Right to die?

[azalaisdep]

Absolutely delighted to see this on BBC News (though the headline is somewhat misleading).

Personally, I believe that choosing how and whether to die is as much a human right as having the autonomy to choose how to live; and since suicide is (thank goodness) no longer a crime in the UK, it has never made sense to me that assisting a suicide

Comments

[telperion1]

Morally, I have major problems with the "right to die," because I have lost several family members to suicide. I have seen first hand the devastation it has caused in my experience. I suppose it would depend on the situation; if the death was truly imminent maybe I would feel differently, but if there is at all a possibility of "good days" I have a hard time accepting it. I feel very differently about (for instance) euthanasia for patients with terminal cancer or Alzheimer's, and euthanasia for people in a coma. And even then, it's something I would think should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Not something the law is great at deciding for us! So while I might think suicide in any form is usually immoral, I'm not sure I think it should be illegal. (I have much the same feeling toward abortion; I often feel that it is immoral in many cases --though not murder-- and what keeps me being pro-choice isn't that I'm pro-abortion but that I think this should be a personal choice between the woman and her doctors, not involving the state. I feel similar about assisted suicide.)

Thinking about this some more, I do think there is a difference between a family member who helps someone commit suicide (whatever the reason); and an activist who perhaps encourages people to do it. We've had a few cases in the U.S., where family members were morally opposed and so wouldn't assist a patient, and the person turned to people who "helped" people die - not a friend who knew the patient, but a sort of professional helper in cases like that. I wouldn't say it's murder, but if you don't know a person and are perhaps "encouraging" them in their decision, I don't know that I think that's right.

That said... even with my muddled thoughts about euthanasia, I still think the laws need to be fairly applied. If it is unethical to imprison someone who helps a family member die, isn't it also unethical to make them worry about having to go to jail? Which happens when the law is unclear or unevenly applied.

[azalaisdep]

while I might think suicide in any form is usually immoral, I'm not sure I think it should be illegal.

My feeling is that the morality of it is a very, very personal and case-by-case thing, and it's not a situation (very like, as you say, abortion) where I would ever presume to impose my personal views on someone else, or where I think it is the state's role to say "you may/you may not". Hence I don't think either suicide or assisting it should be illegal.

Encouraging suicide is a very different matter. Lots of the organisations in the UK who oppose ending the legal ban on assisting suicide argue that removing the legal bar would cause pressure to be put on vulnerable people by unsympathetic family members to end their lives when they are perceived as a burden. Now: that might happen, it might not. But in that case, it should be that (encouraging suicide) that's illegal; not simply aiding someone who is physically (but not at all mentally) incapacitated from carrying out their own wishes. Now it might be difficult in practice always to distinguish the two, but that's what courts of law and juries are for. I think it's very important that law should where possible be crystal clear about what it is we really want to legislate against.

(I suppose the analogy for me is: people who are physically disabled have, rightly, every expectation that reasonable assistance will be provided to them in every other aspect of life - indeed, in the UK it's enshrined in law - to do those things which their disability prevents them physically carrying out for themselves, be it washing, reading, making a phone call... why should taking a life-ending dose of medication, if that's an option which an able-bodied person could carry out for themselves, be any different?...)

I get very twitchy whenever I see the word "euthanasia" used in this context, because for me that's an act in which the euthanased person is completely passive (like putting down an animal) and has not chosen it - and I think that's morally a completely different question, at least for me. The point about suicide is that it's a freely chosen act, whatever the morality of it.

Not an easy question, by any means, but I think a terribly important one... thanks for your thoughts.