I do not know how I feel about this. I used to be totally against ending one's life due to suffering, till I myself was ill for about five months and the docs could not tell me what it was. I was miserable, but to add insult to injury, since the docs couldn't find anyyting wrong, I don't think they took my complaints seriously. During this time, I remember thinking that if I had to live another several decades feeling lik that, I surely wouldn't want it. Which gave me perspective about the terminally ill and their situations. Still don't know how I feel about it, ,esp after feeling better ,but certainly have a better insight.
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What are sleeping dreams but so much garbage?~ Glen’s homophobic newsletter
Well, I just think when faced with nothing but great pain and then death due to a terminal illness, the person facing that pain has a better idea of what they can endure than politicians. Some people will not choose to end things early, some will.
I can't imagine telling someone else "Yeah too bad, you have to suffer before you die anyway". We don't do that to pets, but we do it our human loved ones?
I think this is a really complicated and difficult issue to legislate around. More than people give credit, because nobody seems to want to actually argue about the practicalities.
I'm in favour of the principle, but very worried about the externalities.
__________________ The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. -Eugene Wigner
It may or may not be instructive to look at who else is against assisted dying rights and whether they are also against reproductive health rights, gun control, etc.
I never understood why most (all?) religions are so vehemently against the right to die, given that they (mostly) claim that after death, one goes to a better place.
Because established religions are all about the state, and the state gets to decide when you die - specifically, in war (glory, patriotic duty) - not you.
It's because religions think it's god's place to decide when you die, not yours. By making the decision yourself you are rebelling against god.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I know. The other Fundamentalist hypocrisy that really gets to me is the use of fertility drugs. You're always going on about god's will, but when his will appears to be that you not reproduce, you can't accept that. Not that I'm opposed to fertility drugs, just the hypocrisy.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
Does the law make insurance companies pay out death benefits? Because really that's the only thing holding people back from killing themselves if they're sick. It's not that hard to do.
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Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.
I would think fear of mucking it up stops some people. Also not wanting family members to be traumatized by finding the mess. Doing it in a controlled environment with professional help would stop all that. I heard an interview with John Cleese once. He said the dead body episode of Fawlty Towers was based on something the manager of The Ritz told him. He said that people would book into their hotel to commit suicide so their loved ones wouldn't find the body and because they knew The Ritz would handle things beautifully.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
Does the law make insurance companies pay out death benefits? Because really that's the only thing holding people back from killing themselves if they're sick. It's not that hard to do.
Um wow, group against Jerry Brown's new law says it would rather you be indefinitely unconscious than dead.
Sure, take some potentially destructive medication that puts you in a near death state, but don't actually die! Yeah that sounds a bit like hell to me. There's a reason so many medical professionals have DNR tattoos.
It's a step forward in accepting death and accepting that the medical world has blurred the line between life and death.