an early option for pain relief, but life for the sake of itself isn't life, not for a human being anyway.
 
Darat said:
Perhaps think of it from another perspective: your child is suffering intolerable torment every single moment, all treatments have been tried and were unsuccessful, why wouldn't you want your child's suffering to end?
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According to the original article, which we now know was fake news, put out by an unreliable news agency, which was picked up by national presses all over the world, nonetheless it claimed doctors agreed she should be euthanised because rape must be so terribly unbearable for her. So it came across a a bunch of male doctors dictating what they imagine a young woman should be feeling.
 
Darat said:
I really don't draw such a distinction between mental illness and other illness (as long as they retain the capacity to be able to make rational decisions) so I would say depression for some people can be as intolerable as living in agonising "physical" pain.
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The vast majority of mental illness that leads to suicide (depression) is self-limiting. In other words it goes into remission sooner or later of its own accord, usually within two year at the most. Your assertion that depression is permanent is medically incorrect, thus your argument is based on a false premise, i.e., that a feeling of sadness or hopelessness can be as 'terminal' as stage four cancer.
 
Vixen said:
The vast majority of mental illness that leads to suicide (depression) is self-limiting. In other words it goes into remission sooner or later of its own accord, usually within two year at the most. Your assertion that depression is permanent is medically incorrect, thus your argument is based on a false premise, i.e., that a feeling of sadness or hopelessness can be as 'terminal' as stage four cancer.
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What about the cases that aren't part of the vast majority?

It doesn't sound like this girl lacked for earlier treatment for her mental issues.

Maybe hers wasn't part of "[t]he vast majority".

Are any of us in a better position to judge? It doesn't sound like her family was negligent in trying other alternatives first.
 
Vixen said:
The vast majority of mental illness that leads to suicide (depression) is self-limiting. In other words it goes into remission sooner or later of its own accord, usually within two year at the most. Your assertion that depression is permanent is medically incorrect, thus your argument is based on a false premise, i.e., that a feeling of sadness or hopelessness can be as 'terminal' as stage four cancer.
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oh nice. could you come visit me and tell my depression it should have gone into remission by now (actually a long time ago)?
 
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