Hey all, Just wondering about your opinions on assisted suicide. Should it be legal or not? (Whether it is or isn't, I don't care, but I want to know what you think.) I, for one, am against it. Helping somebody kill themselves is... just wrong... the person says "Hey, kill me, would ya?" - I mean, that's murder - whether the person wanted it or not, how would that hold up in court? I can see it now: "Oh, the victim TOLD me to kill him! {*Yeah, that's the ticket!*}"
In my opinion it all depends the situation, if the victim is ill and is suffering, I think the victim has the right to choose the destiny.
Well, imagine this then: Old, dying grandma: "Just hand me that bottle of morphine and lemme have it all" You: "Gramma, that'd kill you" Grandma: "It doesn't matter now" Isn't it better to just let nature take its course? If you control the pain, what more can you ethically do?
I'm all for it. Last thing we need is people being kept alive by machines, and suffering from uncurable diseases.
They don't suffer NEARLY as much as they used to, before Morphine and other painkillers. So you'd kill your own family? Your patient? Look at them as you basically help them kill themselves? What about court?
HaHa ah yes. This reminds me of law class. We debated this. I totally agree with you. Oddly enough though we did take a look at numbers from the Netherlands and they weren't extremely high or anything (If I recall it was a couple thousand or so). Personally though, I don't agree with it at all. Skinny
I would totally do it for my family. Living hooked up to a machine is not living. Pain killers or not, you are just a shell of a person. I would hope my family would do the same for me.
Would you rather feel a little pressure in your kidney, or tell your (grand)child to kill you? Can you imagine the psychological effects? The mental and emotional effects? What about the legal effects after that?
ok, are we talking about people that have terrible diseases, are on life support, or just some guy with a little pain? You make it sound like it isn't a big deal, but i've seen some people REALLY suffer from actual serious problems.
I'm talking about people that are in pain but are on a powerful and effective painkiller, as 99% of today's modern USA hospitals offer. Now, granted, if outside of the US or first-world country, this argument won't stand a chance, but I would still be against it.
I still don't buy it. I've seen people that pain killers don't even begin to help. Even if they did you are looking at a whole other group of problems associated with the long term use of painkillers. Again, there are people in need of assisted suicide that painkillers aren't going to begin to help.
My 7 year old boy asked me last friday "Mum do they put people down?" My answer wasn't "No honey they don't, they leave you to fight a medical system that won't fund the drugs want, won't permit the new ones but will allow companies like Te Genero to seriously stuff up." but it could have been. We have a system where women with breast cancer are sent overseas for treatment because we won't pay the wages locally to keep the professionals working here. So the machines lie idle. We have a system that prosecutes an off duty, sole charge, country cop for driving after a few beers. Two died, one lived because of him. He should have stayed home and cracked open a fresh tinnie. Not his problem, it was his day off. We have a system that decided that blood screening was too expensive despite other countries recognising the risk so we now have HepC survivors fighting for the medical treatment they need because they got the "bad blood" We have a system where people from one area will drive past a major hospital to get to the one they're zoned for. There is a harbour dividing the hospital's zone so there is no direct route. My mother has spent 30 years supporting her local hospice yet, as she ages, if we move her in to live with me I'll be on the wrong side of a line that says she won't be able to use it. Never mind that I'm actually closer! So after making the fight to live difficult and stressful and politically charged we say "oh, but you can't die". I've had enough life experience that I can come up with a good list for both sides of the argument, the exploitation and personal sacrifice, manipulation and greed that would pervert a pure and decent law make it untenable. Still, I hope that none of my loved ones die a death I wouldn't put a dog through.
For the short time I was on morphine at the hospital and for nearly two weeks of use of OxyContin I was virtually worthless. Dreams of beams of light and repetitive nightmares were enough to scare me shitless. Plus, staring at walls and watching the time change on a digital clock became a true hobby. Ahh... life on painkillers.
Assisted suicide != asking your grandchild to kill you. Nice propaganda, by the time you reach 18 you'll be as good as Gtech
I am not against assisted suicide, I think its worse to live out a bunch of years as a vegetable or terminal anyways. Not to mention, a total burden on everyone and everything around you, but obviously, it should be the person's choice. I don't think the doctor should be forced to do it though; if he is ethically against it.