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[b]Charlie Brown wrote: [/b]
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[b]AspiringPhilosophe wrote: [/b]
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[b]Charlie Brown wrote: [/b]
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[b]AspiringPhilosophe wrote: [/b]
I don't think suicide should be illegal either. I'm curious AP if you believe that suicide should be legal does that mean that if a police officer is driving in his patrol vehicle across a bridge and he happens to see someone about to jump of the bridge to their death he should make no attempt to stop them.
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That has nothing to do with whether suicide is illegal or not. I'd like to think most people would try to stop someone doing that (but then again I'm a bit of a cynic). What exactly is your point?
No point really its just that the grandiose pseudo intellectual pretentions of some us is amusing and disturbing at the same time.
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Why don't you say what it is you are so "cutely" trying to avoid, Charlie Brown. You've got a problem with my POV? If so, spell out what it is and why and we can have a conversation about it. But don't do the pretentious, cowardly "pseudo-insult" thing.
Thread
Posts in chronological order
If suicide were legal, perhaps the incidence of mental illness will decrease as the mental weaklings are culled from society. The job of the cop should be encourage the guy to jump and make the world a better place.
Seriously, I think that assisted suicide should be legal, but only if there is rigorous psychological review (and a waiting period), to assure that that one's decision to end one's life is rationally thought out.
Seriously, I think that assisted suicide should be legal, but only if there is rigorous psychological review (and a waiting period), to assure that that one's decision to end one's life is rationally thought out.
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Panchgani wrote: [/b]
Seriously, I think that assisted suicide should be legal, but only if there is rigorous psychological review (and a waiting period), to assure that that one's decision to end one's life is rationally thought out.
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I'm afraid this debate will be as heated and never-ending as abortion and religion.
Why should there be a rigorous psychological review and waiting period? How can a person's psychological well-being be determined while that person is facing imminent - and horrible - death? If a person is dying - and suffering on the way to death - what kind of waiting period should there be? An hour? A week? Long enough for the patient to suffer more unimaginable pain and humiliation?
Few, if any of us, wants to face our mortality, but this is why it's so important to have your wishes clearly spelled out LONG before the onset of an illness. Like a will, personal wishes for care - or no care - should be written down officially and voiced for everyone involved to hear and understand while we're all healthy and of "sound mind".
If a disease were to ravage my body, I'd want death on my own terms. I wouldn't want to wait for some pre-determined and impersonal date to pass before I could escape, and I wouldn't want to be forced into voicing my fears and pain to some clinical stranger who didn't know me before I was ill.
Panchgani wrote: [/b]
Seriously, I think that assisted suicide should be legal, but only if there is rigorous psychological review (and a waiting period), to assure that that one's decision to end one's life is rationally thought out.
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[/b]
I'm afraid this debate will be as heated and never-ending as abortion and religion.
Why should there be a rigorous psychological review and waiting period? How can a person's psychological well-being be determined while that person is facing imminent - and horrible - death? If a person is dying - and suffering on the way to death - what kind of waiting period should there be? An hour? A week? Long enough for the patient to suffer more unimaginable pain and humiliation?
Few, if any of us, wants to face our mortality, but this is why it's so important to have your wishes clearly spelled out LONG before the onset of an illness. Like a will, personal wishes for care - or no care - should be written down officially and voiced for everyone involved to hear and understand while we're all healthy and of "sound mind".
If a disease were to ravage my body, I'd want death on my own terms. I wouldn't want to wait for some pre-determined and impersonal date to pass before I could escape, and I wouldn't want to be forced into voicing my fears and pain to some clinical stranger who didn't know me before I was ill.
What about the mentally ill? A person with a chemical imbalance in their brain should be allowed to pull the plug on themselves, when their propensity for rational thought is limited ????
Oh my. I am getting old. I forget things sometimes. I am obese. I can't "perform" all night anymore. I'm just a dentist, nobody loves me. Worse yet, TCR is starting to sound good to me. Please, Please, somebody shoot me, even though I am behaving irrationally.
Oh my. I am getting old. I forget things sometimes. I am obese. I can't "perform" all night anymore. I'm just a dentist, nobody loves me. Worse yet, TCR is starting to sound good to me. Please, Please, somebody shoot me, even though I am behaving irrationally.
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[b]Panchgani wrote: [/b]
What about the mentally ill? A person with a chemical imbalance in their brain should be allowed to pull the plug on themselves, when their propensity for rational thought is limited ????
