Assisted Suicide

Mark Hamill · 07-08-2015 11:33am

Peregrinus wrote: »

This is more akin to somebody choosing to die because of how they feel about being gay.

Not really. Wanting to die because you are afraid of being gay is disturbing because there is nothing to fear (or should be nothing to fear) about being gay. Wanting to die because you are afraid of being decrepitly old may be irrational, even very irrational, but it's not disturbingly so because being decrepit is a bad thing.

The funny thing here is regardless of what you feel about this womans suicide, it still supports a proper home-country euthanasia system. Either you believe this womans fear was justified, and therefore she should have the dignity of ending her life with family and friends, or you believe she was being irrational, in which case a euthanasia system with counselling, as well as psychological assessment, would have convinced her otherwise.

recedite · 07-08-2015 3:47pm

Peregrinus wrote: »

And, on those assumptions, by her own account, her decision to commit suicide was not motivated by any illness, disease or infirmity from which she suffered.

She mentioned back pain and generally "going downhill". I agree it seems not to be anything too major, but I would not say "no infirmity" either. We are all going to die, and basically she is skipping the last bit of her lifespan, because she decided it wasn't for her.

Did you ever notice when eating out, say in a cafe or whatever, that some people eat every scrap on their plate, while others leave behind the bits they don't really like? Those who clean everything off their plate are usually disdainful of those who don't. But at the end of the day, if they only want to eat the best bits and leave the rest, why should anyone else care? OK there may be a moral hazard with food wastage, but at this point the analogy breaks down.

If you want to look at what it takes to keep the infirm elderly alive at all costs from a moral hazard point of view, a small fraction of that cost would save many more children in Africa from dying of malaria. But we would rather spend the money on our own relatives, keeping them alive in a nursing home; often they are barely aware that they are even alive.

robindch · 13-11-2019 11:52pm

New Zealand to hold a referendum on assisted dying next year:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50408033

BBC wrote:

The law would allow terminally ill people with less than six months to live the opportunity to choose assisted dying if approved by two doctors.

Cabaal · 14-11-2019 8:39am

Would be nice to see Ireland holding a ref on this,

magicbastarder · 14-11-2019 9:05am

i think there have been initial moves to refer it to the citizen's assembly, which would be a decent first step.

Bannasidhe · 14-11-2019 11:25am

Cabaal wrote: »

Would be nice to see Ireland holding a ref on this,

Would it need a ref?
Is there anything in the Constitution forbidding it that would need to be changed/amended?

smacl · 14-11-2019 11:39am

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Would it need a ref?
Is there anything in the Constitution forbidding it that would need to be changed/amended?

I was under the impression, quite possibly incorrectly, that assisted suicide was tantamount to murder in this country.

magicbastarder · 14-11-2019 11:43am

would this be the 'problematic' part?

2° The State shall, in particular, by its laws protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name, and property rights of every citizen.

Hotblack Desiato · 14-11-2019 11:50am

Cabaal wrote: »

Would be nice to see Ireland holding a ref on this,

Supreme Court has ruled that there is nothing stopping the Oireachtas legislating in this regard.

Apart from extreme cowardice, of course.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/ruling-on-assisted-suicide-batted-problem-back-to-politicians-1.1635128

In Fleming v Ireland, the seven-judge Supreme Court held that although suicide is no longer a crime in Ireland, this does not mean there is a constitutional right to take one’s own life or to determine the time of one’s death. It also found that the principle of equal treatment did not confer on Ms Fleming, as a disabled person, the right to be helped in taking her own life.

While the Supreme Court rejected the appeal, it stressed that nothing in the judgment should be taken as necessarily implying that it would not be open to the State, if the Oireachtas was satisfied it could find appropriate safeguards, to deal with a case such as that of Ms Fleming.

With that, the ball has been batted back to the politicians.

Bannasidhe · 14-11-2019 11:55am

magicbastarder wrote: »

would this be the 'problematic' part?

Then it would come down to the interpretation of 'unjust'.
Theoretically, if that is the case, legislation could be passed to deem assisted suicide under defined conditions is 'just', and then it would be up to the President/Council of State.. and possible the Supreme Court.. to decide if such legislation was Constitutional.

magicbastarder · 14-11-2019 12:27pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Supreme Court has ruled that there is nothing stopping the Oireachtas legislating in this regard.

Apart from extreme cowardice, of course.

which issue was it that ahern put to a referendum, even though one wasn't needed?

