[Raatchi]

I agree with a few of the posts above: ie this is my life and if i want it ended then fcuk you, it's my choice.

My mum worked for years on a dementia ward at our local hospital (Airedale, W.Yorks) and some of the stories she brought home were seriously upsetting. Like, people were just a shell filled with random memories, their brain almost completely gone and just a decrepit 80+ year old body that was being kept alive by modern medicine and 24 hour care. (oh, and the odd 30+ year old, it's not just an elderly disease).

A good (bad?) number of times patients would have moments of lucidity where they realised what was going on, and they were some of the worst moments. Men and women suddenly realising (for 5 or 10 minutes) what the hell was going on. Sometimes just asking, begging even, to be ALLOWED to die.

The answer to that? Tough shit (well, said more nicely than that, obviously). If they'd have been a bloody dog you'd put them out of their misery. But nooooo, you're human therefore you have absolutely no say in it whatsoever.

I find that to be a totally disgusting way to treat a fellow human being.

/rant off

ps dementia (from a carer's point of view and without me being arsed to find out the medical terminology) is: losing your memory. long term memories start to take control over short term memory. so, for example, 80 year olds think they are 8 years old. 70 year olds start acting like babies and (no shit, pun intended) start eating their own faeces. folk beg for food because they haven't eaten for days and days, forgetting that they just finished a huge meal. others refusing to eat because they are full, despite not eating for 2 days. a whole massive catalogue of shit that happens when your body starts to die but isn't allowed to because the law is an ass.

//rant off button not working

[frookenhauer]

If you want to end your life for whatever reason, please do it quietly. Donate your organs, give the rest of your body for scientific analysis and thank you very much for your part in reducing our carbon footprint.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Here in Washington we recently voted in assisted suicide, based heavily on the Oregon model. I voted for it, seems like a good idea.

[Fist Gamet]

This is such a vast grey area that you need to be really careful which way you go here. If you are seriously ill and facing death, the medical profession does not have the right to enforce any kind of treatment upon you. You can, if you are able, simply refuse any curative treatment and "be allowed to die" - in fact, any health professional who does not comply with your wish, regardless of whether or not they agree with or think it makes no sense, is breaking the law.
This is where the law gets a bit hazy. in the UK, you (as written in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and The Human Right Act) have the absolute and inviolable say over what does or does not happen to your body - this is the basis of informed consent and refusal of treatment. It does not, however, allow for you to take your own life. If I tell you that without surgery you will die, you can say, no thanks I am going home to die and that is the end of the debate. I told you the death would be painful and may draw out over weeks to which you then ask if I can speed up the process as you are going to die anyway. Sorry, that's not legal and I will go to jail.
Nobody said the law had to make sense.
But it is there to protect the vulnerable. People do make zeemingly bizarre decisions when face with death or serious illness - and they change their minds often. Stress, illness, age, confusion, diagnosis, understanding and many other things affect people's capacity to think and rationlise and understand in these situations.

Western medicine still delivers palliative care poorly because if we can't cure you we feel we have failed. We struggle to make that attitude shift from curative to palliative and people suffer as a result. We can make the decision to let someone die and just keep them comfortable, but we can't speed it along. Our medical mindset is to do all we can for everyone, regardless of whether or not it's even a good or ethically sound idea. We do it because we can and never stop to ask if we should. Premature babies that would have died twenty years ago can now be saved, even though almost every single one of them will live a very short life with multiple health problems and disabilities and spend much of that time in hospital. All of which also adds up to a very significant financial cost.
In essence, I feel we lack the moral courage to make the hardest decisions like these ones.

[rhulad]

If I was to come down with some form of debilitating disease/injury that left me unable to live my life how I want, please someone come and kill me.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

I think that the biggest, and potentially most valid, argument against the simple version of assisted suicide, is the fact that irrevocable choices should, in total, reside on the individual on whom the result will fall. To involve a doctor would potentially add liability to the doctor for the choice of the patient. Wrongful death suit, etc. Doctor's have enough liability as is.

So it's really a matter of legal courage.

That's the simple version. For a well adjudicated, transparent system in the ideal, the argument falls flat.

[councilor]

refuse medical service? and what? die a long and prolonged death while you organs shut down, as in the cases of some terminal illnesses? the whole point of suicide is to avoid that particular scenario.

I advocate the right to die, if you can prove yourself to be of sound mind and that yes, you want it to be over, having exhausted other options.

i know if i ended up with dementia or Alzheimer, i would want a bullet put in my head before i become a drooling mindless idiot.

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Fist Gamet, on 01 March 2010 - 04:31 AM, said:

Premature babies that would have died twenty years ago can now be saved, even though almost every single one of them will live a very short life with multiple health problems and disabilities and spend much of that time in hospital. All of which also adds up to a very significant financial cost.
In essence, I feel we lack the moral courage to make the hardest decisions like these ones.

This statement seems a bit too generalized. While it's true that preemies are more likely to live a shorter life or have health complications and disabilities, to say that "almost every single one will live a very short life with multiple health problems and disabilities" is disingenuous at best, patently false at worst. According to studies performed, the ones with very seriously debilitating conditions account for about 26%, while those with no real issues account for about 20%, with the other ~54% falling somewhere in the middle. I don't really think killing of babies has much to do with the whole assisted suicide question anyway. If a rational adult at any point in their life decides they want to die for a given reason or if a certain circumstance comes to pass, and a qualified mental health professional can verify the decision is made without any coercion from anyone, then that should be their right. Just as I would never penalize someone for slitting their wrist, snorting a line of coke, selling bodyparts or selling (renting?) their body out to someone for sexual favors, as I feel it's our right to do as we wish with our bodies, so should people be able to decide whether they want to die themselves.

[Nicodimas]

As a conservative on this type of issue. I would have said no way, without understanding compassion on this type of issue half a decade ago.This is a extremely touchy area and would have to be presented very carefully and logically. I mean this on life-ending diseases and conditions.The flip side depressed, go join the peace corp, do something different, etc. Thats my opinion.

Life however is a fucking bitch when it comes to experience. The person themselves should be able to pick out there way the choose to exit this world. The real bitch of medicine at this stage is it can keep you alive for a very very long time, without actually being able to save dieing tissue, organs, the brain, etc. It hasn't made that leap foward. There is something far worse to watching someone suffer horribly, not die and lose there dignity in the process than the death itself....Trust me there is a line and you would know once presented.

We all end.

Pancuronium bromide + Potassium chloride + Thiopental is much more humane.

[Sindriss]

"There is something far worse to watching someone suffer horribly, not die and lose there dignity in the process than the death itself"

For once, I fully agree with Nicodimas.