Euthansia

[Malacasta]

I know it's very problematic, but I challenge anyone to read this article and not be moved.

Frightened of a slow, painful death from a total bowel obstruction, this softly spoken Melbourne writer wanted her life to end peacefully and on her own terms.

It wasn't to be. She regretfully turned away from her loved ones and spent her final weeks searching for information about euthanasia and a dose of the lethal drug Nembutal. Her final hours were robbed of the dignity she had wanted as she died vomiting the content of her bowels.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/th...0912-4fi2.html

Flowers' quest dominated her dying days, and her frustration at Australia's current legal situation led her to film a passionate appeal to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

"I don't believe in stoicism. I freely admit to not being a brave soul who grins and bears the pain and soldiers on," she says in the video, filmed during one of her last day trips from her hospice bed.

"I deeply admire people who rise above the adversity and their suffering. But I haven't grown from my illness or become a better person from its torments. All I want after 16 years of painful Crohn's disease and now cancer is to die a pain-free peaceful death.

"Because euthanasia was banned in Australia I am denied this right …

Darion's Note: Edited to correct spelling in topic.

[Gaviani]

I listened to her about seven and a half minute video while googling for the details of the consequences of her stage four cancer. I had to close the window midway through her statements. To describe her suffering as horrifying and the fact she had to die in the way she did due to the invasive regulations as a centralized authority perpetually spawns over her own autonomy as lamentable is an understatement of epic proportions. The only thing that amplifies my disgust and sorrow more is the fact that her situation would be almost identical were she in the United States.

If I were her family, I'd be outraged in the kind of way you find only in fanatics.

[Rosuav]

Without getting into the whole debate of whether or not it should be legal for someone to end another's life with their consent (and without getting into the even more messy area of whether or not a doctor can/should - given that they swear an oath to preserve life rather than destroy), there is one thing that I'd like to ask.

Why is it that assisted suicide is called "dying with dignity"? How is it more dignified to end your life (or have it ended for you) by some lethal drug than to wait out your end from disease? Or if you really want to end your life more quickly, what about throwing yourself off a building, being beheaded, or suffocating yourself with carbon monoxide? Why are these other methods considered less dignified - and for that matter, what exactly is the "dignity" that is sought?

This Angelique apparently considered "violent ways to end her life such as jumping off a building". Why did she decide not to? There are plenty of other suicides in the world. What makes her different?

I took your challenge, Malacasta. I read the article. It did not move me, because I've heard these arguments many times before. It's very easy to get people emotional about a case like this, but what you don't often hear about is times when someone is diagnosed with something, insists they want to die immediately, goes through with it and dies, and then is posthumously examined and found to have had something curable. Angelique's case is what you might call a "false negative", akin to finding a spam email in your normal inbox, but those other cases are "false positives", equivalent of real messages getting deemed junk and deleted unseen. Once someone's life has been terminated, it's too late to reconsider.

If euthenasia is ever legalised here, I sincerely hope that doctors will not be legally bound to kill someone just because they ask to. It's one thing to kill yourself, but to be required to kill someone else is quite another.

[Gaviani]

Originally posted by Rosuav
Without getting into the whole debate of whether or not it should be legal for someone to end another's life with their consent (and without getting into the even more messy area of whether or not a doctor can/should - given that they swear an oath to preserve life rather than destroy), there is one thing that I'd like to ask.

Off the bat, you've got to answer the question of what "do no harm" constitutes. Amputation of a partially gangrenous limb to save the life of the individual is harming some nonzero amount of healthy tissue - in order to prevent even worse harm. The only way the Hippocratic oath is a real barrier here is if you believe there is no state in which living - even involuntarily living, even under torturous pain, even when throwing up a mixture of your own vomit and shit - is worse than death.

I do not, needless to say, ascribe to that view. You might. We can discuss that.

Why is it that assisted suicide is called "dying with dignity"? How is it more dignified to end your life (or have it ended for you) by some lethal drug than to wait out your end from disease?