Hotblack Desiato · 14-11-2019 12:43pm

If you mean the 2002 abortion referendum, similarly to the one also rejected in 1992, it was trying to get out of having to legislate for the X case by removing the ground of suicide conferring a right to abortion.

Of course they did legislate for it in the end, only 21 years after the X case.

Strictly speaking, nothing needs to go to an amendment. Every proposed constitutional amendment is a decision of the government of the day to put forward.

Cabaal · 14-11-2019 2:37pm

Given we know no party will have the guys to touch this topic and support legislation the citizen assembly is the best outcome we can hope for,
They propose it, they suggest the ghist of the legislation and we vote on it.

Hotblack Desiato · 15-11-2019 1:54am

It's the standard approach now to obtain plausible deniability in relation to any controversial issue.

I hate that politicians are so f**king spineless to require it, but OTOH if it'd just been left up to the Dail we probably would only have got some half-arsed amendment to the 8th instead of repeal, and very restrictive legislation, dozens of them were crapping themselves over POLDPA only a few years ago even though it didn't widen the legal grounds for abortion one whit.

15-11-2019 2:02am

Assisted suicide is not, as mentioned, unconstitutional, which is a pity because a referendum would be far more robust than whatever the Oireachtas would ever legislate on.

A_Lost_Man · 15-11-2019 8:08am

assisted or not suicide should be made legal. It is a good way to stop overpopulation. Like on internet forams people may delete their profile as per their own wish. If a person is unwilling to live in this world. he should be allowed to suicide and anyone who assist him in his work should be appreciated.

Bannasidhe · 15-11-2019 10:43am

A_Lost_Man wrote: »

assisted or not suicide should be made legal. It is a good way to stop overpopulation. Like on internet forams people may delete their profile as per their own wish. If a person is unwilling to live in this world. he should be allowed to suicide and anyone who assist him in his work should be appreciated.

To clarify:
Suicide is not illegal.
What is being discussed here is people with terminal illness and/or severely life limiting conditions who can no longer physically take the necessary steps to ensure they die at a time and place of their own choosing can be helped.

Mod Hat on:
Comments like "assisted or not suicide should be made legal. It is a good way to stop overpopulation." are ill considered, a tad tasteless, and verging on inflammatory. Suicide is a sensitive topic which has brought tragedy to many people's lives. I will give you the benefit of the doubt but urge you to please think carefully before posting.

A_Lost_Man · 21-11-2019 9:20am

Bannasidhe wrote: »

To clarify:
Suicide is not illegal.
What is being discussed here is people with terminal illness and/or severely life limiting conditions who can no longer physically take the necessary steps to ensure they die at a time and place of their own choosing can be helped.

Thanks for making me understand. It is would be great to release such people from pain and let them die in peace. Actually there are a lot of cases around us when a person is in very much pain and willing to die and his loved one actually in the name of fake love torture him . This is called superficial love

Hotblack Desiato · 21-11-2019 1:23pm

A_Lost_Man wrote: »

Actually there are a lot of cases around us when a person is in very much pain and willing to die and his loved one actually in the name of fake love torture him . This is called superficial love

What?!?

nozzferrahhtoo · 21-11-2019 5:01pm

I think as a stab in the dark what the user is saying, though badly worded, is that if you really love the person in pain who wants to die you would let them.

But many might be unwilling to let them go because of their own love and greif and loss. And the user above feels this is not real love because your unwillingness to let them go, and therefore to torture them, is more about you loving yourself and your concern for yourself than for them.

Hotblack Desiato · 21-11-2019 7:37pm

Jeez.

I couldn't watch a loved one suffer knowing that I hadn't done everything I could for them.

smacl · 21-11-2019 8:13pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Jeez.

I couldn't watch a loved one suffer knowing that I hadn't done everything I could for them.

Very much the same. I tend to think of it in terms of probaility of respite and probability of some level of future happiness. Where either of these are greater than negligible, I'd push / encourage / lend what strength I could for the person to fight through to the bitter end. Myself and my wife have had a few friends with cancer in recent years and one thing that became apparent is that under those levels and stress and fatigue is not the easiest place to be making decisions.

nozzferrahhtoo · 22-11-2019 8:13am

Agreed here too, and I might be doing the user above a disservice by misrepresenting him. But that APPEARS to be what his point was meant to be.

Micheal Nugent is very moving on this subject. He spoke about how he and his wife had agreed that when the time came he would do anything in his power to help her die peacefully and in the way she wanted. Regardless of any legal repercussions that might ensue after the fact to his own freedoms. That sounds like true love to me.

antiskeptic · 29-11-2019 10:43am

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Agreed here too, and I might be doing the user above a disservice by misrepresenting him. But that APPEARS to be what his point was meant to be.

