Asking legitimately not as a joke
From the perspective of someone who generally would prefer not to exist, because I don’t trust my brain to make that decision. How we perceive reality can vary incredibly from it, suicide can seem not only an appropriate response to your situation but the only way to escape it one day, only to have the next day feel nowhere near as bad. In short, requiring other people’s input and approval on your decision to die is a good thing. Medical assistance in dying SHOULD be legal and available everywhere, but it’s important to make sure it’s actually appropriate.
Good point about our perception of reality. If we have drugs available to us that can make us perceive reality as not that bad (or even good), then what if it’s just a defect in our bodies that makes us feel like life isn’t worth living? If our bodies are simply defective in producing the mood balancing hormones, then depression or other mood disorders can be treated with medicines, no different than taking a Tums when we overindulge on Thanksgiving.
I personally believe we should have the right to die, moreso as an individual choice than one a relative should make. We as individuals, who did not consent to living in this absolutely broken society, should have every right to just say one day, “Y’know what, I’ve had enough, I’m done.” This comment will likely be controversial, and I am not encouraging anyone to commit suicide, seek help where and how you can, suicide can be a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
A friend of mine told me once she considered those who commit suicide (outside of terminal illness) to be cowards, taking the “easy” way out and leaving their loved ones to suffer. I argued back that how is it unacceptable for loved ones to suffer, but it’s perfectly acceptable for the individual to suffer to keep the loved ones comfortable? And that’s what mental health (tin foil hat time) is entirely about: not comfort for the individual, but comfort for the society.
It doesn’t matter if you are completely disenfranchised with society, struggling to make ends meet, working multiple jobs with no benefits, eating the same meal 2-3 times a day every day to save money, none of that matters because you’re not contributing to society/capitalism they way you’re supposed to. When the VA was trying to force me onto SSRIs despite my objections due to the side effects they can have, I told them flat out I wasn’t taking a pill just so I could be “productive” for a society that will let me die in the streets at the earliest and cheapest convenience. And no “pill” is going to fix how sick and broken we are as a society.
We as a species weren’t designed for this kind of society, we’re an analog species trying to adapt to a digital world we haven’t had time to properly adjust to. We aren’t designed to work 40 hours/week, 8 hours/day, 50+ weeks per year. We aren’t designed to work ourselves to exhaustion and forego social interactions in the pursuit of more money to try and keep the lights on. And we are watching the largest transfer of wealth to the ultra-wealthy, making the Gilded Age look like child’s play.
So I guess, to sum it up: I think everyone should have the right to end their own life, regardless of the reason, but I don’t believe anyone should have the right to end someone else’s life outside of already-established practices (DNR orders, “pulling the plug” as PoA, etc). We are too broken as a society to trust ourselves to choose when others should die, but we should absolutely be allowing individual’s to end their own lives.
Agreed. I am becoming increasingly more skeptical of psychiatry since it seems like a means of downloading society’s problems onto individuals.
Anyone can already euthanize themselves. We’re all just a helium or nitrogen tank and trash bags away from our exit stage right.
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I’d say that’s on you, there’s more places to not be found than there are discoverable locations on the earth. Proper planning prevents poor performance and all that.
So I want to start with the pretext that I’m a lifelong defender of euthanasia. I’ve watched my mom slowly die of brain cancer as she lost function.
That said, euthanasia is easy to combine with removal of the autonomy of the disabled and can lead to very bad places. Especially since less severely disabled people is a positive incentive for governments.
A person’s relationship with their life is an interesting thing philosophically. You can’t consent to it, and most of us feel you can’t easily give it up either.
I don’t believe this myself but you could rationally argue that having life and being required to keep living is a violation of your agency as a human being.
There’s a fact-checked debate from Vox where both parties set 3 facts that they both agree to. Then they provide footnotes and more information that’s not covered by just the facts. I found this format very enlightening while also explaining both points of view without getting heated.
I only found it on YouTube, but it might be available elsewhere.
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You can’t rely on someone who is suffering to make a rational decision about weighing a very permanent choice with the chances of maybe someday getting better.
That’s just not true. People dealing with chronic pain can absolutely make informed decisions about their own healthcare, including voluntary euthanasia. Psychiatric and neurological illnesses could potentially impair a person’s judgment enough to bar them from making the choice themselves, but this notion that anyone who is “suffering” can’t be relied upon to make a rational decision because they’re somehow too biased by their own pain is pure idiocy.
I fully support being able to choose to end your own life with dignity. But in Canada there were reports of people encouraging the homeless and severely ill to do it, simply because it was cheaper and easier for the institutions if these people killed themselves.
Within a capitalist society, where the lives of those who do not produce profit are not valued, it can lead to some sickening discriminatory behavior from profit-driven institutions.
How many of those people being encouraged are actually doing it tho? That should be the main issue, not the fact that people are encouraging them.
Nope. Bad take.
Yeah, I see your airtight logic there and wouldn’t dream of arguing.
within a capitalist society
Besides slavery, I cannot think of any successful societal system to date that did not prioritize rewarding the productive and/or powerful. Not saying that you’re wrong, just that it’s far from exclusive to capitalism. (The bar for “success” here being a society that exists over many generations)
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution
Maybe you can’t think of them but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.