Oh my. I am getting old. I forget things sometimes. I am obese. I can't "perform" all night anymore. I'm just a dentist, nobody loves me. Worse yet, TCR is starting to sound good to me. Please, Please, somebody shoot me, even though I am behaving irrationally.[/QUOTE]
You do realize we're talking about people who are terminally ill, don't you? And yet, while I mention people facing imminent and horrible deaths, you talk about being obese, impotent or aged. Hardly the same topic.
[b]Panchgani wrote: [/b]
What about the mentally ill? A person with a chemical imbalance in their brain should be allowed to pull the plug on themselves, when their propensity for rational thought is limited ????
Oh my. I am getting old. I forget things sometimes. I am obese. I can't "perform" all night anymore. I'm just a dentist, nobody loves me. Worse yet, TCR is starting to sound good to me. Please, Please, somebody shoot me, even though I am behaving irrationally.[/QUOTE]
You do realize we're talking about people who are terminally ill, don't you? And yet, while I mention people facing imminent and horrible deaths, you talk about being obese, impotent or aged. Hardly the same topic.
[url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/12/60II/main540332.shtml]http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/12/60II/main540332.shtml[/url]
From the above link ...
Like many Swiss people, psychiatrist Thomas Schlaepfer, a specialist in depression, is not opposed to assisted suicide - but he's disturbed by the way Dignitas operates.
“If somebody flies into Zurich Airport, is brought into an interview for an hour and prescribed medication, that’s totally wrong,” he says. “That’s ethically wrong. Legally, it might be OK in Swiss law, but ethically it’s wrong.”
Schlaepfer says it is “totally impossible” to find out in a brief visit or two whether someone is of sound mind.
Minelli, however, claims to have no doubts about what he is doing: “Ah, it is not knowing,” he says. “It is feeling, and that is much better than knowing.”
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Worse than having fruitcakes like Minelli base their decision "on a feeling" and a brief interview ... Digitas has a less glamorous side ...
[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-431793/Swiss-suicide-clinic-like-backstreet-abortionists.html]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-431793/Swiss-suicide-clinic-like-backstreet-abortionists.html[/url]
From the above link ...
Like many Swiss people, psychiatrist Thomas Schlaepfer, a specialist in depression, is not opposed to assisted suicide - but he's disturbed by the way Dignitas operates.
“If somebody flies into Zurich Airport, is brought into an interview for an hour and prescribed medication, that’s totally wrong,” he says. “That’s ethically wrong. Legally, it might be OK in Swiss law, but ethically it’s wrong.”
Schlaepfer says it is “totally impossible” to find out in a brief visit or two whether someone is of sound mind.
Minelli, however, claims to have no doubts about what he is doing: “Ah, it is not knowing,” he says. “It is feeling, and that is much better than knowing.”
----
Worse than having fruitcakes like Minelli base their decision "on a feeling" and a brief interview ... Digitas has a less glamorous side ...
[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-431793/Swiss-suicide-clinic-like-backstreet-abortionists.html]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-431793/Swiss-suicide-clinic-like-backstreet-abortionists.html[/url]
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[b]Panchgani wrote: [/b]
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/12/60II/main540332.shtml
From the above link ...
Like many Swiss people, psychiatrist Thomas Schlaepfer, a specialist in depression, is not opposed to assisted suicide - but he's disturbed by the way Dignitas operates.
“If somebody flies into Zurich Airport, is brought into an interview for an hour and prescribed medication, that’s totally wrong,” he says. “That’s ethically wrong. Legally, it might be OK in Swiss law, but ethically it’s wrong.”
Schlaepfer says it is “totally impossible” to find out in a brief visit or two whether someone is of sound mind.
Minelli, however, claims to have no doubts about what he is doing: “Ah, it is not knowing,” he says. “It is feeling, and that is much better than knowing.”
----
Worse than having fruitcakes like Minelli base their decision "on a feeling" and a brief interview ... Digitas has a less glamorous side ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-431793/Swiss-suicide-clinic-like-backstreet-abortionists.html
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Previously, you suggested rigorous psychological evaluations and waiting periods should take place - which for a terminally ill person could outlast life itself. Now, as mentioned here, "it's totally impossible to find out in a brief visit or two whether someone is of sound mind." Well... then what is the suggestion? To force a suffering and dying person to attend hours upon hours of evaluations to determine why or if s/he'd rather die than lose control of all bodily functions, remain alive in agony and with the knowledge that things will only get worse for them and their loved ones before they mercifully end?
And as for the second article you indicated... if I were this person, I would have high-tailed it out of there the moment this occurred -
"When we arrived at the place it was a block of flats, with a buzzer marked Dignitas but there was no answer. We were standing there for about three-quarters of an hour until a man arrived wearing a leather jacket with a sports bag over his shoulder, a dirty blue Tshirt, jeans with the knees cut out and smoking a roll-up."