Micheal Nugent is very moving on this subject. He spoke about how he and his wife had agreed that when the time came he would do anything in his power to help her die peacefully and in the way she wanted. Regardless of any legal repercussions that might ensue after the fact to his own freedoms. That sounds like true love to me.

Sounds like it alright. Along the lines of 'no greater love than that he lay down his life for his friend'

However. Thou shalt not kill.

I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road recently (spoiler alert). Although the dad had set plans to kill his son in the event he could not prevent his son being left to cannibals, at the end he couldn't do it. After the dad dies, the son is picked up and taken in by another 'good guy' group and presumably lives on.

The point was that by doing the seemingly right thing and killing his son, the dad would have stolen from his son, the opportunity for life to give to his son.

The process of dying, however unpleasant, is still a part of life and life, so long as it is being lived, provides opportunity.

The opportunity during a dying, painful illness might not have obvious utility. But no one knows nor can they know what opportunity is to be obtained by letting life run its course.

The seeming loving act is, when stripped back, an act of god. Michael would be playing god. Taking it upon himself to decide there is no opportunity left, whilst there might well be.

He would be operating within ignorance, elevating himself to a place no amount of worldview can elevate him to.

Hotblack Desiato · 29-11-2019 10:49am

Preaching is not discussion.

nozzferrahhtoo · 29-11-2019 11:01am

antiskeptic wrote: »

However. Thou shalt not kill.

First that is a religious precept and hence not applicable to our laws. Or at least it should not be.

Second it is a misinterpretation of the religious mandate. The text does not admonish us not to kill, but not to murder. And the text is clear too on when it absolutely condoned and advocated killing.

antiskeptic wrote: »

The process of dying, however unpleasant, is still a part of life and life, so long as it is being lived, provides opportunity.

Irrelevant. Opportunity is not obligatory. Whether life provides opportunity or not, the person who's life it is should be under no obligation to realise it or pander to it. It is THEIR choice as to whether they wish to explore or avail of the opportunity, or the opportunity for opportunity. Not ours. And certainly not yours.

There is a reason suicide, rather than assisted suicide, is not illegal anymore.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Michael would be playing god.

Nope. People like that are not playing the role of a god. Because gods in their fairy tales tend not to seek the permission or consent of the people they affect or control or kill.

People like this are acting with the CONSENT and REQUEST of the people they are assisting. There is a reason it is called ASSISTED suicide.

Mark Hamill · 29-11-2019 11:32am

antiskeptic wrote: »

The process of dying, however unpleasant, is still a part of life and life, so long as it is being lived, provides opportunity.

The opportunity during a dying, painful illness might not have obvious utility. But no one knows nor can they know what opportunity is to be obtained by letting life run its course.

The seeming loving act is, when stripped back, an act of god. Michael would be playing god. Taking it upon himself to decide there is no opportunity left, whilst there might well be.

He would be operating within ignorance, elevating himself to a place no amount of worldview can elevate him to.

By that argument you must be equally against all forms of medicine and medicinal treatment, as treating a wound or cancer is equally playing god.

robindch · 02-12-2019 8:18pm

Mark Hamill wrote: »

By that argument you must be equally against all forms of medicine and medicinal treatment, as treating a wound or cancer is equally playing god.

When, back in the 18th and 19th centuries, statistics were first applied to human populations to determine things like disease rates, survival rates and so on, religious figures objected, saying that the statisticians were "playing god".

smacl · 02-12-2019 8:44pm

robindch wrote: »

When, back in the 18th and 19th centuries, statistics were first applied to human populations to determine things like disease rates, survival rates and so on, religious figures objected, saying that the statisticians were "playing god".

You can understand their concern, peddling lies and damned lies condoned by the state was clearly an intrusion on their turf.

Hotblack Desiato · 18-12-2019 12:52pm

A long but excellent read.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/marieke-vervoort-the-paralympic-champion-who-chose-her-time-to-die-1.4115956

Paywalled but should work in incognito mode.

In very short, she developed extremely painful muscle weakness in her legs in her teens, wheelchair by 20, sought permission for doctor assisted suicide at 29, then went on to win Paralypic medals including gold in 2012. Her condition continued to deteriorate and her pain increased, she held a party for her family and friends three days before the date she'd arranged to carry out her decision to end her life in October 2019 at the age of 40.

A very brave woman in the way she lived and in the way she died.

Our politicians are still running scared of this issue but it is certainly not going to go away.

Marieke Vervoort - Wikipedia