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(someone else answering) my reason for opposing it is that it creates opportunity for abuse, for example like pushing older relatives toward that decission beca
by MichaelMoser123 6y ago
(someone else answering) my reason for opposing it is that it creates opportunity for abuse, for example like pushing older relatives toward that decission because someone doesn't want to care for them.
- kungito 6y agoSo you can think of all the people suffering an inescapable and slow death and you want to force them to have to go through that because you are worried about a case of neglected older people who will get one more of many ways to commit suicide. Do you think those older people aren't talked into other stuff as we speak?
- MichaelMoser123 6y agono, i am just afraid that this is going to be the common use case. Or that some other opportunity for abuse will be found, it's a very slippery road...
- pdpi 6y agoIn a weird perverted way, I can see someone preferring assisted suicide over the alternative of being cared for by somebody who'd push you into assisted suicide because they don't want to care for you.
- guareber8 6y agoNow reverse it, would you want to force someone you care about to waste their life caring for you without any quality of life? One gives you a choice, the other one doesn't. If you want to prevent abuse, make it difficult in the law. Restrict it to advanced directives, require a psychological assessment, etc.
- pdpi 6y agoSorry, I wasn't clear. The scenario you're describing is the easy one — if I have people who love me enough that they're willing to care for me, I wouldn't feel forced into making this decision and there's no risk of abuse. If anything, I might feel pressured to stick around to avoid hurting them. GP's argument is trickier: Callous family members might want to force me into accepting assisted suicide against my will, because they don't want to care for me. My point was precisely that, in that position, I wouldn't want to be cared for by those callous relatives, and might choose assisted suicide of my own accord anyway.
- knuthsat 6y agoSounds like reasoning out of emotion instead of data. I'd have these fears if countries that already have assisted suicide report that most cases are healthy elderly people deciding to not live anymore. What all the data says is that most of assisted suicide cases are people suffering from horrible incurable diseases.
- ziotom78 6y agoSome time ago I looked for these data but was not able to find a «sound» source, apart from organizations promoting/fighting euthanasia. Do you have links to some objective sources? I would love to have a look at them.
- knuthsat 6y agoGoogle Scholar has a bunch of papers, from Oregon to Netherlands and papers analyze individual cases, categorize illness, history of suicide attempts etc.
- tremon 6y agoHere is a source, but it's not aggregated: https://www.euthanasiecommissie.nl/uitspraken-en-uitleg https://www.euthanasiecommissie.nl/uitspraken-en-uitleg . The first page is just a list of primary aspects, they all lead to the same document search page but with a different search base. As far as I can see, there is no single just-list-all-reports page. All Dutch euthanasia procedures are documented publicly. The documents include patient's condition, circumstances surrounding the request, assessments from multiple physicians, and the commission's judgement. They do not include the identity of the patient, for obvious reasons.
- ziotom78 6y agoThanks a lot!
- notsureaboutpg 6y agoWhen something starts, the worst possible abuse isn't immediate. It will take time for this abuse to pop up. But knowing how humans are, it will happen. I don't think this is the reason to oppose it though. Life is important and protecting it from ending is the main function of the state. There are many many sad stories of people who cannot have assisted suicide and suffer. But there's a whole other kind of suffering that a society goes through when people just kill themselves whenever they wish to with the full blessing of everyone around them.
- Accacin 6y agoYou seriously think now that there aren't doctors that will give morphine to a terminally ill patient to aid with their passing?
- chronofar 6y agoThis is the same fallacious reasoning people use to advocate many laws, drug prohibition a popular one. For instance people will say if drugs are legal then it opens the door to people being intoxicated while driving or harming someone else in x other way. But of course these are already illegal in of their own. What you’re looking for here is protections of the elderly against abuse via coercion to act counter to their best wishes. This is a separate concern that needs to have laws and parameters around it. Virtually anything can be “an opportunity for abuse.” Look at the internet. That’s not a good reason at all to prevent it, it’s a reason to outlaw and protect against the abuse.
- MichaelMoser123 6y agoi don't think that the drug thing applies here; protecting the live of its citiziens is the most basic function of a state; if there are loopholes here then these loopholes will be exploited. I am afraid it's not the same situation so that your argument doesn't apply.
- sokoloff 6y agoIs it protecting/maximizing the duration of life of its citizens or maximizing the freedom of its citizens? Both in isolation seem like laudable aims for the State, but lead us in opposing direction on this issue.
- MichaelMoser123 6y agoI am not arguing from a position of principle, my argument is one of computer security; if you got a zero day exploit then that's an invitation for taking advantage of it? Now if you can legally get rid of someone, then that's something similar to a zero day exploit with regards to the principle of having to protect the lives of the states subjects (who are paying taxes exactly for the purpose of upholding this principle).
- sokoloff 6y agoShould the state’s citizens (or subjects as you call them) be allowed to run a different OS than the one which the state determines is “the absolutely most secure and therefore state-sanctioned”? If they can’t, do they really own their computer?
- Accacin 6y agoBut some countries already have this and there's no evidence of this happening. It's the same thing time and time again, for example, gay marriage, abortion, etc. etc. For some reason we are unable to see outside of our countries where it's successfully implemented, but we'd sure as hell take notice if there was the smallest issue. The fact is for me, I'd rather that it's available and legal for those that want it even if the sad reality is, someone, someday will abuse this.
- oleander73 6y agoPeople said the same thing here in The Netherlands and research shows it just isn't happening.