A number of reasons, not limited to these:

The management of pain, status of one's remains (for funerary purposes), and possibly most important, the knowledge one's loved ones can have that one departed in a way simply considered in comport with basic ideals of human right - that individuals are not forced to, if possible, eke out their last seconds of existence involuntarily or in a situation of squalor or misery so profound it is difficult to envision. Life is already a difficult and frequently miserable process. The idea that someone needlessly had their end as such made multiply worse is terrible for me, a stranger, to contemplate - how much moreso for this woman's loved ones?

Or if you really want to end your life more quickly, what about throwing yourself off a building, being beheaded, or suffocating yourself with carbon monoxide? Why are these other methods considered less dignified - and for that matter, what exactly is the "dignity" that is sought?

See above. These force one's loved ones to countenance that their daughter/mother/wife/lover/friend perished in a gruesome, violent way when such was unnecessary. It is a Parieto-inferior solution - someone's state is worsened without a corresponding gain to any discernable individual.

This Angelique apparently considered "violent ways to end her life such as jumping off a building". Why did she decide not to? There are plenty of other suicides in the world. What makes her different?

1) Her death was inevitable [thus, there was no "life-saving" solution].
2) You're suggesting she be forced to a choice of evils - violent suicide or violent death by disease. You do not propose that she be absolutely forbidden from any kind of suicide (as unrealistic as that would be) - so even this argument implicitly cedes the idea that she should have been forced to continue to live - you'd just prefer it to be in a way so as to have not prevented pain to herself or her loved ones...?

I took your challenge, Malacasta. I read the article. It did not move me, because I've heard these arguments many times before.

I'm considered pretty legendarily heartless on Threshold, and I can't fathom how you weren't at least slightly moved by this woman's demise. Really.

It's very easy to get people emotional about a case like this, but what you don't often hear about is times when someone is diagnosed with something, insists they want to die immediately, goes through with it and dies, and then is posthumously examined and found to have had something curable. Angelique's case is what you might call a "false negative", akin to finding a spam email in your normal inbox, but those other cases are "false positives", equivalent of real messages getting deemed junk and deleted unseen. Once someone's life has been terminated, it's too late to reconsider.

That's because this is not an issue of dying - this is an issue of personal choice and individual autonomy. The unfortunate thing about personal autonomy is that it often means people make foolish choices - throwing their lives away on a curable disease, for example, or even no disease at all. This is certainly regrettable. So is the fact that people smoke, speed, drink, et cetera. Freedom, if it means anything, must mean that an individual holds the greatest stake in their own choices - that they do not have to continue to live or die with the "by your leave" of the state or society - and your example of an individual who commits suicide for a less critical or even frivolous reason is analogous to someone stating that because some individuals choose to use computers to post slanderous, personal, or otherwise harassing information about another, we should all do without the Internet.

Freedom means people can make bad choices, and we all have to accept that.

Freedom also means that an apparently charming young woman does not have to die in a spasmic fit of agony so horrible it beggars the mind to fathom.

If euthenasia is ever legalised here, I sincerely hope that doctors will not be legally bound to kill someone just because they ask to. It's one thing to kill yourself, but to be required to kill someone else is quite another.

I truly hope this false dichotomy is what you rest your position upon, because perhaps this might be resolved - the two options are not mandate or forbiddance, Rosuav; both of these are offensive to freedom. The option Angelique would have preferred, I imagine, is permission - a doctor who finds it ethically cognizable to help a terminally ill individual who, of sound mind, elects to die can do so, and those who do not, need not.

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Gaviani
Off the bat, you've got to answer the question of what "do no harm" constitutes.

That's why I don't want to go down that route. I am not a doctor and I have never looked into the precise details of the Hippocratic oath.

[Gaviani]

...so wait; you're not willing to take an opinion on the very foundation of your argument, but you're willing to blithely say that this woman should have been denied the option to end her own life?

Really?

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Gaviani
See above. These force one's loved ones to countenance that their daughter/mother/wife/lover/friend perished in a gruesome, violent way when such was unnecessary. It is a Parieto-inferior solution - someone's state is worsened without a corresponding gain to any discernable individual.