Seriously. Backstreet abortions in areas where abortion is illegal is bad enough. But backstreet assisted suicide in a country where assisted suicide is legal is... bizarre, to say the least. The controversy surrounding this issue has to be lifted so there are fewer of these shysters out there praying on the sick and needy.
[b]Panchgani wrote: [/b]
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/12/60II/main540332.shtml
From the above link ...
Like many Swiss people, psychiatrist Thomas Schlaepfer, a specialist in depression, is not opposed to assisted suicide - but he's disturbed by the way Dignitas operates.
“If somebody flies into Zurich Airport, is brought into an interview for an hour and prescribed medication, that’s totally wrong,” he says. “That’s ethically wrong. Legally, it might be OK in Swiss law, but ethically it’s wrong.”
Schlaepfer says it is “totally impossible” to find out in a brief visit or two whether someone is of sound mind.
Minelli, however, claims to have no doubts about what he is doing: “Ah, it is not knowing,” he says. “It is feeling, and that is much better than knowing.”
----
Worse than having fruitcakes like Minelli base their decision "on a feeling" and a brief interview ... Digitas has a less glamorous side ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-431793/Swiss-suicide-clinic-like-backstreet-abortionists.html
[/QUOTE]
Previously, you suggested rigorous psychological evaluations and waiting periods should take place - which for a terminally ill person could outlast life itself. Now, as mentioned here, "it's totally impossible to find out in a brief visit or two whether someone is of sound mind." Well... then what is the suggestion? To force a suffering and dying person to attend hours upon hours of evaluations to determine why or if s/he'd rather die than lose control of all bodily functions, remain alive in agony and with the knowledge that things will only get worse for them and their loved ones before they mercifully end?
And as for the second article you indicated... if I were this person, I would have high-tailed it out of there the moment this occurred -
"When we arrived at the place it was a block of flats, with a buzzer marked Dignitas but there was no answer. We were standing there for about three-quarters of an hour until a man arrived wearing a leather jacket with a sports bag over his shoulder, a dirty blue Tshirt, jeans with the knees cut out and smoking a roll-up."
Seriously. Backstreet abortions in areas where abortion is illegal is bad enough. But backstreet assisted suicide in a country where assisted suicide is legal is... bizarre, to say the least. The controversy surrounding this issue has to be lifted so there are fewer of these shysters out there praying on the sick and needy.
Dignitas is the last hope for many people because in most other European countries (except Holland) assisted suicide is illegal. I have not clicked on the link posted above but I have seen may critical articles about Dignitas and I am definitely not defending them. If assisted suicide were legal in other countries there would not be a "suicide tourism" to Switzerland.
Let's face it: assisted suicide occurs all the time when terminally ill, suffering patients receive the help by their doctors or family members. However, doctors and family members commit a crime when they help the suffering person and it's not right that on top of all the grief and the suffering people are left alone with the moral and legal consequences of respecting the wishes of the dying patient. Instead the society should respect the patient's right to end his/her life when the suffering becomes unbearable and nobody should be given the power to evaluate this decision and overrule it.
There is this dark side of Euthanasia when people are killed on the pretense of sparing them further suffering. This is of course murder like any other murder and not the topic of this dicussion. The free and unmistakenly expressed will of the patient is mandatory and must be the basis of such laws and procedures.
If someone commits suicide for other reasons (depression, unhappiness), it's suicide and not illegal. Usually obese people do not need assistance to kill themselves.
Let's face it: assisted suicide occurs all the time when terminally ill, suffering patients receive the help by their doctors or family members. However, doctors and family members commit a crime when they help the suffering person and it's not right that on top of all the grief and the suffering people are left alone with the moral and legal consequences of respecting the wishes of the dying patient. Instead the society should respect the patient's right to end his/her life when the suffering becomes unbearable and nobody should be given the power to evaluate this decision and overrule it.
There is this dark side of Euthanasia when people are killed on the pretense of sparing them further suffering. This is of course murder like any other murder and not the topic of this dicussion. The free and unmistakenly expressed will of the patient is mandatory and must be the basis of such laws and procedures.
If someone commits suicide for other reasons (depression, unhappiness), it's suicide and not illegal. Usually obese people do not need assistance to kill themselves.
What about if a dentist is suffering from clinical depression and he commits suicide? Is it legal even though he is not of sound mind ??? ... But no matter ... It's OK because everyone hates dentists ...
