Would you be in favour of assisted dying being introduced for terminally ill patients in your country?

Tarquinn2049, 1 month ago

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.

Kolanaki, 1 month ago

Pretty sure it already is here in some capacity…

Yep. uclahealth.org/…/california-end-life-option-act-e…

Not country wide, but I live in California so I could possibly benefit from this if I ever get super fucked up.

neidu2, 1 month ago

Yes

moistclump, 1 month ago

Yes

DessertStorms, 1 month ago

I think in utopia it'd be great, but we don't live in utopia, and in the world we do live in, assisted suicide is just an easy out for ableist society to push us towards, because it's significantly easier to dispose of us from behind the alarmingly thin veil of "compassion" than it is to create a world where we don't struggle and suffer by default just for existing as ill or disabled people.

And it's so much easier mostly because the first step to creating an actually compassionate and inclusive world, is facing the fact that society and the individuals in it treats disabled people so badly and sees so little value in our lives, which is why so many abled people (including those making legislation, because disabled people sure aren't) would "rather die than be disabled" in the first place (or why so many disabled people have been denied treatment because their lives were deemed "not worth saving", which happens a lot more often than most people would be comfortable acknowledging), and that's simply not something most abled people are willing to do, never mind actually acting on these facts to change them.

This kind of legislation is closer to eugenics than it is disability rights.

slazer2au, 1 month ago

Already a thing here in NL.

amio, 1 month ago

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.

Num10ck, 1 month ago

it also affects the life insurance industry. have a terminal illness with a couple months of agony left? if you end it early, they won’t pay out.

shinigamiookamiryuu, 1 month ago

This would seem like the kind of question that sounds at first like a single question but causes a number of others to be unpacked. For example, would someone see a difference between simply pulling a plug, ceasing to feed someone, and administering a drug, or would this being politicized be too much of a fear…

A few things come to mind here as certainties for me. To start out, if a society for whatever reason greenlights the concept, definitely don’t institutionalize/politicize it. The moment it even becomes a debate in the public sphere, pull the heck out, the concept is lost. I might not have the greatest relationship with life, but the same thoughtpath makes it hard to comprehend being all willy-nilly about it. In such a society, if anything, I’d say it should be by an individual’s own breath that the candle is blown out, so to speak. Going by the same literary device, if the individual cannot produce the exhale to do that, shrug your shoulders. I would not put a dog down for this reason. By the same token, everyone should recognize the gravity of all this, which in most cases nobody does.

snooggums, 1 month ago

Pulling the plug is like assisted suicide, but with a ton of suffering as the body fails slowly. Stopping a feeding tube is killing through starvation.

Assisted suicide would reduce the pain and suffering in both cases by allowing for pain reduction and shortening the time span.

shinigamiookamiryuu, 1 month ago

It’s difficult to explain sometimes, but it’s not the pain that throws me off concept-wise, it’s the personhood aspect of it, in the sense that if you’re deemed a proxy and your obliged act in question is to be so absolute as to remove them from the world, then you must ask yourself, how absolute are you?

ricecake, 1 month ago

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.

Jackthelad, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

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.

Showroom7561, 1 month ago

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.

tygerprints, 1 month ago

Of course I am completely in favor of assisted suicide. Not necessarily just for terminally ill patients but those who have absolutely zero quality of life and only experience life as a series of horrible painful stressors.

It's every human being's right to choose when to end their own life. And after all, death is just the cracking of the outer shell and release into the world you always wanted to live in - it's a freeing of the spirit within and a necessary part of one's life cycle.

There's always going to be some problem around people changing their mind but, I think most people opting for such a procedure would never change their mind about it. You'd have to have them sign release and total consent forms, and I can already see this thing getting balled up in wads of red tape that will make it virtually impossible to carry out.

intensely_human, 1 month ago

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.

systemglitch, 1 month ago

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.

Lemminary, 1 month ago

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.