Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

www.thesun.co.uk I refer to an article that was in The Sun and on Tv news concerning a British woman, that had to go abroad to commit suicide due to her illness.

And the person that appeared on Tv to say it was wrong and that she should have allowed the disease to go the full way for death.

The woman had Lung and Liver cancer, and due to the ignorance of politicians that won't allow this to be carried out in this country.

Words fail me on this subject, as if it is shown and proven that you will suffer death due to your illness, and you do not have the will to live, due to pain, then you should have that right to end your life - but in law you cannot do it.

There are many people who want to decide that the pain is so bad, that they cannot cope anymore, so that there decision is the end.

I have seen many people in my life that they cannot cope, but cannot do anything about it due to the law. I don't know what many members believe in, I feel that if anyone feels that this is the only way of going, then they should be allowed to do it, and not have to go abroad to do it.:(

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

I think it should be allowed.

Obviously you have to be very careful and in todays blame culture, especially so.

But if I was unfortunate enough to find myself in those circumstances, I would want to leave this world on my terms and leave my family with the right memories.

I speak from personal experience as someone who lost his father to lung cancer whilst I was still a child, when he passed he was not how I would like to remember him.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

I have always said we should have this law in place. We should have the right to assistance from loved ones or medical practitioners should there be a medical reason to end your life.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Assisted Suicide should be allowed provided there are the necessary checks and procedures in place.

It's a no-brainer for anybody who has had to witness a loved one fade away, losing life and losing dignity.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

l have to agree with a lot of what you said orovided everything is done the right and proper way.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

I have,

It took 4 months of watching my father slowly lose his ability to speak, recognise his family and to control his bodily functions because of a stroke, He finally found peace because of pneumonia :(

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

When l lost my father some 45 years ago, this idea was never thought of, but he was suffering cancer, and to see him at the end in such a bad way, l firmly believe that he would have asked that question.

To keep him alive, he was on at least 15 tablets per day, and to see him popping those things, always made us sad.

He was that bad when he was passing, the hospice gave him a drug to kill the pain, there are many people today that are in the same position, and it should not be politician that should decide what happens.

Politicians set the laws of this country, and they should change it, so that if TWO doctors decide there is no medical power that will keep that person alive, then it should be the person plus the family that should decide.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

should be allowed ,but knowing our governments if they ever get around to debating this and passing laws to allow it,it will be poorly regulated and mis managed .At the moment i think they should allow people to acompany relatives abroard to established clinics without fear of prosecution as a starter

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

The state has no right to force people who want to die to live.

We should have properly regulated ways to do this similar to how Dignitas do it.

http://www.dignitas.ch/index.php?opt...mid=60&lang=en

Substantial checks and balances, and the person must be able to administer themselves the dose through a glass of water.

If done in this manner I've absolutely no issues with it, obviously there must be this level of substantial checks and balances.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

It should be a human right. There is no dignified way of dying with many illnesses.

We kowtow to the human rights of the despised paedophiles and other prisoners yet we can't allow good and decent people, what should be a basic human right, of dying with dignity.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

I have done so now on 5 occasions ( grandfather father close family friend my father in law and grandfather in law )and I still don’t think this should be brought into law

as it stands very few get taken to court and those that do in the vast majority of cases are let off with minimal or no sentence BUT that check is needed

It would be far too easy for unscrupulous family members to persuade elderly relatives that this is what they should do

I would make an exception if the person helping was willing to forgo any financial gain they would gain through the persons passing



Also I would do is make it harder for people to complain about a Doctor giving pain relief that may in the course of reliving pain cause death which imho is why this subject is being brought forward more often now

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

although i agree in principal with assisted suicide, and i would want the right to be able to do this should the need arise with myself, i have experienced this from the other side of the coin.

A few years ago i lost my youngest child to bone cancer she was 9yrs old, and it was a slow horrible painful death that took 5 months to take her life, after her last chemo treatment.

Even now i really dont know how my family and I got through it, but i can honestly say that i dont think that i could have given the consent to end her life, mind u i say that now but most prob at the time i would have done.

But where do u draw the line, there are so many different variations on how illness effects individuals and how ppl cope with them, and we all have different perceptions of wat a quality of life is. I would be mortified if my brain was active but my body ceased to function, but there are many who live like this on a day to day basis.

Wat i dont agree with is having to go to court and a judge who is a stranger and knows nothing of the situation will make a ruling as to whether u live or die, using evidence from medical professionals who have taken an oath to save lives, regardless of the patients wishes.

The point am trying to make is that ppl should have a choice.

Juliex

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

If Dignitas is the benchmark I'm against it.

Scores of urns containing human ashes have been found dumped in a lake near the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas.

One estimate puts the number discovered 30ft down on the bed of Lake Zurich at 300 or more.

Very dignified, what ever the reason and I wonder how long it'll be before we have the depressed being put down like in Holland or Switzerland.

Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas is under investigation over claims that it ignored a patient's distressed mental condition to give him drugs to end his own life.

Strict assisted suicide laws in Switzerland state that each patient must be of sound mind and able to understand the consequences of their actions.

But now details have emerged of a patient who was allegedly given a DIY suicide kit prescribed by a Zurich gynaeologist despite suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...icide-kit.html

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Just as well I was referring to those specific checks and balances rather than holding the entire clinic and everything it does up as an example.

So long as those are followed all is, in my opinion, fine.

Errors, omissions and outright failures accepted.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

I can't speak for Switzerland, but I'd be very surprised if you could come up with a credible example of depressed people being 'put down' in Holland.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Unfortunately the self administration means people have to choose to go earlier than perhaps they would like. Mentally they may wish to stay with their loved ones for longer until such time as they physically cannot cope any more, by which time it is too late to self administer. Tragic all ways round but at least there is an option.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Candy1567, my deep sympathies are with you over your loss, this is exactly what l am saying.

