321–330 of 870 posts
I submit that not everybody that commits suicide (whether medically assisted or otherwise) would make the same decision if they it to do over again.
My Canadian parents are in their 80's so naturally a lot of their friends of the same age are dying. And two of them have been via MAID. In one case, which was surprising to me, a man who had survived cancer - he was not terminal but certainly wasn't getting any better - elected to die via MAID after his wife died. She passed, he called his doctor and less than a week later he was also dead. He got a chance to visit…
This! People feel like they cannot live alone or they cannot want that someone else be caused hardship (time or money) because of their difficulty. I feel like I will get downvoted to oblivion just because people vehemently disagree, but THIS CANNOT be the meaning and choice behind death. It is simply immature, arrogant, and selfish. But more plainly, it is suicidal / self-relentment.
> This! People feel like they cannot live alone or they cannot want that someone else be caused hardship (time or money) because of their difficulty.
> I feel like I will get downvoted to oblivion just because people vehemently disagree, but THIS CANNOT be the meaning and choice behind death. It is simply immature, arrogant, and selfish. But more plainly, it is suicidal / self-relentment.
Fifteen years ago, flying into Vancouver, a local told me charities would give homeless people one-way bus tickets there from colder regions of Canada to prevent winter deaths. No return tickets in spring. Calls into question what we consider "charitable" when the solution is just moving vulnerable people elsewhere. Worrying parallel: will euthanasia become another "solution" for those who can't afford proper care an…
> Fifteen years ago, flying into Vancouver, a local told me charities would give homeless people one-way bus tickets there from colder regions of Canada to prevent winter deaths This is kind of one of those urban myths btw. Like yes it has technically happened before but if you chase down the stories it's not at all common and it's more of a situation of someone having some family or relationships in a province away…
Back in '88, when he was just mayor of Calgary, Ralph Klein had the city "solve" their homeless problem for the Olympics by buying one-way bus tickets to Vancouver.
It is back in the news because it's started happening again in 2s and 3s.
https://edmontonsun.com/2013/03/29/remembering-ralph
https://globalnews.ca/news/2567494/reports-2-homeless-men-fr...
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If only that were true. Someone unable to move is unable to take their own life without assistance. A surprisingly large percentage of people go through some horrific experiences before their bodies completely fail.
> Someone unable to move is unable to take their own life without assistance. Denying this assistance isn't really "tyranny", though, even if you do accept that suicide is a right.
Actively preventing someone from providing assistance is. There’s a big difference between not doing something yourself and actively preventing someone else from providing assistance.
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> The hospital (a Catholic hospital, even) provided a morphine drip and they were gone within an hour. FWIW, Catholic ethics are actually fairly well thought out on this issue. You're not allowed to withhold basic nourishment (food, hydration, non-invasive breathing support), but you are allowed to opt out of invasive procedures such as intubation and provide pain management if the patient or the patient's guardian d…
Thanks for that information. I have some major disagreements with the Catholic church but more knowledge and understanding is always a good thing. Appreciated.
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It is pro-social if you can separate objectively. And even then, who is that “social” to decide it? Some people aren’t social. If the separation line gets drawn across questionable cases, then it’s authoritarian for them. As usual, any scalable implementation will look like a very jagged asterisk-shaped circle and some financial or political interest around it, acting far away from the real needs of people. And those…
> Ofc teens should be kept away from this for obvious biological reasons. Why of course? Is the reason this is obvious to you unique to teenagers? When they turn 18 (or 20) do the reasons to restrict their freedoms immediately go away? Is there no possibility the 'obvious' reason in your mind couldn't occur for a different person in a different age bracket?
To reiterate, fix the problem, not the gate. All statements above are only valid as a whole.
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I appreciate you sharing your perspective. I wondered, when you described feeling "really sad" and the sense that people "might as well have been dead," I'm wondering if you're speaking about your own emotional response or trying to convey how the individuals themselves felt about their situation? Edited to sound less harsh
(I’m not op) The full quote is > At the end, while technically alive, so little of who they were as persons remained, they might as well have been dead. It sounds like there was some severe mental decline. When undergoing this kind of mental decline, does anybody remain happy? That’s meant as a genuine question, not rhetorical. Of course I’ve heard of the cases where people are constantly scared, feel unsafe, confuse…
There was one guy, an occasional escapee and reasonably physically healthy for his 80s, who had severe Alzheimer's. He just wanted to go home. All the time, that's what he wanted. I forget the details, but he didn't have a home anymore. Nobody came to visit him. We did our best for him, but what can you do with that?
We did our best for all of them. But I remember one evening over dinner where my mom and my brother and I were talking about getting our medical/legal paperwork in order. My mom said, "If I end up like that, just wheel me out to a field and leave me."
We couldn't, of course. But when her time came, we did move her to hospice as soon as there was no hope of recovery. She lived her life and bravely fought the end of it, but she didn't want to be kept around as a body, a shrine to her former self. A choice I deeply agree with.
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> Good luck helping somebody paralyzed from the neck down live a fulfilling life. Honestly, you seem to suffer from a lack of imagination. There are famous examples of people profoundly paralyzed who most likely lived fulfilling lives (e.g. Stephen Hawking), and I believe there's research the people's happiness tends to return to baseline after both very good and very bad events .
Please don't trivialize peoples stuggles by offering pithy anecdotes.
[1] https://www.termedia.pl/Quality-of-life-in-patients-with-tet...
My Canadian parents are in their 80's so naturally a lot of their friends of the same age are dying. And two of them have been via MAID. In one case, which was surprising to me, a man who had survived cancer - he was not terminal but certainly wasn't getting any better - elected to die via MAID after his wife died. She passed, he called his doctor and less than a week later he was also dead. He got a chance to visit…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This! People feel like they cannot live alone or they cannot want that someone else be caused hardship (time or money) because of their difficulty. I feel like I will get downvoted to oblivion just because people vehemently disagree, but THIS CANNOT be the meaning and choice behind death. It is simply immature, arrogant, and selfish. But more plainly, it is suicidal / self-relentment.
I'm well-aligned with Seneca, the Stoic philosopher who said death is an open door. If you want to die, do it. However, if you choose not to go through that door, your must live your life with purpose and conviction. There's no shame in going through that door if you no longer have the capacity to live purposefully, though. In these cases, I'm not sure these people had the agency and capacity to continue living in a…
Choosing death is literally gambling that the purpose is over despite never knowing the future.