| YourValentine 11.12.2008 09:30 |
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081211/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_televised_suicide What do you think? Was this broadcast worse than horror movies, war footage or amateur films of Saddam Hussein's execution? Or can it be justified to show an actaul man actually dying in front of a camera in order to make people discuss this very sensitive issue? I found it interesting that at the end of the article they say that 80% of the British people think the anti-suicide laws should be changed but strong groups like the churches fight against this. So much for democracy representing the majority... |
| JoxerTheDeityPirate 11.12.2008 10:30 |
well,its got people discussing it which i suppose is a good thing. didnt watch the programme personally,theres enough doom and gloom in the world without willingly watch a person die on tv in the name of entertainment.what happens behind closed doors should stay there perhaps? whether or not i agree with euthanasia is a difficult question,if it was a pet we wouldnt want to see it suffer and give it a jab in the back of the neck without a second thought but a human being... i must admit that i have a mixed opinion on this,theres always the argument that a person that ill is not of 'sound mind' and therefore incapable of thinking logically and making a judgement like that but on the other hand would i like to see them 'living' in a sufferable state.. theres too many 'ifs,buts and wherefores' for it to be passed in the UK as legal |
| magicalfreddiemercury 11.12.2008 10:40 |
I am right at this moment in a state far from my home, assisting my mom as she endures her fourth round of chemotherapy. For four months straight, one week each month, my daughter and I have flown across the country to help however we can. We are fortunate. My mom's cancer is weakening. She'll pull through this rough patch and be stronger for the experience. Others are not so lucky. If my mom, myself or another member of my family were as ill as the man in this story, and all hope of improvement or recovery was lost, assisted suicide would be what we'd look to. For me there is no question. No ambivalence. I've witnessed terrible suffering before death and would do all in my limited power to prevent it for myself and those I love - even if it means flying to another country to end it all. Even if it means broadcasting the entire scene - and events/conditions leading up to it - on television for all to see. The discussion has to be had - and not in whispers. Sometimes, it takes a controversial act to initiate dialogue. Hopefully, this man's sad story will do just that AND keep the dialogue going until fair changes are made and terminally ill individuals are given the right to die with dignity. |
| Holly2003 11.12.2008 13:04 |
YourValentine wrote: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081211/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_televised_suicide What do you think? Was this broadcast worse than horror movies, war footage or amateur films of Saddam Hussein's execution? Or can it be justified to show an actaul man actually dying in front of a camera in order to make people discuss this very sensitive issue? I found it interesting that at the end of the article they say that 80% of the British people think the anti-suicide laws should be changed but strong groups like the churches fight against this. So much for democracy representing the majority... I'm for assisted suicide with strict safeguards 'built in', such as waiting times, psychiatric evaluations etc. But the problem with letting 'the people' decide every issue is that they are often wrong. For example, in the UK, if given a chance, polls say most people would vote for the death penalty. Too much people power is a bad thing -- the tyranny of the majority, and all that (thanks De Tocqueville). |
| magicalfreddiemercury 11.12.2008 14:30 |
Holly2003 wrote: I'm for assisted suicide with strict safeguards 'built in', such as waiting times, psychiatric evaluations etc. I understand the desire for some built-in safeguards, and I'm sure there would be some - not enough for some people and too much for others. But, IMO a psychiatric evaluation would be just one more indignity the dying person would have to endure. |
| Holly2003 11.12.2008 15:21 |
Good point. |
| Penetration_Guru 11.12.2008 16:34 |
Wouldn't the programme be equally valid if it showed him taking a cocktail of sedatives, then turning off the life support machine, lying back, closing his eyes... and then cuts? Not sure what the actual moment adds to the debate. It's perfectly possible to make emotive TV with this material without being sensationalist. |
| AspiringPhilosophe 11.12.2008 22:56 |
