With the discussion of whether assisted dying should be allowed in Scotland befing brought up again, I was wondering what other people thought of the topic.
Do you think people should be allowed to choose when to end their own life?
What laws need to be put into place to prevent abuses in the system?
How do we account for people changing their mind or mental decline causing people to no longer be able to consent to a procedure they previously requested?
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.
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.
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.
The reason it’s not legal is because dead peasants don’t increase profits or pay taxes.
I didn’t write it in my post, but that’s a 100% correct. Keep the machine running.
The short answer is yes. The longer answer is also yes.
Yes
Yes
As long as it is kept to terminally ill people. Here in Canada, it’s being offered to people with life long health issues (Chronic pain etc.) But for us the slippery slope is it has been offered to people with mental health issues as well. I can’t verify if it is an officially sanctioned offering, but people have come forward with stories of it being offered to them.
Already a thing here in NL.
I’m glad that no one has said no!
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.
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.
Pretty sure it already is here in some capacity…
Not country wide, but I live in California so I could possibly benefit from this if I ever get super fucked up.
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 …
Also its better to let a person die peacefully than having them die in gruesome ways
you know what would be even better? Creating a society where millions of people aren’t suffering to the point where they see no other option in the first place.
What a great idea! Society should just simply not have any disease! That way there will be no suffering!
Why hasn’t anyone else thought of that???
The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. you could create the society and still give people freedom to decide when to end their lives.
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.
Say, didnt you guys hear about that one party which was hugely popular in germany once? The guy in charge was called “the boss” and they had a very specific greet.
They too extended it to people with disabilities.
I dunno… But it seems somewhat relevant…
Brain dead take. The Nazis also breathed air so you better start holding your breath.
you guys hear about that one party which was hugely popular in germany
Evil people can accidentally do humane things under completely evil reasons. The question is always what the victim actually wants.
But I completely respect your ability to make this false comparison and then loudly express concern for it, as reminding us how evil can even coerce people into a bad decision for purely inhumane reasons of cost around the alternatives is a way we can work to avoid that kind of mis-use of this process. We need to be reminded every moment about it.
The moment the state decides if your life is valuable enough or not is the moment we are talking about fascism. It is that simple.
And yes, I’m all for assisted death. But the keyword is assisted. And if you yourself cannot decide if you want to be assisted it just can’t happen.
A politician can not decide for you if you deserve to live or not. A life canot be valued. And that was what was implied.
Some terminal illnesses, I think I’d prefer this route. ALS, for example. No fucking way am I doing that.
If it’s not a play on eugenics, just giving the terminal choices in how they go out, I don’t see the problem.
Disabled Canadian here. Spinal cord injury. I think assisted death is necessary in any society and I am glad we have it. That’s said… That some are choosing death over starvation or homelessness due to disability is not ok. If we give the option for assisted death we also need the support structure to avoid such unfortunately necessary choices for some. I have 3 young kids. I’m fully disabled now at almost 50. I went from a salary when working of almost 100,000/year to $12, 440.61 on disability. Even if I could find work that would make exceptions for my disability I could only earn $6000/year before I would lose my disability altogether and have to work full-time. $6000. Try live for a year on that, but that’s what the feds say justifies full time employment for someone like me. $12,000/ year is no walk in the park but half that would be devastating.
If my major purchases (home etc)were not paid off we would be homeless for certain. A single grocery bill for us for two weeks is well over $300 and we grow all our own vegetables, chickens and eggs out of necessity. If we had a mortgage and car payment we would be seriously considering one less mouth. We are lucky because we live rurally and have some stability in owning our home otherwise MAID would be a consideration. Not because I don’t want to live but because I couldn’t afford to.
Yes, I think this is absolutely okay. However, I do think that it should be periodically reviewed, say, every five years and reaffirmed that this is actually what you want.
Of course.
