Euthanasia

[cassiopeia]

Here in Australia if people are in the same room as you when you kill yourself they can be sent to jail. A woman killed herself last week and another wants to end her life before she can't move anymore. She wants to kill herself sooner than necessary because she wants to do it herself before she can't physically do it. So she will die sooner than if euthanasia was legal.

Anyway, I say yea. I have heard people say who had very sick love ones that euthanasia would be the best option because it is so painful for the sick person and carer. Sometimes I think we are more humane with animals than humans.

[azalea]

My brief opinion -- I definately agree with passive euthanasia, but not the rest.

More in depth -- I would have to take things on a case by case basis. I don't like the thought of people being kept alive by machines when there is no hope of life or a good quality life without being hooked to a machine. I like the idea of letting nature take it's course. But I disagree with helping someone kill themselves, if they want to kill themselves, let them handle it. We don't need to make taking life into a business, or to condone suicide. It is simply my belief that suicide is a wrong choice. In this situation as well as the other, I believe in letting nature take it's course.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by azalea
In this situation as well as the other, I believe in letting nature take it's course.

Since hominids have evolved into cognizant organisms, with the added bonus of self-awareness and all the baggage involved, you could almost argue that human victims ARE letting nature take its course, by choosing suicide/assisted suicide. Thus, we are the resultant of billions of years of evolution, and the suicide function is just another facet of our genetic make-up. Furthermore, humans are not the only species that have selected for the ability of reduce the population numbers. Remember the lemmings? Suicide (reduction in population numbers) can clearly be documented to be just another facet of nature.

[FrodoFriend]

Allow me to jump in here.

I say yea as well. Mostly because a person's life is hers/his to do with as she/he chooses. I think everyone has the right to choose. In cases of coma/vegetative state, the consent of the family and several doctors should be requires. But in other cases . . . their life, their choice.

[Andúril]

In this situation as well as the other, I believe in letting nature take it's course.

I agree with BoP and I will go so far as to say that EVERYTHING that happens in the universe, can be classified as natural.

[BeardofPants]

That's sorta what I was getting at...

Even the so-called cultural aspects of life are governed by the principles of memetics, which function extraordinarily like genetics - they have self-replication, and protection capabilities (ideas, symbolism, religion,etc).

[jerseydevil]

I agree with euthanasia 100%. I've already told several people that under certain circumstances I want to be killed - including if I get alzheimers.

My mother had a heart attack several years ago. She was a self reliant and very intelligent person. When she had her heart attack - it left her in a coma for 4 days. (At the time I would just tell people that she was unconcious, it was too hard to admit she was in a coma). We got the brain scan results back and we determined to pull the plugs on the machines. Some of you that disagree with this may say that we killed her - and in all actuality we killed her body. Her mind was nonexistent. Even if she ended up coming out of it eventually - she would have been a vegetable. Can you stand to see a loved one, such as your mother, not being able to communicate properly or do anything for themselves, when they used to be able to debate, they owned their own business, they volunteered in schools? The doctors said that there was no chance of her ever recovering, but even if there was - if she was going to end up like that - it was much better for her to die. I did not want her to be living the rest of her life frustrated, hating the fact that she lived and couldn't enjoy life - feeling she was a burden on all the people she cared about. It wasn't easy - we did not consult with the doctors - it was a family decision. I do not regret the decision we made - and I personally don't care whether outsiders agree or disagree with it. They didn't know her and they didn't have to go through the pain that we were going through. I'm still not over my mother's death - but I never feel that removing her from the machines was wrong. Knowing the fact that my younger brother and sister had seen my mother have her heart attack and collapse bothers me more. (My youngest brother was in 5th or 6th grade). Just the week before I helped my mother, who owned an independent bookstore, do the annual Bookfair for Emerson School in Seymour IN. When my mother had her heart attack - she was doing laundry and my father and her were getting ready to go on a business trip to Atlanta that day. I was going to go over and watch my sister and brother for the week and then we were going to be leaving the following week for NJ to spend Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house. Insead - we spent that week at my mother's bedside and then ended up going out to NJ to have my mother's funeral. She was 44 and my parents had just celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary.

If we can extend life through medicine and through human intervention - then why can't we end it when it is no longer mentally or physically possible to enjoy it. I've seen both my grandmother's go through alzheimers. If I ever get that disease - I've already told people - just kill me. I've seen the closest person in the world to me, my mother, lying motionless in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of her and the sound of those machines pumping air into her lungs and monitoring her vital signs. Unless you've seen people close to you go through this - you have no idea whether you would support euthansia or not. It's very easy to say you don't support it or think it's murder when your talking about a stranger being in pain or mentally incompassitated. But imagine that it was the closest person in the world to you - and they were suffering and may suffer and suffer for years.