I read about this a few days ago. Personally, I'm all for euthanasia. I watched my Grandfather slowly weaken during his one round of chemo, and then the cancer came back and he passed away before they could start round two (he was too weak to have survived it anyway). Now he was determined to fight it to the end, but he remained as stubborn a man as he always was. But seeing him that way certainly had an impact on my perspective. I don't think suicide should be illegal either. I mean, IMHO it's cruel to force people to live in a state of unimaginable pain, just because their family or the church or the government want them to die naturally. Most people wouldn't wish that kind of pain on a criminal that they don't even know, but they'll force their family to endure it, just so they can put off the inevitable. We wouldn't cause that kind of pain on another individual for punishment...that's torture (well...past US government policies notwithstanding). And the church? How exactly can they prove that if I were to kill myself, that wasn't the way that God planned for me to die? I mean, I understand that people don't want loved ones to die; but how selfish is it to tell them that they have to keep living in immeasurable pain because you aren't ready for them to leave yet? I know if I get some horrible, debilitating disease that is going to kill me, but be slow about doing it, and my death is certain from this disease, I want the freedom to pull the plug. What good does it do me to lie around in constant pain? And what good would it do my family, to have their last memory of me being a memory of my suffering? I could also bring up the money this would save the US medical system, but most people see that as harsh. In the end, I'm not sure about this guy's decision to broadcast the moment of his death though. Like PG said, they can make it clear that he's dead, without showing the moment of death. I guess I just feel like that should be a private thing, between the person dying and their family. But if it takes something like this to get the convo going, then I guess that's what it takes. |
| Charlie Brown 12.12.2008 01:45 |
AspiringPhilosophe wrote: I don't think suicide should be illegal either. I'm curious AP if you believe that suicide should be legal does that mean that if a police officer is driving in his patrol vehicle across a bridge and he happens to see someone about to jump of the bridge to their death he should make no attempt to stop them. |
| YourValentine 12.12.2008 03:40 |
Penetration_Guru wrote: Wouldn't the programme be equally valid if it showed him taking a cocktail of sedatives, then turning off the life support machine, lying back, closing his eyes... and then cuts? Not sure what the actual moment adds to the debate. It's perfectly possible to make emotive TV with this material without being sensationalist. Yes, that is the problem, While I would spare myself to watch (I have watched people die in real life) I think this programme might help to make the issue more clear for many people who discuss it from a theoretical point of view. I am unsure if that was the right method but there are things on TV which actually offend me much more in so-called "reality shows". Why is real death so tabooed on TV when it's okay to show horrible and cruel films with people being killed in the most terrible way? Why don't we see pictures from the war like it used to be during the Vietnam War - is it to protect the diginity of the victims who are torn to pieces or ist it to prevent the public from watching what is done in their names? I totally agree with magicalfreddie. The right of self determination cannot stop at the point when people want to put an end to their own senseless suffering. It's cruel and selfish to deny the suffering person this right. It's cruel and mean to make people take their dying relatives to another country where they have to die in a room rented by Dignitas because our own country does not allow us to decide for ourselves. I think the real reason that politicians and churches were so outraged about the TV programme is not that they had the dignity of the dying man in mind - they usually do not give a toss about low IQ people being paraded and humiliated in "reality shows" - the real reason is that people just do not want to be confronted with that very sensitive issue from sheer fear. Therefore the families have to face it each by their own and often doctors and family members are forced to cross the legal line to help their loved ones. Of course, abuse has to be prevented and we cannot get to a point where old people want to die because they think they are a burden to their families. Dignitas has been accused to have helped people who are not really that ill in the past for profit reasons. But the answer must be to stop this monopoly situation and change our own laws. |
| YourValentine 12.12.2008 03:52 |
Holly2003 wrote: But the problem with letting 'the people' decide every issue is that they are often wrong. For example, in the UK, if given a chance, polls say most people would vote for the death penalty. Yes, that's true. You cannot have a majority vote on basic human rights. But in this case the legislator would not act against "vox populi", most people would welcome a law to allow assisted suicide. So, the fear of risking votes in the next election is not an "excuse" for doing nothing. |
| AspiringPhilosophe 12.12.2008 20:28 |