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMEa2Q61l_0&feature=channel_page]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMEa2Q61l_0&feature=channel_page[/url]
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YV ... are you joking about suicide not being illegal, or are you stating the obvious that obese people are killing themselves by overeating? Or both?
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MFM - I think a one month or shorter waiting period would be acceptable. Suffering, critically ill people usually do not make a snap overnight decision to end their life ... and I would bet that vast majority were thinking about wanting to die for several months. Thus, a short waiting period should not extend their agony much, if at all. People still need to make and wait for an appointment for assisted suicide anyway, so the review can be done during the wait for the appointment.
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I think that life is too precious to allow it to snuffed out by a snap judgement, without any review of whether the person is of sound mind while not being influenced into a decision by potential heirs (or a grab for business by the "assisted suicide industry").
People who senselessly commit suicide usually have family, friends, and associates who are greatly affected by the senseless suicide. Unfortunately, a clinically depressed person has an unrealistically negative of life, and often overlooks the effect that one's self inflicted demise will have upon others.
Perhaps, as we are in the holiday season, it might be appropriate to watch the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" one more time.
"Merry Christmas Everyone"
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMEa2Q61l_0&feature=channel_page]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMEa2Q61l_0&feature=channel_page[/url]
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YV ... are you joking about suicide not being illegal, or are you stating the obvious that obese people are killing themselves by overeating? Or both?
...
MFM - I think a one month or shorter waiting period would be acceptable. Suffering, critically ill people usually do not make a snap overnight decision to end their life ... and I would bet that vast majority were thinking about wanting to die for several months. Thus, a short waiting period should not extend their agony much, if at all. People still need to make and wait for an appointment for assisted suicide anyway, so the review can be done during the wait for the appointment.
...
I think that life is too precious to allow it to snuffed out by a snap judgement, without any review of whether the person is of sound mind while not being influenced into a decision by potential heirs (or a grab for business by the "assisted suicide industry").
People who senselessly commit suicide usually have family, friends, and associates who are greatly affected by the senseless suicide. Unfortunately, a clinically depressed person has an unrealistically negative of life, and often overlooks the effect that one's self inflicted demise will have upon others.
Perhaps, as we are in the holiday season, it might be appropriate to watch the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" one more time.
"Merry Christmas Everyone"
Man, you're reading between lines, look what YV said at the end!!!!!
BTW, I'm in a line between being positive about the euthanasia and not. My grandma was in vegetable state (She could breathe without machines, but she was like in a coma) when the case of the woman who got her gastrical tube for food cut thanks of a judge. I was a bit against it 'cuz sometimes those cases you have hope that the other person will get better, My grandma died a couple of months later. After that, I realize that she was better 'cuz she was suffering for months and months, a year and a half in fact, and not only her, but also everyone in my family, specially my grandpa and my mom and her brothers, aside one, but that's another story.
Anyways, I'm not against in those terminally ill cases in a consense of family and patient.
About the suicide part, I lived 3 suicides in my life, of people I knew all my life, and because of depressions. I'm against that part 'cuz mostly they are releaved from living, but then they leavethe rest suffering. That's when the psicological study comes, 'cuz they're ill, but mentally ill, not terminally ill. And that's obvious to see, when a person is dying of cancer and when a person has a depression.
So Pangchagi or whatever your name is, you're just have to lear to read completely, not between lines and start offending people man. If you're against all, don't get excuses to say "Yes but first this" cuz there are cases that are medically tested that there are just a few days or months for living and these people just want to stop the suffering for themselves and their families, not because they have a huge nose or too much fat in their bodies.
BTW, I'm in a line between being positive about the euthanasia and not. My grandma was in vegetable state (She could breathe without machines, but she was like in a coma) when the case of the woman who got her gastrical tube for food cut thanks of a judge. I was a bit against it 'cuz sometimes those cases you have hope that the other person will get better, My grandma died a couple of months later. After that, I realize that she was better 'cuz she was suffering for months and months, a year and a half in fact, and not only her, but also everyone in my family, specially my grandpa and my mom and her brothers, aside one, but that's another story.
Anyways, I'm not against in those terminally ill cases in a consense of family and patient.
About the suicide part, I lived 3 suicides in my life, of people I knew all my life, and because of depressions. I'm against that part 'cuz mostly they are releaved from living, but then they leavethe rest suffering. That's when the psicological study comes, 'cuz they're ill, but mentally ill, not terminally ill. And that's obvious to see, when a person is dying of cancer and when a person has a depression.
