I'd like dying to be as easy as flicking a switch. Medically-assisted suicide ought to be available to anyone (not only of sound mind and not only with a terminal condition), and at any time. People ought to have the right to die, just like they have the right to water, food, and shelter. In most countries it is currently easier to take other people's lives than to take one's own. People ought to be able to step into…
I think death should be easily accessible, but not immediately executable. Mental states can swing quickly and dramatically, and it would be a shame for suicide to be in reach for a short-term, temporary situation.
I'm not sure about the best delay, but my current ballpark is at least around a month delay.
While I agree he's being too simplistic I think you're not getting it, either. You're making the standard error of the medical world of focusing too much on stuffing pigeons into pigeonholes because once you have found the supposedly correct (look at the patients who go to doctor after doctor after doctor until someone finally finds the rare issue that's the correct diagnosis--and realize that there are those who nev…
> You're making the standard error of the medical world of focusing too much on stuffing pigeons into pigeonholes because once you have found the supposedly correct (look at the patients who go to doctor after doctor after doctor until someone finally finds the rare issue that's the correct diagnosis--and realize that there are those who never get answers) pigeonhole you see the pigeonhole rather than the patien This…
You're explaining why it happens--and I agree, it's forces outside your control. But that doesn't make it not happen.
Recently watched someone close die over a couple days, after a long decline. The last 24 hours were monstrous to inflict on anyone. Torture. Evil. Hours and hours of faltering breathing, often restarting with what was plainly a panicked adrenaline-pumping response. It looked like they felt like they were about to drown every few minutes , hour, after hour, no relief. No IV fluids (terminal anyway, so no trying to kee…
> and unable to drink, so certainly terribly thirsty the whole time. I know people that work in hospice, and they say this is a big misconception (the article hints at it too). they patients don't die from lack of water, they don't want water because they are dying, and their body can't process it. In fact, as you kind of touched on at the start, giving them IV fluids can cause them to drown since their body can't pr…
I'm no expert myself but recently had a relative in hospice,[0] which prompted me to look into this issue a bit. There are a few papers (for a recent example, Kingdon et al. (2020))[1] that say that the data is actually extremely low-quality on both sides of the issue. Personally, this makes me wonder if "fluids are bad" might just be received wisdom and/or anecdata... hopefully someone will do a better study(ies) at some point in order to get actually reliable data.
[0] We did end up following the hospice's recommendations not to administer IV fluids, for what it's worth.
I'd like dying to be as easy as flicking a switch. Medically-assisted suicide ought to be available to anyone (not only of sound mind and not only with a terminal condition), and at any time. People ought to have the right to die, just like they have the right to water, food, and shelter. In most countries it is currently easier to take other people's lives than to take one's own. People ought to be able to step into…
How do you reconcile that with many people that attempted suicide due to some illness like depression, and then later very much we're glad they didn't die. "Only of sound mind" sounds difficult to measure. Related: Majority of gun deaths in the USA are suicides. In the gun control debate you might want to exclude those, right? But actually having ready access to a way to die increases the total number of suicides - i…
The only people who regret suicide are the ones who survive. Subjectively on success, you stop, and removing any and all future possibilities is the entire point. Suicide prevention has nothing to do with the subject, but everything to do with everyone else. You feel bad if someone else dies with unfulfilled potential. So should lawmakers empathize with the suicidal or their loved ones? I tend to think Assisted Dying laws should focus on who has a right over someone else's life (parents? children? siblings? friends? councilors? colleagues? employers?), and be about under what situations they get to block suicide assistance. Rather than the existing situation where the laws are all about granting an individual the right to die, and making it harder for people to exercise their innate right to die by their own hand.
In the US, the big reason is religious groups that want to force their religion onto others.
There’s an interesting case right now in Vancouver against the largest hospital downtown which is affiliated with Catholics (I think, St Paul’s is the facility in any case). Several in-patients that opted for medical assistance in dying were refused that treatment by administrators of the hospital on religious grounds, and their families are sueing based on the additional suffering inflicted by having to transfer to…
If your job duties might go against your religious beliefs, you are responsible for finding other work. Not doing so should be grounds for termination.