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I wrote a small piece on planned death

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Re: I wrote a small piece on planned death

#101

Post by devishard »

buro9 wrote: post #3

I've chatted with friends about my desires should I get a cancer that is more likely to kill and not be treatable, to refuse chemo, and to live what remains of my life qualitatively rather than quantitatively. I would plan how best to handle my death, and aim to enjoy every moment before a quick and severe pain takes over and does the job. Some have said this is a selfish viewpoint, that I should stay around longer f…

> Some have said this is a selfish viewpoint, that I should stay around longer for the ones I love. But the reverse is true, it is selfish of those that love to demand quantity over quality, especially when it slowly strips away the very being of a person.

I totally agree with this, but I have a hard time seeing why this logic shouldn't also be applied to people with extreme chronic depression that doesn't respond to treatment. How can we demand that someone live in for a decade or more while the very chemical structure of their brain won't let them be happy?

Of course, suicide shouldn't be chosen lightly or irrationally, and it's hard for a depressed person to rationally know when they've exhausted all their options. It may be outside the capabilities of a depressed person to rationally choose suicide.

But I have my doubts that suicide is always irrational. If I were considering committing suicide, I'd want to be able to approach my friends with that decision and know they would help me make the right decision for my situation, not repeat positivist rhetoric and call me selfish. Even if suicide really is the wrong choice for someone, I'm not convinced that the "suicide is always selfish" narrative helps that person. Instead, I think it might discourage them from talking about it, which makes everything worse.

EDIT: I'm not suicidal, not depressed, not even temporarily sad. I've just been close to some people who have been depressed for decades, and I feel like the usual narrative around often does them more harm than good.

Re: I wrote a small piece on planned death

#102

Post by nashadelic »

mindfulgeek wrote: post #88

I watched my father die of cancer when I was in my early 20s. He went through a bone marrow transplant -- twice. The first time he was sick and it was hard, but he was cancer free for a few months and managed to walk me down the aisle at my wedding. When the cancer came back, he had very little chance of surviving. He opted for full blown treatment, against everyone's recommendations (and my mother's wishes). His bod…

I literally had to hold my breath till your story unfolded. Congratulations on winning your fight!

Re: I wrote a small piece on planned death

#103

Post by hadagribble »

throwaway324324 wrote: post #99
hadagribble wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that explanation. I can't speak for the OP (or anyone else), but my take on the difference between them is that euthanasia is suicide, but only once all other options have been exhausted. I don't see "simple suicide" (i.e. not in the face of terminal disease) as immoral or wrong. The tragedy though, is how often it happens because of poor social support systems, such as lack of access to mental health supp…

Thanks - yeah, I agree, we need better palliative care, better social support in general. I understand your perspective, but I do have trouble following it through - I need to be able to say "at this point, a life loses that value, and it becomes permissible to kill". I don't see that happening with consent, because dueling to the death is rightly illegal. I also don't see how we can get somewhere by counting up some…

For what its worth, I think we're approaching this question from opposite ends of the spectrum. Rather than asking when it is permissible to kill, I look at it as "when is overriding free will (on victimless actions) for societal good permissible"? Forcing terminally ill patients to live through the misery doesn't meet my bar on that front.

I realise that you're drawing a distinction between taking your life and having someone else take it for you, but to me, in this case the difference is largely academic since the agency remains with the patient at all times.

The objections to dueling were, as I understand, more around the social pressures which required one to participate making the idea of consent much more fuzzy.

Re: I wrote a small piece on planned death

#104

Post by goldenkey »

camillomiller wrote: post #9
goldenkey wrote: post #7

We strive to have a high signal to noise ratio on HN. There's nothing wrong with what you wrote, they are your emotions. However, please make an effort to tell us more about how you feel or your thoughts and comments on the post.

Yeah, sorry, you are right, but that was probably the most sincere reply I could post, put in a very straight form. I had to stop reading, because it was too much.

Hey its all good mate. I realized I was a bit abrasive too. Maybe I was wrong, people seem to have some strong commentary some agreeing, others disagreeing.

Re: I wrote a small piece on planned death

#105

Post by robryk »

throwaway324324 wrote: post #71

Some of my family members have died to suicide. One violently after many people could not restrain them. One very much planned, very much like Pieter. Both found reasons to end their suffering, to take authoritative control over their own death. The suffering doesn't go away, it just takes another form in other people. It seems I'm the authoritarian lunatic, the psychopath, because I cannot see what separates euthana…

> (...) what separates euthanasia from every other tragic suicide

I see two large differences:

1. A requirement for euthanasia is usually that the patient keeps wanting it for a reasonably long period of time: it should never be a spur of the moment thing.

2. Another requirement usually is that the patient is mentally competent.

> When we hear about deaths, aren't the most painful ones those where a person has said "this human life is not worth living"?

If euthanasia is forbidden, people _will still be saying that in similar situations_, just they won't be able to do anything about it.

Re: I wrote a small piece on planned death

#106

Post by throwaway324324 »

robryk wrote: post #105
throwaway324324 wrote: post #71

Some of my family members have died to suicide. One violently after many people could not restrain them. One very much planned, very much like Pieter. Both found reasons to end their suffering, to take authoritative control over their own death. The suffering doesn't go away, it just takes another form in other people. It seems I'm the authoritarian lunatic, the psychopath, because I cannot see what separates euthana…

> (...) what separates euthanasia from every other tragic suicide I see two large differences: 1. A requirement for euthanasia is usually that the patient keeps wanting it for a reasonably long period of time: it should never be a spur of the moment thing. 2. Another requirement usually is that the patient is mentally competent. > When we hear about deaths, aren't the most painful ones those where a person has said "…

We usually don't want them to do anything about it - this is why we have suicide prevention. The difference with euthanasia is that you personally agree that certain lives really are "not worth living", and for practical purposes you defer that judgement, via government, to a set of doctors. This shifts the requirement away from informed consent to a judgement external to the person, from "do they really want to" to "do I really want them to".