Some lethal drugs are pretty gruesome, actually. When you look into things in some detail, there's really no non-violent way to terminate a life. Yes, there are methods of killing (or suicide) less violent and less painful than vomiting up your own interior; but nothing's painless, save perhaps an overdose of painkillers - which can backfire messily and uncomfortably if you vomit THEM up, so it may well not have worked for her.

2) You're suggesting she be forced to a choice of evils - violent suicide or violent death by disease.

See above. I don't know that this drug she sought and obtained would necessarily have been any better than throwing herself off a building.

I'm considered pretty legendarily heartless on Threshold, and I can't fathom how you weren't at least slightly moved by this woman's demise. Really.

There are several ways in which this could move someone to tears or to vicarious pain.

• The fact that she died. If I had known her, then it would have been personally painful. I did not, therefore her death _as such_ is no different from the many other deaths that occur every day.
• The pain she was in before she died. Yes, this is significant. It's probably the most effective of all the points. But I just recently was thinking about the Sept 11th tragedies, and if it's painful deaths of innocent people you're looking at, sorry, but Angelique has been trumped there. It's horrible, yes, but there are other horrors in the world even worse. (Again, if I'd known her personally, it would have been personal, and that's quite different.)
• Her impassioned appeal. Sorry. Nothing. That's what I meant when I said that I've heard all this before - that her appeal didn't move me in the least.

That's because this is not an issue of dying - this is an issue of personal choice and individual autonomy. ..... I truly hope this false dichotomy is what you rest your position upon, because perhaps this might be resolved - the two options are not mandate or forbiddance, Rosuav; both of these are offensive to freedom. The option Angelique would have preferred, I imagine, is permission - a doctor who finds it ethically cognizable to help a terminally ill individual who, of sound mind, elects to die can do so, and those who do not, need not.

That was my point. If you're going to opt (and legislate) for personal freedom, doctors MUST have the freedom to refuse to help. It's not freedom if you have the freedom to demand someone else do something. My point was not to make a false dichotomy, but to point out that the view (strange the views some people hold) that a person should be able to order a doctor to kill them is one which I find repulsive.

If she'd committed suicide (by jumping off a building or by taking a lethal dose of the drug she bought), then I doubt anyone would have found that to be a problem. Technically I think suicide is a crime (which leads to interesting situations in some areas), but if nothing else, this would be a strong case for an extenuating circumstances defense. As to what the family will have to deal with... what's the difference between dealing with a sister who commits suicide in the last stages of a disease and dealing with someone who died of the disease? Personally, I am against euthenasia becoming legal; in the really extreme situations like this, instead of complaining against the government, just go off and commit suicide on your own. Don't involve anyone else, just do it. If you believe that euthenasia is morally justified for your circumstance, then just slip under the legal radar by making sure nobody else has to be involved. There are plenty of other fatalities... you'd be just one of many. The newspapers would barely even notice.

[Aristotle]

This issue is a major reason why we are in desperate need of a complete political realignment.

One party is completely against euthanasia, and also for health care remaining private, with decisions in the hands of the individual.

Another party is (frequently) in support of euthanasia, but supports government run health care where decisions will be made by a centralized authority (extremely frightening, imho, when that central authority can rule for euthanasia).

Hooray for political parties that are designed for staying in power, not for representing ideals (big government vs. small, government control vs. individual control, etc.)

[Tharzon]

This is reductable to a general principle I'm fond of espousing:

Consenting adults of sound mine should be able to do absolutely anything they want, with no exceptions.


(And PLEASE, before you decide to say something really absurd like "So what if I want to murder you" I said CONSENTING ADULTS as in "Everybody involved in the situation is an adult and consenting")

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Tharzon
Consenting adults of sound mine should be able to do absolutely anything they want, with no exceptions.

Consent is an awkward thing. What about consent under duress?

If you want anarchy, you're most welcome to set yourself up outside of all laws. Go find yourself a desert island, or an under-sea colony, or something, and live anarchically. Nobody's stopping you.