[Blackheart]

Errr...

Can we eat dem afterwards?

In which case I'm all for it!

Otherwise, momma told me never to kill ennyting I wasn't going to eat.

It's really rather academic when you talk about stopping people who have mobility and means from killing themselves. It can't be done, any more than you can stop someone determined to kill someone else.

The poor bastards I feel for are the ones that want to kick it, but don't have the ability, or the means.

However I draw the line at people who are in a vegitative state. If they ddn't have the foresight to draw up a living will (which I have) then they should just linger on horribly as a lesson to those who flout putting off decisions.

If you support euthenasia, go ahead and put your money where your mouth is, and make out a living will. Take care of yourself first, responsibility starts at home.

[jerseydevil]

My mother didn't have a living will - but we knew her mind and what she would have wanted. We had discussed similar things like this before. The one difference is that we just pulled my mother off the machines and restricted medical care. She died 6 hours after we did this. I don't know what we would have done had she just lived on in that state. I would not have been opposed to giving a lethal injection.

[Wayfarer]

I'm with Xandre on this one. Bon apetite!

I find it difficult to say yes or no on this one, because there's the question of where we draw the line.

After all, it's one thing if someone is only being kept alive be machines (although I would like to know why we put them in that state to begin with), but it's a slightly different situation when they've still got some time left.

You don't want to die a horribly painful death? Get a spinal shunt.

But the truly haunting thing is when people are treated as resources. When we start euthanizing people because they're no longer productive, they're too old, or they have bad genes, or the world is overpopulated, or we need the gurney for someone else.

Can we possibly deal with the implications of that? I don't think so.

One of the founding principles of America is that people have fundamental, God given rights. The individual is always more important than the government, and the individual has the right to live.

Now, if someone want's to forfeit that right, and would die anyway, let them. But they can d*** well pull the trigger themselves. Because the instant we start entrusting the government with the power to kill off it's citezens, all hell breaks loose.

I have absolutely no problem with people doing whatever they want to do, to whoever, whenever, for whatever reason.

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist.
First they came for the Jew, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.
First they came for the Industrialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Industrialists.
First they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak out, because I was a Protestant.
And then, last of all, they came for me. But there was no one left who could speak out for me.

Attributed to Martin Niemöller

The stupidity of a statement like that should be obvious to everyone, Anduril. Whatever you say, you're going to look at things differently when you're the one under the knife.

People have the right to live. And if they choose not to prolong their life through artificial means, so be it. But we're not going to let someone else decide we're unfit to live, and so we better not turn a blind eye just because it's someone else they're killing.

To finish this up, Passive euthenazia should be a non issue-they shouldn't be put on life support unless there's a chance of recovery. And if someone is going to die, measures should be taken to assure a minimum of discomfort, but not to prolong or end their life.

But under no curcumstances shold we allow doctors, or the government, to decide that an individual or a segment of the population is unfit to live.

[jerseydevil]

Did I miss something? Where did the government come into the euthanasia talk? The government should absolutely have no role in determining whether a medically ill patient should live OR DIE. The ultimate decision should be the family not the doctors. I would have had no problems in having them give my mother a lethal injection - it would have been hard to do. But I KNOW what my mother would have wanted. She had said numerous times - just as I have - that I have NO DESIRE to live like that.

Most of the times, such as in my mother's case, doctors put people on machines while they run tests. We needed to get the brain scan results back - that took 3 days while they ran tests. After we found out that there was no brain activity - we unplugged the machines and let her die.

[mirrille]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
Did I miss something? Where did the government come into the euthanasia talk? The government should absolutely have no role in determining whether a medically ill patient should live OR DIE. The ultimate decision should be the family not the doctors.

Yes yes. But "should" is not the same as "won't". The government will want to include itself in the decision, won't it? Doctors can sometimes get into trouble with government or their medical association even for acting on the decision of the patient or the family. We do need guidelines, if only to avoid messy legal disputes.
I would like to see euthanasia legalized and some clear guidelines set out, most obviously about all the consent issues. As for passive vs. active, I don't really see much difference, from a moral standpoint. It's just a matter of technique. Oh, and passive tends to be more long and lingering than active, but really, the intent is the same. It's like asking someone what is the difference between slitting your wrist or refusing food and drink. You're still dead. When it comes to motivation, you do it for the same reason: you don't want to live. Therefore, I don't see why it should enter into a morality debate. The technique only matters in that it should work, and preferably be quick and painless.

