Post by Arlon10 on Mar 31, 2018 18:51:56 GMT
Mar 31, 2018 18:26:58 GMT @miccee said:
Here are my thoughts. Let's suppose for the sake of discussion that a person truly wants to die. How much help does that even require? From my point of view it's staying alive that's the real tricky problem. I mean if a person truly wants wingtip shoes they are going to find a way to get them. It's not difficult.
Now let's suppose something else. Suppose a person feels oppressed or besieged and just guesses that suicide is the only "good" option available, and they guess wrong. Or suppose they claim they want to die, but really just want the attention such a claim can bring them. Would you agree that you should not help them commit suicide? How do you know their intentions are genuine? Consider the possibility they don't know themselves how genuine their intentions are.
Many more people fail in suicide attempts than succeed (there's about a 25 attempts to 1 completion ratio, and that's from the US, where guns are available), and there's no reason why people shouldn't be given the means to end their life swiftly, painlessly and safely. It's diabolical that people think that the suicidal ought to have to risk maiming themselves horribly and surviving, or even having to endure a lot of pain and discomfort, just in order to appease some kind of delusion about the sanctity of human life. Staying alive is the default position and human bodies are pretty resilient and won't usually die without a lot of suffering happening first.
Having the right to clinically assisted suicide would weed out the attention seekers, because clinically assisted suicide would be guaranteed to work. Destigmatising suicide and making it a human right would also give people the ability to seek psychiatric help for their issues without the fear of being imprisoned against their wishes, and therefore it would help a great number of those who can be helped. A waiting period to obtain the assistance would also help to safeguard against this.
Ultimately though, it can never be irrational to want to end suffering and escape harm, so the idea that they could be wrong about suicide being a good option is a non-starter. At least for those who don't believe that some kind of ethereal 'soul' escapes from the body upon death, and laws should certainly never be based on an article of faith such as that in any case.
I see.
I am not as certain as you perhaps are that failed attempts at suicide must have been genuine. I would guess that in some cases they might have actually believed on some level they wanted to die, when on another level they did not. I suspect some of them knew very well they didn't really want to die, but did what they did anyway just for attention.
Considering that some of the people at least who attempt suicide have for the most part convinced themselves on some level they truly want to die, I would hope there is a better way to "weed out the attention seekers" than forcing the issue.
My refusing to help people commit suicide does not "stigmatize" them. It only means my generosity has limits. Many people already guessed that.
I'm all in for ending suffering and escaping harm, but it is not always clear what the best way to do that is.