Socialism and communism are specifically designed to put the needs of the people first. ‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.’
Socialism and communism, in theory, are structured to prioritize the needs of the people over profit or power. That slogan captures that ideal beautifully. However, history shows that the implementation of these systems falls short of their ideals. Issues like bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, or the consolidation of power within ruling parties have led to systems that still reward the powerful or productive, just in different ways. I’d argue that the challenge isn’t the system itself but the difficulty of designing any system that fully aligns with such principles while addressing the complexities of human behavior and societal needs. Capitalism embraces it while socialism and communism pay lip service to ideals while also committing the same sins in practice. My point that it’s not exclusive to capitalism remains.
Is there a socialist society that has failed without the US crushing it?
You’re comparing what corrupt communist leaders do to what capitalism does by design.
Yes, that’s what I said. I’m not defending capitalism.
You mean cronie capitalism. The Fabian Socialist were big into eugenics, remember. Straight capitalism is based on a free and open market. That’s not what anywhere has.
“Free and open markets” work in theory, lol.
Private ownership over the means of production and allowing people to hoard capital will ALWAYS concentrate wealth and will ALWAYS produce an oligarchy.
You just unironically made a “capitalism hasn’t actually been tried yet” post in a thread where you’re on the “communism and socialism never work” position.
The irony is delicious
I never said it’s never been tried, lol. But when the government picks winners and losers, it’s not a free market
No one would want to. Letting capitalists run rampant (more so than they already do) would be extremely destructive for any society.
Sources on that? Serious question
I’ve heard multiple people claiming this yet haven’t read anything about it
Misuse, or misjudging when to use it.
Exactly, if it’s going to be a policy it needs to have extensive safeguards. Who can make the call? Under what circumstances? What are the consequences for malpractice?
Imagine a shitty person, insurance company or hospital preferring to prematurely kill you or someone you love because it’s less effort and cheaper than trying to keep a person alive and help them recover. Because you know someday somebody will try
That’s a good reason to have a process for euthanization that is as thorough as the one for letting people die slowly by cutting off feeding tubes or machines that assist with bodily functions. Or even like the Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) choice that people can make when they are of sound mind.
It is not a good reason to ban it and make everyone else suffer by dragging out death when it is an inevitability and the person is ready to go.
For the record, I’m all for the right to medically and painlessly end one’s own life if they so choose. That said…
It could potentially be abused in situations where someone has power of attorney or some other situation where they can make medical decisions on your behalf. That seems like a pretty easy thing to guard against, though.
“Oh you’re disabled and can’t work”
Let’s make disability benefits super low, so you are unable to survive, thereby you have to “choose” euthanasia.
Current socio economic regime already works like this, at least within US and other third world locations, people are just in denial about it.
The sick and elderly may feel pressure to not be a burden to others.
Do they not already? I work out a lot to prevent myself from being a burden if I’m older
Overall yes, but that pressure might be magnitudes greater when there is “an easy way out”.
Again, there already is an easy way out. All that would change is the manner in which is happens and whether it happens professionally or not.
There is an ever so slight difference between the appeal of jumping off a building, slitting your wrists, overdosing on some self-made drug cocktail, … and having a professional inject you a syringe of carefully dosed substances which will make you comfortable drift off into the eternal void. Not just for the patient, but also everyone around them. In the past, I had to comfort a friend who was severely traumatised after a patient of hers jumped out of the hospital’s window after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis.
And what is wrong with that?
I’ll gladly remove myself and the burden of caring for me if it comes to an incurable illness. Better I leave my wife with more resources than drain all those and still leave.
And argon or nitrogen can easily be had at welding supply stores…
You shouldn’t draw conclusions about others from yourself.
Some people might still value what they have. And who are you to tell another what others should do with their live?
They aren’t telling other people what to do, they are in favor of having the ability to decide. Euthanasia baing illegal is deciding everyone who is terminally ill must have a slow and agonizing death.
That’s not what was written:
- What are flaws of allowing anyone to euthanize themselves?
- People might feel pressured to kill themselves.
- And what is wrong with that?
That is exactly the opposite of giving people the option to choose. It’s pushing them into a given direction.
And just for the record: I watched my Great grandma wither away in a senior home while asking to be let go. I would have gladly given her peace if it was legal. But it has to be the person’s own choice. Free from others influence and pressure.
The hospital industrial complex doesn’t get to make ass loads of money from keeping people alive just to suffer.
For assisted suicide, I think you just need to make sure it’s the only option left to stop or prevent the suffering of a person (like an incurable disease, or debilitating conditions with no cure, etc.). You also need to make sure the choice is made with enlightened consent.
To allow someone to kill someone else is another level of complexity. The processes of gathering consent, and the reasons to proceed are extremely complex to make sure the decision is taken within the bounds of actual consent, especially if the person to be killed is not conscious or in a capacity to understand.
Time, multiple checks/options to back out, and independent evaluation is the way you handle this.
Choosing for yourself if you’re of sound mind, I have no problem with.
Others choosing for you is rife with problems. Taking out family because they don’t like you, you’re too needy for them, to get at your will, etc etc.