[Andúril]

Wayfarer:
The stupidity of a statement like that should be obvious to everyone, Anduril. Whatever you say, you're going to look at things differently when you're the one under the knife.

Err....no. Had you asserted this a year or so ago, I would probably have agreed with you. However, as I sit here, I no longer find myself caught up with things such as this.

You wouldn't be able to label me as suicidal either, I basically just don't care about it (anything to do with life, and the "fairness" of).

Some things I do "care" about. Like the reason I'm typing this message right now, I obviously "care" enough to actually go ahead and type a reply. Why? I wouldn't understand the psychological reason for this - but then again, I don't care, so I don't bother investigating.

But you are denying the idea that, in a hospital bed, and in a concious state of excrutiating and unrelenting pain, and with no hope of any type of recovery, I would hold the same position.

I don't think we can get anywhere with this.

[Blackheart]

So.. you don't care what I do to anyone at all, anywhere or anytime?

*begins to giggle*

Wait wait! let me get my Nitrous mask Babee!


snxxxxxxxxxx

F**k*n Ay! heheheheeeee

Now where's he at?

*watches him heel and toe out the door*

Dang, must be baser instincts kicking in!

[Andúril]

Nope. Go right ahead. Try to find the worry in my eye.

[Blackheart]

*slices him up and eats the brains, and buries the body in the back yard*

Wooo! That was fun!

hmm. But now I gots to find a new toy.

Ennui is mitigated by adrenal production. If you don't care, why do you use the brakes in your car?

[Andúril]

Habbit, I guess. As you may have picked up from mine post to Wayfarer, I have only taken this position for about a year. Ofourse, I have been driving for many years, so any "instinctive tools" that I may have learnt (braking, changing gears, looking at blind-spot, starting the engine...) turned over time into habitual events.

My use of the brakes would not spring from my sudden concious desire to slow down. You see, I normally have close to 90dB pumping behind mine head, 25kHZ bass thumps entwined with incredibly soothing trance tunes. End result? I'm not fully 100% aware (in practical terms) of my surroundings. Certain things might bring me back to normal, such as my cellphone. However, I never hear it ringing.

Just in case I don't have ice in me car for any reason, I fortunately have a tuned 4" exhaust, which provides the sonic goods needed to change my mental state (in whatever way). Hence, I never find myself outside of a certain "state" when driving.

But I digress. Hee hee. So, when I use the brakes of my car, even if I make a concerted effort to intentionally use the brakes, that effort runs in parallel with my instinct/habits. Now, if I make a concerted effort NOT to use the brakes, there would appear to be a clash of the two "forces". You'll be happy to know that I actually tried this once, but as much as I wanted to go flying off the freeway into the bushes and trees, I couldn't. It would then seem, in that instance, that my "survival instinct" proved stronger than the concious desire to crash.

But anyway, yes, I know, that's one hell of a weak argument.

What else? Wait.......oh, I know! I have desires. That's more than one desire. My desires vary in......strength(?). If I have two conflicting desires, the stronger one is actualised (or at least the attempt to actualise it is made) instead of the weaker one.

So, there are two desires:

1) Go to the movies tomorrow
2) Commit suicide

Desire 1 is stronger than desire 2. Since desire 2 entails that desire 1, the stronger, will not be fulfilled, it is abandoned in favour of desire 1.

So, my thoughts are that I must have had a greater desire at the time of my attempted "crash", either subconsious, as a survival instinct, or concious (whatever....can't remember....jeeez).

My position though, is that I do not accept my "survival instinct" as a concious, intentional thought in the same way that I would say my desire to obtain flesh (cooked) is a concious, intentional thought.

Yes, I am now aware of the actions produced by mine survival instink, but that is in hindsight (whether immediately afterwards, or much later on...)

[Blackheart]

Ho Hum.

Thantos and Eros, the Old Freudian constructs strike again!

Not that he was wrong mind you.

I just think that human behavior is a lot more animalistic than most humans are aware of.

You could always experment by consuming large quantities of a depressant, such as alcohol, and see if it overides your survival instincts.

[Andúril]

I tried that. I vomitted. I don't really remember anything else.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Blackheart
I just think that human behavior is a lot more animalistic than most humans are aware of.

It's not so much that humans aren't aware - I think most people seem not to want to face the fact that humans are just animals and we still have instincts. Religion gets in the way of most people accepting this, at least the one's I've talked to. We're hardwired to want to survive. It's very hard to overcome the survival instinct.