My wife and l suffered a tragic death some 10 years ago with our grandson, you do not get over it, and the sadness is that you see your loved one go through so much pain, and you cannot do ' assisted suicide'

As l said originally, it has to be that the family have to agree along with the patient and that the doctors agree that life cannot be continued due to the illness.

When l started this thread, l thought long and hard about the re-action that it would get, l have read so many articles on this in the media, and you often wonder, what right as politicians have in running our life's, if they won't subscribe the product to cure problems, and then you have people who are seriously ill, they must consider the person who is suffering and also the family, politicians must let them decide the final path without fear of what will happen afterwards.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

If someone in my family was stricken with a painful disease, or were going to suffer to the end, I would have no problem assisting them to die, if they wanted to choose their time of death.

I think it's every humans right to decide whether they wish to continue living or not, it's really no one elses business

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

I am in full favour of a way for those with terminal illness to be able to go out at a time and way of their choosing rather then making them suffer to the very end. I find the double standard in the UK disgusting to be honest if an animal is in a lot of pain with no way to live we have no problem putting them down and it is seen as the right thing to do. But when it comes to people we have to cling on to the very last second because to some idiots "life is precious", now life is precious a full active life that can be lived and enjoyed. Life in a bed not knowing who you are who those around you are or in so much pain that every minute seems like an eternity that is not precious that is torture.

WE really need to grow up as a country and deal with this issue in a way that is indicative of a so called developed society rather then making people suffer for the moral or ethical values of people not yet in that position.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

What we have to be careful of though is people who think they are becoming a burden to there family wanting to have assisted suicide. In the last 2 years I have gone from being a very active man to someone who can hardly walk, cant cook and has to rely on my wife for everything. The doctors have said I may never improve which is making me so depressed. I have not thought about taking my life but I am not everybody.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

I think the problem in general, is it's a "taboo" subject and the government doesn't want to touch on it, incase it offends religious groups A, B, C or D, or incase there's to much backlash from pro life groups

It's the same "taboo" subjects like gay marriage or women working in the armed forces etc, over time (I hope), it'll be accepted and made legal. (with proper procedures/checks in place, of course).

Reminds me of this Australian story - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-die-laws.html

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

The case involved the 1991 assisted suicide of a depressed woman named Hilly Bosscher. After Bosscher’s two sons died, she became obsessed about being buried between them. She approached the Dutch psychiatrist Boutdewijn Chabot, an assisted suicide advocate, seeking his help in killing herself. Chabot met with her on four occasions, but did not attempt treatment. Instead, believing that she would never improve, he assisted Bosscher’s suicide. The Dutch Supreme Court subsequently approved, finding, like the Swiss court after it, that the law cannot distinguish between suffering caused by physical illness and that caused by mental anguish.

http://www.christianliferesources.co...articleid=1238

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Thanks for that. I tried to see if I could find any Dutch sources to that case, but I can find very little about that case.

However, what I can say is that it's certainly not the case that depressed people are routinely put down. One thing I did find is that in Belgium, in 2004 and 2005 combined, 4 people with chronic depression requested and were granted Euthanasia (as far as I can tell there were a total of 349 cases of Euthanasia in Belgium in 2004).

Personally, I'm not too sure what to think of these cases (though I'm sure doctors will not read lightly here). I can see the argument that physical and mental suffering can be indistinguishable, but it seems difficult to me to determine to what extent a depression will not improve.

Either way, it's certainly not the case that many people receive Euthanasia for depression, so it appears to me that allowing Euthanasia certainly isn't the 'thin end of the wedge' where depressed people are concerned.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Speaking from past and present experience, I'd imagine it's the length of time the person has been depressed for and how many drugs/treatments that they've tried, which have been unsuccessful.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Yes, one would imagine that's the case, but since I don't know what the procedure is, I'm not going to say there's no problems whatsoever. What I have gathered is that Euthanasia based on mental suffering makes up a tiny proportion of all cases.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Ah, quite right.
I didn't even know people could apply for such a thing for mental illnesses.

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Course you didn't, most people don't either, imo it's a prime example of why we shouldn't allow this genie out of the bottle, first of all it's passed and the strictest of safe guards are in place protecting all but the most terminally ill, then it's watered down a little so those in coma's can killed, then a bit more so the mentally ill can participate, then a little more so the elderly but healthyish can join in and years down the line it's open to all.

Another thing I'm sure most people don't know is that living wills are now legally being used to assist suicide in this country, was that what they were brought in and designed for, of course it isn't.

It is believed to be the first time a so-called "living will" has been used to legally aid someone's suicide.

Kerrie Wooltorton, who suffered depression over an inability to have children, was rushed to hospital by ambulance from her flat in Norwich after swallowing car anti-freeze fluid.

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/15396677

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

but where do we draw the line who decides who is suffering the most, and wishes for it to end

those with a terminal illness to ease suffering, those with a mental health conditions, those with chronic pain, those with genetic conditions, those in a vegetable state, road traffic victims etc

who decides......and as i earlier pointed out those unfortunate children with life limiting illnessess, does their parents get to make that choice?

How do we measure wat "quality of life means"

Also there is usually time to prepare for assisted suicide with say terminal illness, genetic conditions, but wat about those who have accidents and then they dont have that choice to prepare or to write a living will

Juliexx

Re: Assisted suicide right or wrong
 

Not sure if there should be a line drawn, as such, it's upto, or should be upto the individual if they wish to continue living or not

Who are we, or anyone, to deny someone that option?

The only thing society/the government should/can do, is offer help IF they choose to accept it (in the case of depression/mentally ill etc)

Mind you, I am depressed myself, so perhaps I'm a tad bias :P hehe