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I hope to God I have the right to suicide by the time that happens to me.

by wycs 8y ago

melling 8y ago
Personally, I’m hoping we put more of an effort behind solving the problem so people won’t need to commit suicide. Sometime in the 21th century we’ll come up with some sort of treatment. It’s just a matter of which decade. Maybe we should increase funding now? https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/392585-heres-why-we-should-put-more-money-into-alzheimers-research https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/392585-heres-why-we-s... There are 50 million people with Alzheimer’s and that number will increase significantly: https://www.alz.co.uk/research/statistics https://www.alz.co.uk/research/statistics
- hycaria 8y ago
  Why ? Assisted suicide is already feasible, cost is low, and makes room for the (sadly literal) billions of people waiting for a better life. It doesn't sound very moral to me to be willing to spend tens of thousands from insurances and such (so not exactly one's money) on individual treatment, just to get a bit more time for myself as an elderly person.
- jiveturkey 8y ago
  Solving the problem? You mean immortality?
paulpauper 8y ago
if you get to that point you would probably not be able to conceptualize that anything is wrong. dementia starts mild, so i suppose someone with mild dementia could consent to suicide, but I think most people would hold out in the possibly of a cure or improved treatments
- WalterBright 8y ago
  My father had AZ, and knew something was wrong with him through the entire course of the disease.
  - ianai 8y ago
    Same with my grandparents. Though I do hope I have the type of personality to take permanent lack of context/memory with some form of levity. Laughing at the absurd.
    - WalterBright 8y ago
      There are still interesting, funny moments. Once, I had done something that angered him. He gave me the third degree, yelling at me. I started chuckling. He stopped, and angrily asked why I was laughing. I replied he hadn't yelled at me for 20 years, and it felt oddly good and familiar to have him yelling at me. It was good to have my old man back. Of course, that took all the steam out of his anger, and he soon slipped back into the mist.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - thx4allthestuff 8y ago
        Thank you for sharing. That was a vivid and moving scene.
ehnto 8y ago
Not to be too blunt about it, but why would you need the right? It's not like there would be repercussions. Unless you meant some kind of contract to be euthanized by the state/caregiver if you lost your faculties. That kind of thing would scare me. What if some interviewer decides they think you have lost it when you're still hanging on? We have a lot to learn about elder care in the modern world I guess.
- jbattle 8y ago
  I suppose there are practical issues, especially once someone has gotten debilitated enough they don't have a lot of personal autonomy or privacy. If it were legal then one could imagine making a autonomous decision and "getting help" with the practicalities.
- gizmo686 8y ago
  I think he meant the right to be killed moreso then the right to suicide. However, there are other contexts where the right to suicide makes sense, such as terminal illnesses that leave your mental faculty intact. If you are stuck in a hospital bed, surrounded by doctors, with a machine reading your vitals continously, it can be very hard to commit suicide. Even if you manage to, it would probably not be as pleasent as the morpheme overdose a nurse could give you. Speaking from the personal experience of having watched a family member die of dementia, I absolutly agree that we should have a right to die. The only arguement should be about where to draw the line. In my case we had a woman who watched her own mother go through dementia and was very clear in both her will, and in speaking with her immediate family that she never wanted to be kept alive in that state. In addition, by the end, the entire family was in agreement that she should be put down, and (as far as I am aware) every medical professional we spoke with agreed with our decision to put her on a DNR and avoid life prolonging treatments to the extent possible. I cannot imagine that a hypothetical ethics board would come to a different conclusion. Despite this, she stayed alive until she died of dehydration as a result of loosing the mental faculty necessary to swallow when water was placed in her mouth.
  - hashmap 8y ago
    If a nurse was comin at me with a lethal dose of morphemes.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheme Yeah, still way more pleasant than any suicide I could manage on my own.
brandonmenc 8y ago
The scary - or comforting, depending on how you look at it -thing about dementia is that at some point you become a different person, possibly one who no longer desires to die by suicide.
Latteland 8y ago
I thought more states had this, Wikipedia says it's mostly the crazy west coasters again. It should only be a last resort. One grandmother got it, it was devastating for all. If I was in her boat, I don't know how I'd handle it. She just got worse over 3 or 4 years. It also killed my grandfather. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide_in_the_United...
cmiles74 8y ago
Everyone in my family who has lived into their nineties suffers dementia. It is really hard to know what to wish for. Compassionate children, I guess, and the agency for them to do what they think is best.

