The "Right-to-die" argument

TheGunns wrote: »

I never said they can't? I said personally I would want them to stay alive. I also think everyone can choose on their own as it wouldn't be my decision to make, I'm very much pro choice on most issues.

I would hope my family/friends would also like to see me around as long as possible, but I also hope they respect my decesion

P_1 wrote: »

How is it selfish to choose when you go rather than have it chosen for you? Particularly if you are in agony every day

Did you read my posts?

I think it is selfish to keep a loved one alive for our means.

I have first hand experience of watching a loved one with terminal sickness dying agonisingly, knowing they were dying and wanting the release, begging to die.

I wish there was a legal mechanism whereby he could have been freed from his painful existence when he was ready to go.

I think that a person of sound mind should be able to provide a directive by which, when the time comes, they can die peacefully and out of pain.

Let's put it this way, I had no choice when I was born, so I want to have the choice when I'm supposed to die...and being attached to machines, not being able to breathe, eat or drink on my own, is certainly no quality of life, if it ever comes that far, I rather leave this world.

TheGunns wrote: »

I never said they can't? I said personally I would want them to stay alive. I also think everyone can choose on their own as it wouldn't be my decision to make, I'm very much pro choice on most issues.

I suppose I am in such a mindset that staying alive in that case = pain.

Of course I wish, as did my loved one, that they were not in that situation at all, but the long term illness was such a part of our lives for so long.

I wish he had never got sick at all.

Napper Hawkins wrote: »

Loved one wants to die so they don't have to suffer anymore? You're god damn right I'm helping them and they can go right ahead and lock me up all they want.

The issue here of course is that I would rather die writhing in agony than have any member of my family risk a spell in jail for helping me to die.

This is something I've become more and more relaxed on as time has gone by. As taboo as it is to say it, I've seen families torn apart by a family member's seemingly incurable depression, then brought back together and brought into a much more peaceful place when that person makes their last suicide attempt.

As much as the "right to die" argument hovers around those who are terminally ill, there is a wider debate over the individual's right to choose the time and place of their death, whatever their physical or mental state.

Would the world not be a much nicer place if there wasn't this general taboo about death, this collective denial that death actually happens, which goes as far as to cause us do everything we can to keep someone alive even when they have no real life to speak of?

If we spoke about it in public, discussed death with the same inevitability that we talk about falling in love or having children, wouldn't we find it so much easier to accept it, and wouldn't those who are suffering find it much easier to reach out to their loved ones when they decide they want to die?

I imagine for many people who've had a loved one commit suicide, what's as hard, if not harder than the actual death, is the fact that they didn't get to say goodbye properly. If this stigma around death didn't exist, perhaps many would be spared this pain.

This post has been deleted.

im a fan of the Japanese honour system among its samurais and generals, where they stab themselves before being decapitated as sort of a way to regain their dignity before death

I don't think too many people think: I could top myself now... but I think I'll wait 'til tomorrow when I won't be able to do it, just so I can drop my loved one in the sh!t.

sydthebeat wrote: »

WOW !!!!

now you are perverting the decision which the court came to.

to help you out heres the judgement
The findings are very exact and specific, and are based on whether there was a constitutional right to commit suicide, which they found didnt exist.

This decision, of course, doesn't mean that the right shouldn't exist.

This is the crux of the argument, there is no constitutional right to die (I mean by your own choosing vs natural biological event) I agree until there is a right to die, the courts cannot consider discrimination.

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

Death could be a joyous occasion, a glorious final chapter, if we just accepted the fact that you can and should be allowed to choose to do it on your own terms.

I suppose our instinct (and social conditioning) is to live and survive as long as possible regardless of quality of life.

Choosing when you die is the ultimate of choices I suppose. I agree 100% with what you said.

sorry should have said 2(3) if on the trial of an indictment for murder , murder to which section 3 of the criminal justice act 1990 applies or manslaughter ,it is proven that the person charged aided abetted counselled or procured the suicide of the person alleged to have been killed he may be found guilty of an offence under this section.