[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation

It bothers me that in the U.S., we extend that courtesy to pets who are suffering from terminal issues. But we expect loved ones to hang on and suffer for no real reason other then the vague notion that the imaginary sky man would disapprove.

My grandma passed away 2 months shy of her 101st birthday. I visited her a few weeks before she passed, she was gaunt, skeletal, couldn't see us and was reacting to hallucination caused by their body slowly shutting down. She didn't even know my Mom and I were even there, and when we told her her daughter was there to see her, she said "No, I don't believe it" while staring blanking into the corner of the room. She wasn't suffering from dementia, it was cancer that came back which was killing her. What reason would we not allow a loved pet to suffer though that, but a blood relative, hell yeah, let them lay and suffer for weeks, months, years.

I don't have any grand ideas on how to prevent abuse, I just think it's humane to not let a thinking being suffer needlessly.

I Would be in favor of assisted dying being introduced for anyone who need it.

No one should be forced to live against their will.

Also its better to let a person die peacefully than having them die in gruesome ways (jumping in front of a car/train, jumping from a building, hanging themselves with family and loved ones having to see them in this state, etc ..

Absolutely - and not even just terminally ill. We typically recognize when pets are past their meaningful life - once things start getting difficult or painful enough, we let them off. Meanwhile if you have bone cancer and live an eternity of agony every second, "tough shit lol" I guess.

Sometimes you just can't fix things. Then it gets to be about harm reduction. Flogging someone whose continued existence will only bring them and everyone else pain... seems pretty horrific to me.

I'm strongly in favour of assisted dying. If an animal is too ill and can't be cured, we do the humane thing and put them down so they don't suffer. Yet if it's a human who is terminally ill, you're just told to suffer. How do animals have more rights than we do in death?

I've never understood how it's considered the "moral choice" from opponents of assisted dying to let people suffer.

We already have it in Switzerland.

I'm all for it. I actually had to promise my mum to off her in case she ever get's dementia. (She had to care for her own mother with dementia for almost a decade, to the point where everyone in the family was just glad when she finally died).

We humanely end the suffering of our old cat or dog. Heavens forbid we let grandma go out peacefully. Sorry gramma ya gotta slowly drown in your own blood because I’m afraid of theoretical scenarios in which the government decides to kill everyone.

Any person should have the choice to die at the moment they want with dignity.

If you've lived 40 years of a terrible life and want out, you should be able to.

The legislative side of this issue would be a mess, but the work has to start now.

Do you think people should be allowed to choose when to end their own life?

People who want to kill themselves will do it without permission.

What assisted dying provides is dignity for the person, and some amount of closure for the family.

I fully support assisted dying, because mandatory suffering is insanely cruel and inhumane.

Yes

The bioethicists have ready worked out the kinks of assisted suicide laws and I would defer to them. You don't offer it to people who cannot make the decision, you make sure people are fit to make the decision before they become too impaired, and you have plenty of checks for elder abuse, family pressure, and so on. Ultimately right now I can choose to end my life and that knowledge has made bearing some really painful medical things much easier.

We can all do things that make us less safe. We can drive, we can eat unhealthy food, we can drink alcohol, we can smoke, we can have unprotected sex, we can go base jumping, and so on. There is a concept called Dignity of Risk, meaning that while we have a duty of care, a responsibility to protect someone, we also have to respect that person enough to let them make choices, including choices we disagree with. If we don't have this then we treat people as less than human and in the process we are stopping them living the life they want.

If we are going to say life choices should be in your hands then I think death choices should be too.

With a waiting period, I think assisted dying should be available for adults in general, regardless of terminal illness.

No one opted in, and at least in my society where we are belligerently unwilling to tangibly help one another, where most are expected to endlessly produce regardless of our wellbeing under threat of homelessness and gruesome death by exposure, and where struggling people are often condemned for being lazy or making bad decisions when they're already down, it would be a small, efficient mercy to allow a quiet, painless opt out.

We could even have the capitalists run it and charge a small fee since they need to turn everything into a for profit endeavor. Everyone wins.

Dying should always be a personal choice, and not even limited by physical or mental health. Other people having a say over it is, imo, evil.

Absolutely. Thankfully we actually have it in the Netherlands, with some restrictions. I.e you do need to be clearly ‘suffering’ for a doctor to agree to it.

Personally though, I think there shouldn’t be any restrictions on this beyond making sure it’s a well articulated wish and not someone just having a bad day.

If say, a healthy 30 year old wants off this ride, they should be allowed to die with dignity at a time and place of their choosing. Nobody asked to be born, so we should at least give them the freedom to choose how they depart this realm.

In my opinion, nobody should disagree with that - it’s not your place to force someone to live if they don’t want to.

I live in Oregon in the US and we've had it for a number of years. We had to fight hard for that and even so its fraught with BS, but a couple years ago I had a family member make use of it and I was very glad it was available.

I'm also in favor of having it as an option for anyone. There should be nobody opining what I should do with my life or with my body who doesn't know me at a deep and personal level.

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is also yes.

It should be available to anyone as long as informed consent can be achieved and they're of sound mind in the view of at least a few medical professionals.

I think it should be available as a medical directive, like a DNR order with specific criteria, and require several doctors to evaluate the criteria unanimously, and no family to object if the patient can't give informed consent, only whatever form of consent they can give.
It should be called off if the patient objects, regardless of their ability to give informed consent.
Scenario I'm picturing is a person with dementia who previously filled out a form stating that if they're no longer themselves or able to function, and other criteria they specified beforehand, and doctors agree the circumstances have been met, and the family doesn't object, it should be able to proceed even though someone with advanced dementia cannot consent because they cannot fully understand. If they say no it must stop.

I feel concern about people with mood disorders seeking that route, which is why I want a medical professional to say they're of sound mind.
Ultimately it's your life and your body, so you should be able to have that autonomy, but I think it's responsible to pause if a doctor says you're not in a rational place to make that type of choice.

It was introduced in my country (Canada) and immediately the government started talking about expanding access to it for people with intellectual disabilities; and worse yet, people with treatable conditions where the treatment is just very expensive. That freaks me out quite a bit.

I think it's good for it to be available but there need to be significant guardrails on its availability. My cousin and his wife recently used it for her father, and based on my understanding of his situation, I think it was probably a lot better than letting him die slowly.

I was in favor of this until I started reading Marta Russell. She lays out the history of using the concept of assisted dying to do things like get rid of people with disabilities, increase profits for hospitals, decrease funding for home nurses, convince people who are no longer productive that they shouldn't live anymore, etc etc. It seems like a good idea on paper, because bodily autonomy and stuff, but capitalist ghouls coerce people into it.

For sure. When your own body becomes a prison, you should have a say on whether you want out.

I am in favor, and we already did introduce it here.

I think it might have been 2018 when we voted on it for the state of Colorado.

A doctor can now administer suicide drugs if a patient is terminally ill or has a condition that makes their life hell.

Already a thing here in NL.

Canada currently has assisted dying (referred to as MAID — Medical Assistance In Dying). The issue that I see with it, in Canada, is that it is a conflict of interest; Canada has public healthcare, so all patients are seen as a net drain on the system. Because of this, It is in the government's best interest to reduce the cost of healthcare by lessening the number of patients in hospitals. In my view, it is, therefore, in the Canadian government's best interest to encourage assisted dying over treatment to the absolute limits of what is ethically or legally allowed.

Yeah, it's not like it's done on a whim. As long as there is someone on staff that is comfortable administering it, I have no problem with it. I wouldn't want it to be forced as an option if there is no one on staff comfortable doing it. But transferring to a place that does offer it should be an option for those cases.