Suicide tourist
That_Annoying_Kid
Sire of Titles Join Date: 2003-03-01 Member: 14175Members, Constellation
Sire of Titles Join Date: 2003-03-01 Member: 14175Members, Constellation
in Discussions
<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/suicidetourist/view/" target="_blank">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/suicidetourist/view/</a>
Having heard of this documentary, and being able to see it in America was very interesting for me
I recall the uproar when the BBC aired this.
I for one think that as long as no one is forced to kill themselves, why not allow this type of behavior?
After watching this video, I teared up during the last bit, I've always been a bit emotional when it comes to my movies. Loss of human life regardless saddens me, but it's only so much more complicated after listening to this guy detail what has lead him to this path.
Having heard of this documentary, and being able to see it in America was very interesting for me
I recall the uproar when the BBC aired this.
I for one think that as long as no one is forced to kill themselves, why not allow this type of behavior?
After watching this video, I teared up during the last bit, I've always been a bit emotional when it comes to my movies. Loss of human life regardless saddens me, but it's only so much more complicated after listening to this guy detail what has lead him to this path.
Comments
Taking a few deep breaths of CO or drinking some sleepypoison is vastly preferable to soiling yourself for six months before suffocating, regardless of what some magical mythical man in the sky has to say on the subject.
--Scythe--
And scythe, I would not recommend anyone to breath carbonmonoxide, besides, isnt CO2 way easyer to obtain? But yeah, suffocation must be a horrible death, if I were to die I would like it to be something nice and "painless", like donating my body to brain surgery research on living beings.
I also think serial killers are a good thing, if they apply on the right people (not me :P) and is not to many. We are already to many for this planet and we are just becoming more, we have to atleast slow down our population rate :P.
Might sound controversial, but what would be best in the end (This is not a real suggestion, just something to make people react XD. Serial killers are way to hard for the state to controll)?
Altough I must say laws on breeding would be better, as that would cost us less money spent on teaching those people and such.
Taking a few deep breaths of CO or drinking some sleepypoison is vastly preferable to soiling yourself for six months before suffocating, regardless of what some magical mythical man in the sky has to say on the subject.
--Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pff. Tell that to the woman who went and drowned herself rather than subject herself and her family to a prolonged, mis-.. oh.
Honestly though, let's stick to rational debate for now and deal with fairytales at some other time and place, 'kay? 'kay!
So anyway, I can't deal with the film directly because I am not allowed to view it due to licensing bull######, but I can deal with the subject, and suicide is always a problematic one. There's always the question of validity. There's always the question "is/was suicide a valid solution to the problem?" That's an important question, because people shouldn't be allowed to off themselves if it's clearly a bad decision. This may seem meddlesome, but ask yourself this:
Suppose a friend of yours is heavily depressed due to some circumstance you know to be temporary and/or otherwise not something that will be a long-term debility (classic example: boy/girlfriend left them), and you suspect they may be suicidally inclined. You don't do anything about it, and they end up offing themselves. Would you say that you have, as a friend, done the right thing? You knew the problem could be solved or that they could get over it, but you did nothing and now your friend is dead and that's something that can never be fixed. I don't know about you, but *I* would say that you have failed as a friend.
And I think society as a whole to some degree can stand in for you in this situation. Obviously we can't, as a society, take responsibility for or help everyone, but we can do our part.
And some of that means being very careful with the kinds of suicide we condone. I can condone offing yourself when you reach the terminal stage of an incurable disease, when you can quite forcefully state "from this point on forward and until the end my life will be joyless to me and those around me." And I can't in any way condone suicide as a way out of a purely temporary problem, like the one mentioned above, something I'm pretty sure all of you agree with me on.
But not every example is this clear-cut. What about someone who has an incurable disease but years to live (let's say an early stage of Alzheimer's disease), with the onset of the terminal stage still far away. If they say "I can't deal with that, let's just finish it now," should we let them? We deem that they still have years of life-worth-living (and maybe we're willing to let them off themselves later on), but they disagree. Do they fall in the "I-agree-suicide-is-a-release" group or the "suicide-is-not-the-solution-to-your-problem" group? I can't answer that question, and I don't think anyone can give an answer that everyone will agree with.