I hope to God I have the right to suicide by the time that happens to me.

by wycs 8y ago

I hope to God I have the right to suicide by the time that happens to me.

Personally, I’m hoping we put more of an effort behind solving the problem so people won’t need to commit suicide. Sometime in the 21th century we’ll come up with some sort of treatment. It’s just a matter of which decade. Maybe we should increase funding now? https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/392585-heres-why-we-should-put-more-money-into-alzheimers-research https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/392585-heres-why-we-s... There are 50 million people with Alzheimer’s and that number will increase significantly: https://www.alz.co.uk/research/statistics https://www.alz.co.uk/research/statistics

hycaria 8y ago
Why ? Assisted suicide is already feasible, cost is low, and makes room for the (sadly literal) billions of people waiting for a better life. It doesn't sound very moral to me to be willing to spend tens of thousands from insurances and such (so not exactly one's money) on individual treatment, just to get a bit more time for myself as an elderly person.
jiveturkey 8y ago
Solving the problem? You mean immortality?

paulpauper 8y ago

if you get to that point you would probably not be able to conceptualize that anything is wrong. dementia starts mild, so i suppose someone with mild dementia could consent to suicide, but I think most people would hold out in the possibly of a cure or improved treatments

WalterBright 8y ago
My father had AZ, and knew something was wrong with him through the entire course of the disease.
- ianai 8y ago
  Same with my grandparents. Though I do hope I have the type of personality to take permanent lack of context/memory with some form of levity. Laughing at the absurd.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    There are still interesting, funny moments. Once, I had done something that angered him. He gave me the third degree, yelling at me. I started chuckling. He stopped, and angrily asked why I was laughing. I replied he hadn't yelled at me for 20 years, and it felt oddly good and familiar to have him yelling at me. It was good to have my old man back. Of course, that took all the steam out of his anger, and he soon slipped back into the mist.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - thx4allthestuff 8y ago
      Thank you for sharing. That was a vivid and moving scene.

ehnto 8y ago

Not to be too blunt about it, but why would you need the right? It's not like there would be repercussions. Unless you meant some kind of contract to be euthanized by the state/caregiver if you lost your faculties. That kind of thing would scare me. What if some interviewer decides they think you have lost it when you're still hanging on? We have a lot to learn about elder care in the modern world I guess.

jbattle 8y ago
I suppose there are practical issues, especially once someone has gotten debilitated enough they don't have a lot of personal autonomy or privacy. If it were legal then one could imagine making a autonomous decision and "getting help" with the practicalities.
gizmo686 8y ago
I think he meant the right to be killed moreso then the right to suicide. However, there are other contexts where the right to suicide makes sense, such as terminal illnesses that leave your mental faculty intact. If you are stuck in a hospital bed, surrounded by doctors, with a machine reading your vitals continously, it can be very hard to commit suicide. Even if you manage to, it would probably not be as pleasent as the morpheme overdose a nurse could give you. Speaking from the personal experience of having watched a family member die of dementia, I absolutly agree that we should have a right to die. The only arguement should be about where to draw the line. In my case we had a woman who watched her own mother go through dementia and was very clear in both her will, and in speaking with her immediate family that she never wanted to be kept alive in that state. In addition, by the end, the entire family was in agreement that she should be put down, and (as far as I am aware) every medical professional we spoke with agreed with our decision to put her on a DNR and avoid life prolonging treatments to the extent possible. I cannot imagine that a hypothetical ethics board would come to a different conclusion. Despite this, she stayed alive until she died of dehydration as a result of loosing the mental faculty necessary to swallow when water was placed in her mouth.
- hashmap 8y ago
  If a nurse was comin at me with a lethal dose of morphemes.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheme Yeah, still way more pleasant than any suicide I could manage on my own.

brandonmenc 8y ago

The scary - or comforting, depending on how you look at it -thing about dementia is that at some point you become a different person, possibly one who no longer desires to die by suicide.

Latteland 8y ago

I thought more states had this, Wikipedia says it's mostly the crazy west coasters again. It should only be a last resort. One grandmother got it, it was devastating for all. If I was in her boat, I don't know how I'd handle it. She just got worse over 3 or 4 years. It also killed my grandfather. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide_in_the_United...

cmiles74 8y ago

Everyone in my family who has lived into their nineties suffers dementia. It is really hard to know what to wish for. Compassionate children, I guess, and the agency for them to do what they think is best.