The differences you mention (duration of ideation/plan, competence) are ultimately about determining if the person "really wants to". But this applies equally to "normal" suicide: it places the many rationally planned suicides into the same class as euthanasia (it's their life, they're freeing themselves, keep your morality to yourself).

http://www.emorycaresforyou.emory.edu/resources/suicidestati...

Furthermore, according to the above link, of the 1 million who create a plan, only half report going through with it - how many with a "planned death" would not actually have gone through with it and instead endured, had they been lucid?

Should we be trying to prevent "(rationally) planned death", or shouldn't we?

Re: I wrote a small piece on planned death

#107

Post by throwaway324324 »

hadagribble wrote: post #103
throwaway324324 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - yeah, I agree, we need better palliative care, better social support in general. I understand your perspective, but I do have trouble following it through - I need to be able to say "at this point, a life loses that value, and it becomes permissible to kill". I don't see that happening with consent, because dueling to the death is rightly illegal. I also don't see how we can get somewhere by counting up some…

For what its worth, I think we're approaching this question from opposite ends of the spectrum. Rather than asking when it is permissible to kill, I look at it as "when is overriding free will (on victimless actions) for societal good permissible"? Forcing terminally ill patients to live through the misery doesn't meet my bar on that front. I realise that you're drawing a distinction between taking your life and havi…

Interestingly, family pressure to euthanize is a major practical concern for countries with euthanasia.

The point is actually that there is no distinction between taking your life own or someone else's. If consent is our metric, dueling is permissible (with societal pressure safeguards, if you'd like). Consent is irrelevant, the issue is that intentional killing should be a relic of a more barbaric past. The cure (resolving psychological distress over having a painful death by being willingly poisoned, often in front of your family) is worse than the disease.

Ultimately, you're saying that it's permissible to kill when a terminally ill patient would "live through misery", where someone who is not the patient defines what constitutes "misery". Am I understanding that correctly? On what grounds would that not apply to, for example, a severely depressed homeless person suffering from substance abuse, who a doctor might judge has much more suffering in store for them than a cancer patient with access to painkillers?

Re: I wrote a small piece on planned death

#108

Post by hadagribble »

throwaway324324 wrote: post #107
hadagribble wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what its worth, I think we're approaching this question from opposite ends of the spectrum. Rather than asking when it is permissible to kill, I look at it as "when is overriding free will (on victimless actions) for societal good permissible"? Forcing terminally ill patients to live through the misery doesn't meet my bar on that front. I realise that you're drawing a distinction between taking your life and havi…

Interestingly, family pressure to euthanize is a major practical concern for countries with euthanasia. The point is actually that there is no distinction between taking your life own or someone else's. If consent is our metric, dueling is permissible (with societal pressure safeguards, if you'd like). Consent is irrelevant, the issue is that intentional killing should be a relic of a more barbaric past. The cure (re…

> "... family pressure to euthanize is a major practical concern..."

Agreed, and this is one of my major reservations about euthanasia. I still think it is overall for the best, but this aspect absolutely needs monitoring. I can only hope that better social services and support help reduce the financial burden on families (which is often one of the biggest reasons for pressure). The emotional aspect, of course, is another story.

> "The point is actually that there is no distinction between taking your life own or someone else's."

Here I have to disagree. Only one of these is an action on one's own body (which one should have relative autonomy). I think consent is absolutely key -- personally, I'm not opposed to the idea of legalizing dueling, as long as we have adequate societal safeguards against it. We don't outright ban other dangerous things that could end up killing people (tobacco, alcohol, free climbing...)

> "The cure ... is worse than the disease."

This is not a determination I am comfortable making for anyone else. Unless there is significant societal/family pressure which means that people are not making this choice themselves, I think they should have that right. If there is extensive pressure, there should be safeguards against that, as opposed to banning the practice?

I see a similar kind of argument in the anti-abortion debate -- there are folks who wouldn't opt for it themselves, but want others to have that right, while others feel that it should be banned for everyone because it is overall a societal ill.

I realise that this is a different question, but is this the kind of angle you are coming from?

> ... not the patient defines what constitutes "misery".

In the long run, it should absolutely be the patient who determines what constitutes misery and makes the choice. Unfortunately, there is entirely too much risk of it being used as a way for society to ignore people we should be helping ("if we wait long enough, maybe they'll just go away") for it to be practical to use it that way yet.

Terminally ill patients are a relatively well-defined set where there is less risk of society starting to ignore the problem (I don't see interest in cancer research drying up just because of this option), so it seems like a reasonable place to start?

Re: I wrote a small piece on planned death

#109

Post by goldenkey »

ryanlol wrote: post #93
chris_wot wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that's ironic, consider how ironic it is that I'm now posting about how ironic I find your post to be about responding to an ironic post.

What's ironic about my post? I never implied that I agreed with goldenkey.

I'd even argue that I was a prick. But since we are having the discussion anyhow, it would have been more academic or well..open, to see more entropy in his post. Less a vote with an emotion and more that plus a few lines of profession? But either way I skirt the line of freedom vs censorship..what makes some bytes of text inherently have more meaning than others if in basic english and comprehensible. I don't think theres much that we want to do about this except for practical reasons we need to arrange and display results for the user who only has so much time and of course we will show them the most relevant comments..by votes. Democracy usually works except when bots take over and waste peoples time detecting em
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