<!--quoteo(post=1773000:date=Jun 1 2010, 03:17 PM:name=Feha)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Feha @ Jun 1 2010, 03:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1773000"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And scythe, I would not recommend anyone to breath carbonmonoxide, besides, isnt CO2 way easyer to obtain? But yeah, suffocation must be a horrible death, if I were to die I would like it to be something nice and "painless", like donating my body to brain surgery research on living beings.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I wouldn't recommend that either - unless they're trying to kill themselves. :P
Carbon monoxide is actually a reasonably "good" way to do it. Carbon dioxide isn't THAT easy to obtain in larger quantities, especially not compared to monoxide: Pipe your car's exhaust in through the window. Also, carbon dioxide is an irritant, with high concentrations of it being very unpleasant. Death ultimately occurs through suffocation as carbon dioxide displaces athmospheric air and thus oxygen. As the breathing reflex is tied to the blood's acidity (i.e. carbon dioxide content), this causes a highly unpleasant choking sensation. Meanwhile, carbon monoxide is odourless and non-irritating (which makes it stealthy and thus deadly) and you'll exhale your carbon dioxide quite normally, meaning that you won't feel much if anything. However, since carbon monoxide binds more readily to human blood than oxygen, your oxygen intake will be inhibited and you will eventually pass out and subsequently die from hypoxia. The big risk is that somebody finds and "saves" you once your brain has been damaged to the point of vegetable but not yet death.
At the end of the day, the real question is for people who need assistance in doing the job as many people just do the deed and say ###### you to the law and the moral majority.
And yes, religion shouldn't come into the discussion, which should be the case for any legal discussion. Religion can motivate ones position, but should not inform the argument.
Another important point: Does the presence of reliable and painless means of taking one's own life make the option more attractive, influencing the decision in the first question? Or does it provide peace of mind on account of the knowledge that, when the time comes, ending one's life is straightforward, inclining people to stay alive longer without the burden of worrying about painful, gradual death?
--Scythe--
People who die are quite fortunate really, most people seem to have rather horrible lives, with far more problems than benefits, if they're dead they don't have to endure any.
Unfortunately it causes problems for everyone still alive, but ultimately the choice with what to do with your life has to rest with you, and if you want or don't want to take other people's feelings into account when you decide what to do with it, that's also your choice. Most people are capable of making decisions they are willing and able to be held responsible for, choosing to live or die is not much different.
Taking a few deep breaths of CO or drinking some sleepypoison is vastly preferable to soiling yourself for six months before suffocating, regardless of what some magical mythical man in the sky has to say on the subject.
--Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The taking on one's life is forbidden by the Ten Commandments. This would apply to one's own life as well.
Spit on...
Spit on...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But you, and many other christians, support the death penalty.
That alone proves that even in your example there are exceptions to the rule.
I'm guessing you're directing this towards Scythe? Granted, I was baited...
And Stickman, God killed individuals because they engaged in various transgressions in the Old Testament, so it was justified.
What I'm saying is you've already made one exception, in that specific case. I recall from the various capital punishment threads that you support capital punishment, i.e. the state's right to take a life if they deem it necessary, too.
What you are in effect saying is "anyone taking any life is always wrong. Except when it isn't." And you get to define when it isn't.
Yes, you were baited, and that's his fault. Bad Scythe.
However, you're WILLFULLY swallowing the bait, and that's your fault. Bad Depot.
I'm not going to commit suicide myself, because I fear going to hell. That's good enough reason for me.
Personally, I think that sane and rational people should be allowed to chose to end their lives in the face of intractable pain. This is a personal decision. If you chose not to take it b/c of religious or ideological reasons, that is ok. However it isn't ok to remove this choice from others based on those reasons.
HOWEVER, I have problems with legalizing it as I fear the abuse of such laws, or the neglect that could follow them. Drs/family/society 'Convincing' a patient to take the option is wrong. One mistake where some one dies when they should not is too much for me.
Sir Terry Pratchett is a strong proponent of assisted suicide (he calls it assisted death), and has stated that he views the route as one he believes he will take. He has also been recently pushing for the legalization of tribunals for people who want to take this route, a non-partisan fact finding type thing, where everything is properly considered.
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/02/terry-pratchett-assisted-suicide-tribunal" target="_blank">Info</a>
I don't have a good answer one way or another. My morals say one thing, my practicality another.
