Comments | azalaisdep: Right to die?

azalaisdep

Right to die?

Jul 30, 2009 19:22

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 ( Read more... )

politics, beliefs, assisted_suicide

Comments 2

telperion1 July 31 2009, 17:59:39 UTC

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. ( ... )

azalaisdep August 1 2009, 08:51:10 UTC

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 ( ... )