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Because then your kids could forge a signature on a fake letter to get your inheritance money. Because then companies that happen to profit from your death hav

Because then your kids could forge a signature on a fake letter to get your inheritance money. Because then companies that happen to profit from your death have an incentive to convince you that you should die, using manipulative advertising and marketing. Because then people who are highly depressed might kill themselves with assistance from a doctor, when an alternate route could cure them. Because then the doctor might forge evidence showing that you wanted to be killed and it could be hard for the police to track down. Maybe they only use the attack against certain high-reward targets. Because then somebody who is impulsive might agree to be killed when he would've regretted it later if he were still alive. I tend to be in favor of this for people who legitimately want to die, but there's something to be said for the simplicity of "The autopsy showed poison, so we have a murder case." I could be convinced to make it illegal if somebody found some really plausible attacks that could be used against me; and could be convinced to make it legal if we found and required a scientific test with a legally-enforcable chain-of-custody that proved I was in my right mind when I asked to be killed.

CaptainZapp 10y ago
Those are all valid points. But oddly enough none of them seems to be a problem in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal since the 40s (as mentioned in the article). On a sidenote: You can write a "Patientenverfügung" (loosely transelated: a patient's will), in which you stipulate that you don't want to be kept alive artificially in case of grave illnes. This is respected by hospitals and doctors. Case in point was my mother, who had terminal cancer. The doctors gave her morphine to ease the pain and otherwise didn't do anything to prolong her suffering. She died in a dignified manner.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  We have "living wills" in the United States and they're the same thing. The controversial issue is active euthanasia, not passive euthanasia. Mostly, anyway.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  >Because then somebody who is impulsive might agree to be killed when he would've regretted it later if he were still alive. We wouldn't always know in such cases, and there's often no way to know what a dead person would have thought years later if they would have lived.
  - lisper 10y ago
    That's not quite true. There are people who attempt suicide and survive. Many (though by no means all) express regret afterwards.
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      That's an excellent point. Obviously we do know sometimes. But GP's point was that we don't observe bad consequences from the laws in Switzerland, all I'm saying is that it wouldn't show up when someone commits suicide.
- j_s 10y ago
  Se also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_resuscitate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_resuscitate
- bkmartin 10y ago
  But what you describe for your mother is called Hospice here in the US. It is simply a lack of treatment when it is believed that treatment offers more suffering and no better outcome. It is the right of the patient to refuse treatment and enter into hospice care and be kept comfortable until they die. That is not assisted suicide.
shasta 10y ago
Simpler still: "the autopsy showed poison, so put the spouse in prison."
staticelf 10y ago
You can create legal structures to prevent most stuff like that pretty easily: * Force everyone who wants assisted death to go through medical discussion alone with physiologists / doctors, require it to be at least 20 sessions or whatever seems enough. * Only make it available and legal for people with chronic pain or other diseases that make life suck. * Require several doctors to be present, that don't usually work with eachother or have any other specific connection to eachother. * Require to let the patient "press" the button that injects the overdose or whatever method is used. Etc etc. The point is to make the process complicated and to remove any doubt that this person in question didn't want to die. Of course, it isn't completely safe but so is life and that is kind of the point.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  What do you do about someone with, say, Alzheimer's, who may want to end their life precisely because they are beginning to drift in and out of lucidity? Maybe Switzerland has it all figured out but it is not that easy.
  - staticelf 10y ago
    Go through the process and let death take you. It's better to help some people than to help no one at all. I don't have the perfect protocol of such a process, I am just writing an example to prove that my original point is valid. I think people that have Alzheimer's and want to die should be able to be assisted.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      OK, but you are sidestepping the issue here. As you've said, if you accept active euthanasia you'd probably consider the deterioration of Alzheimer's an acceptable reason. And most people take informed and uncoerced consent as important to the process. And yet how do you ensure that consent with someone who is losing their mental faculties?
      - dumbmatter 10y ago
scottkduncan 10y ago
Per your second point, there is certainly a strong profit motive for keeping terminally-ill patients alive longer than they otherwise might want on the part of health-care providers. End-of-life care costs are no joke.
- zadig 10y ago
  While it is true that end-of-life care costs are indeed out of control, to say that there is a "strong profit motive" for keeping terminally-ill patients alive seems to me a very, very cynical view.

CaptainZapp 10y ago

Those are all valid points. But oddly enough none of them seems to be a problem in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal since the 40s (as mentioned in the article). On a sidenote: You can write a "Patientenverfügung" (loosely transelated: a patient's will), in which you stipulate that you don't want to be kept alive artificially in case of grave illnes. This is respected by hospitals and doctors. Case in point was my mother, who had terminal cancer. The doctors gave her morphine to ease the pain and otherwise didn't do anything to prolong her suffering. She died in a dignified manner.

emodendroket 10y ago
We have "living wills" in the United States and they're the same thing. The controversial issue is active euthanasia, not passive euthanasia. Mostly, anyway.
ikeboy 10y ago
>Because then somebody who is impulsive might agree to be killed when he would've regretted it later if he were still alive. We wouldn't always know in such cases, and there's often no way to know what a dead person would have thought years later if they would have lived.
- lisper 10y ago
  That's not quite true. There are people who attempt suicide and survive. Many (though by no means all) express regret afterwards.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    That's an excellent point. Obviously we do know sometimes. But GP's point was that we don't observe bad consequences from the laws in Switzerland, all I'm saying is that it wouldn't show up when someone commits suicide.
j_s 10y ago
Se also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_resuscitate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_resuscitate
bkmartin 10y ago
But what you describe for your mother is called Hospice here in the US. It is simply a lack of treatment when it is believed that treatment offers more suffering and no better outcome. It is the right of the patient to refuse treatment and enter into hospice care and be kept comfortable until they die. That is not assisted suicide.

shasta 10y ago

Simpler still: "the autopsy showed poison, so put the spouse in prison."

staticelf 10y ago

You can create legal structures to prevent most stuff like that pretty easily: * Force everyone who wants assisted death to go through medical discussion alone with physiologists / doctors, require it to be at least 20 sessions or whatever seems enough. * Only make it available and legal for people with chronic pain or other diseases that make life suck. * Require several doctors to be present, that don't usually work with eachother or have any other specific connection to eachother. * Require to let the patient "press" the button that injects the overdose or whatever method is used. Etc etc. The point is to make the process complicated and to remove any doubt that this person in question didn't want to die. Of course, it isn't completely safe but so is life and that is kind of the point.

emodendroket 10y ago
What do you do about someone with, say, Alzheimer's, who may want to end their life precisely because they are beginning to drift in and out of lucidity? Maybe Switzerland has it all figured out but it is not that easy.
- staticelf 10y ago
  Go through the process and let death take you. It's better to help some people than to help no one at all. I don't have the perfect protocol of such a process, I am just writing an example to prove that my original point is valid. I think people that have Alzheimer's and want to die should be able to be assisted.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    OK, but you are sidestepping the issue here. As you've said, if you accept active euthanasia you'd probably consider the deterioration of Alzheimer's an acceptable reason. And most people take informed and uncoerced consent as important to the process. And yet how do you ensure that consent with someone who is losing their mental faculties?
    - dumbmatter 10y ago

scottkduncan 10y ago

Per your second point, there is certainly a strong profit motive for keeping terminally-ill patients alive longer than they otherwise might want on the part of health-care providers. End-of-life care costs are no joke.

zadig 10y ago
While it is true that end-of-life care costs are indeed out of control, to say that there is a "strong profit motive" for keeping terminally-ill patients alive seems to me a very, very cynical view.