Another idea, related to this, is the one that (to me) seems to be the strongest criticism of the idea. If legalised suicide (in whatever form) is... legalised (I'm such a great writer), and becomes socially acceptable or "normal", then there could be pressure on the old and terminally ill to go do it anyway, regardless of their personal feelings, in much the same way people are pressured into drinking or smoking or whatever.
That said, it'd be an awfully long time before assisted suicide was in any way considered "the normal thing to do", if it ever was. I don't even agree with the argument, frankly, I just think it's the most convincing one to make.
What I actually fear would be more akin to current elder abuse (a rather serious problem).
Really it's me shying away from legalizing any sort of killing, I don't necessarily think that something bad would happen automatically, however it is delicate ground as far as I'm concerned and thus fear bad laws being passed.
yes depot, we know it is CURRENTLY illegal in most of the US and EU, thus why we are discussing it.
What I actually fear would be more akin to current elder abuse (a rather serious problem).
Really it's me shying away from legalizing any sort of killing, I don't necessarily think that something bad would happen automatically, however it is delicate ground as far as I'm concerned and thus fear bad laws being passed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Surely someone who would be willing to push a person to go to a suicide centre (or whatever the option ended up being if it was legalised) wouldn't be particularly averse to pushing the same person to commit regular suicide? Would there really be a rise in it, or just a change in methods?
I dono, that's my problem.
However, I could see some one, either intentionally, or unintentionally, pushing for it because it IS legal, when they wouldn't push because it isn't.
Sure, some whackjob that gets off on getting people to top them selves wouldn't care about the law, however some one who doesn't think they are doing the wrong thing might.
Basically, I think I am for it the legalization, so long as the laws involved are strict, including a good bit of over site, which is why I like the idea of tribunals.
If someone pushes someone to kill themselves then they have to be pretty depressed to begin with, and they're going to die anyway, so a few short decades sooner rather than later makes little difference really. It also means they don't have to go through recovery, and precludes the possibility of never recovering.
Basically even if it results in more deaths than if it hadn't been legalised, that isn't neccesarily a bad thing, and if it is, it isn't neccesarily <i>as</i> bad as it may appear at first glance.
As for Chris, who is basically saying that suicide should be legal, full stop, I don't know how to counter that. I view life as important. I think that some one aiding some one in committing suicide over a transient cause is a horrible thing, akin to murder. Pushing a depressed person to suicide is murder. A decade is a long time, the concept of cutting some one's life short by 20+ years is horrible (seriously, that would leave me with having lived all of 7 years). If you really value life that little, I don't know what to say.
Not to toot my own horn, but I think my first post on page one did that.
Life in general is important, but life in general is (supposedly) something which is fulfilling and purposeful.
If someone doesn't have either of those, then life has rather little value, other than the value of anything inherently complex like a living human being, but earth is covered in those so they aren't too valuable and are easily replaceable.
I believe value is something attained, you aren't born with very much, and if you really don't like your life, then to you it probably hasn't acquired very much. Someone who is happy with their life has a reason to live (or is happy with the lack of such), and is happy living. It seems rather cruel to inflict life on someone who is really not very happy with it, and to demand that they go through hell to cobble together some fragments of happiness over a long time in order to make their life less miserable. It seems far more considerate to simply kill them and spare them the misery.
Murder is a legal term so if it's legal it can't be murder, but killing people is certainly still killing people regardless of how many proxies you go through, and yes it still makes you responsible for the death regardless of whether it's legal. Personally I find it easier to live with the idea that I'm responsible for killing someone than I do the idea that I'm responsible for inflicting years of causeless and purposeless misery on them.
I tend to think in universal terms so most timespans an individual human would deal with seem horribly short, I'm 21 at the moment and I hardly feel as though I've lived long enough to blink. I'm a quarter dead even if I'm lucky and two decades is not a very long time, the other six are not likely to be any longer.
The belief that nothing will ever get better again is the most fundamental underlying cause for suicide. And in some cases, such as terminal disease, that belief can be argued for rationally. But in most cases that belief is borne out of depression, a mental condition which more often than not can be cured. To let people suffering from a curable disease kill themselves instead of trying to cure their affliction is horribly irresponsible, if not callous.
Depression is an outlook, and it's an outlook you can have with any problem, solving one problem doesn't change your tendency to have the outlook, so depression is somewhat permanent in my experience, unless you change the person irreversibly or find some way to make sure they never ever have any problems.