So Pangchagi or whatever your name is, you're just have to lear to read completely, not between lines and start offending people man. If you're against all, don't get excuses to say "Yes but first this" cuz there are cases that are medically tested that there are just a few days or months for living and these people just want to stop the suffering for themselves and their families, not because they have a huge nose or too much fat in their bodies.
Mike, suicide is not illegal, in fact. Only attempted suicide could be punished, anyway because you cannot prosecute dead people but attempted suicide is not a criminal offense in my country, either.
In the old days a person who wanted to kill themselves was sent into a mental institution - since it was a sin to commit suicide a person was regarded insane if they wanted to take their own lives. These days we are beyond that. We know that people commit suicide for reasons nobody else understands and of course we must help depressed people to get better and avoid suicide.
Anyway, this is not the issue here. In Germany we have a "patient testament" where we can lay down our will in case we get so ill that we can only live through tubes or end up in a coma. We can specify which life preserving measures we want to have used on as or not. Unfortunately, these patients testaments are not legally binding for the hospital or the doctors. The hospital is free to disregard the wishes of patients who are too ill to execute their right of self determination The parliament is totally unable to make a law to regulate this situation. As a result people need their relatives to take the case to a court to get permission to switch off the machines in hopeless cases.
We need laws that protect our right of self determination even if we are weak and cannot jump off the bridge to end it all. Only legal framework avoids private institutes to benefit commercially from the misery of terminally ill people.
For a relative it's so much easier to take the suffering patient to the hospital and hand over the responsibility to doctors (who have the hospital's profit in mind, too) It's harder to go all the way with your loved one and make it possible he/she can die in a dignified way and family surrounding. It's totally cruel to deny a terminally ill patient the right to put an end to the suffering.
In the old days a person who wanted to kill themselves was sent into a mental institution - since it was a sin to commit suicide a person was regarded insane if they wanted to take their own lives. These days we are beyond that. We know that people commit suicide for reasons nobody else understands and of course we must help depressed people to get better and avoid suicide.
Anyway, this is not the issue here. In Germany we have a "patient testament" where we can lay down our will in case we get so ill that we can only live through tubes or end up in a coma. We can specify which life preserving measures we want to have used on as or not. Unfortunately, these patients testaments are not legally binding for the hospital or the doctors. The hospital is free to disregard the wishes of patients who are too ill to execute their right of self determination The parliament is totally unable to make a law to regulate this situation. As a result people need their relatives to take the case to a court to get permission to switch off the machines in hopeless cases.
We need laws that protect our right of self determination even if we are weak and cannot jump off the bridge to end it all. Only legal framework avoids private institutes to benefit commercially from the misery of terminally ill people.
For a relative it's so much easier to take the suffering patient to the hospital and hand over the responsibility to doctors (who have the hospital's profit in mind, too) It's harder to go all the way with your loved one and make it possible he/she can die in a dignified way and family surrounding. It's totally cruel to deny a terminally ill patient the right to put an end to the suffering.
Cheap (and perverse) voyeurism all the way, but hopefully it'll get people to think, at least...
I think it really depends who's killing themselves.
I would be all for assisted suicide on TV if we could talk people like Oprah, Michael Bolton, Tom Cruise, Billy Ray Cyrus and Rush Limbaugh into taking part.
I would be all for assisted suicide on TV if we could talk people like Oprah, Michael Bolton, Tom Cruise, Billy Ray Cyrus and Rush Limbaugh into taking part.
Barb -
Assisted suicide organizations like Dignitas need to be regulated to prevent cases similar to the case mentioned in one of my previous links. In this case, Dignitas offered a "cut rate" price to the son of the dying mother if the grief became unbearable, knowing that the son had a history of depression. Without proper regulation, I fear that assisted suicide will be occasionally used when the patient is not teminally ill, as organizations like Dignitas still need a regular revenue source to pay their employees.
Where I live, medical personnel are generally required to follow the wishes of the patient (as documented in a "living will" or equivalent legal document) . The only caviat, is that one's immediately family could torpedo the living will if they are not in agreement.
Assisted suicide organizations like Dignitas need to be regulated to prevent cases similar to the case mentioned in one of my previous links. In this case, Dignitas offered a "cut rate" price to the son of the dying mother if the grief became unbearable, knowing that the son had a history of depression. Without proper regulation, I fear that assisted suicide will be occasionally used when the patient is not teminally ill, as organizations like Dignitas still need a regular revenue source to pay their employees.
Where I live, medical personnel are generally required to follow the wishes of the patient (as documented in a "living will" or equivalent legal document) . The only caviat, is that one's immediately family could torpedo the living will if they are not in agreement.