Charlie Brown wrote:AspiringPhilosophe wrote: I don't think suicide should be illegal either. I'm curious AP if you believe that suicide should be legal does that mean that if a police officer is driving in his patrol vehicle across a bridge and he happens to see someone about to jump of the bridge to their death he should make no attempt to stop them. That has nothing to do with whether suicide is illegal or not. I'd like to think most people would try to stop someone doing that (but then again I'm a bit of a cynic). What exactly is your point? |
| Charlie Brown 13.12.2008 00:47 |
AspiringPhilosophe wrote:Charlie Brown wrote:That has nothing to do with whether suicide is illegal or not. I'd like to think most people would try to stop someone doing that (but then again I'm a bit of a cynic). What exactly is your point? No point really its just that the grandiose pseudo intellectual pretentions of some us is amusing and disturbing at the same time.AspiringPhilosophe wrote: I don't think suicide should be illegal either. I'm curious AP if you believe that suicide should be legal does that mean that if a police officer is driving in his patrol vehicle across a bridge and he happens to see someone about to jump of the bridge to their death he should make no attempt to stop them. |
| Bo Rhap 13.12.2008 04:58 |
I'm all for assisted suicides if the patient concerned's life has deteriorated and there is nothing anyone can do to stop the patient from suffering like this man was. Actually,i'm waiting on the tv companies to start making reality tv programmes on this like I'm In Great Pain,Get Me Outta Here or AS Idol or Big Bro's Assisted Suicide House |
| inu-liger 13.12.2008 05:37 |
Can we get TM on the next episode? |
| AspiringPhilosophe 13.12.2008 12:38 |
Charlie Brown wrote:AspiringPhilosophe wrote:Charlie Brown wrote:That has nothing to do with whether suicide is illegal or not. I'd like to think most people would try to stop someone doing that (but then again I'm a bit of a cynic). What exactly is your point? No point really its just that the grandiose pseudo intellectual pretentions of some us is amusing and disturbing at the same time.AspiringPhilosophe wrote: I don't think suicide should be illegal either. I'm curious AP if you believe that suicide should be legal does that mean that if a police officer is driving in his patrol vehicle across a bridge and he happens to see someone about to jump of the bridge to their death he should make no attempt to stop them. Why don't you say what it is you are so "cutely" trying to avoid, Charlie Brown. You've got a problem with my POV? If so, spell out what it is and why and we can have a conversation about it. But don't do the pretentious, cowardly "pseudo-insult" thing. |
| Saint Jiub 13.12.2008 13:19 |
If suicide were legal, perhaps the incidence of mental illness will decrease as the mental weaklings are culled from society. The job of the cop should be encourage the guy to jump and make the world a better place. Seriously, I think that assisted suicide should be legal, but only if there is rigorous psychological review (and a waiting period), to assure that that one's decision to end one's life is rationally thought out. |
| magicalfreddiemercury 13.12.2008 14:20 |
=========== Panchgani wrote: Seriously, I think that assisted suicide should be legal, but only if there is rigorous psychological review (and a waiting period), to assure that that one's decision to end one's life is rationally thought out. =========== I'm afraid this debate will be as heated and never-ending as abortion and religion. Why should there be a rigorous psychological review and waiting period? How can a person's psychological well-being be determined while that person is facing imminent - and horrible - death? If a person is dying - and suffering on the way to death - what kind of waiting period should there be? An hour? A week? Long enough for the patient to suffer more unimaginable pain and humiliation? Few, if any of us, wants to face our mortality, but this is why it's so important to have your wishes clearly spelled out LONG before the onset of an illness. Like a will, personal wishes for care - or no care - should be written down officially and voiced for everyone involved to hear and understand while we're all healthy and of "sound mind". If a disease were to ravage my body, I'd want death on my own terms. I wouldn't want to wait for some pre-determined and impersonal date to pass before I could escape, and I wouldn't want to be forced into voicing my fears and pain to some clinical stranger who didn't know me before I was ill. |
| Saint Jiub 13.12.2008 21:01 |
What about the mentally ill? A person with a chemical imbalance in their brain should be allowed to pull the plug on themselves, when their propensity for rational thought is limited ???? Oh my. I am getting old. I forget things sometimes. I am obese. I can't "perform" all night anymore. I'm just a dentist, nobody loves me. Worse yet, TCR is starting to sound good to me. Please, Please, somebody shoot me, even though I am behaving irrationally. |
| magicalfreddiemercury 13.12.2008 21:39 |
Panchgani wrote: What about the mentally ill? A person with a chemical imbalance in their brain should be allowed to pull the plug on themselves, when their propensity for rational thought is limited ???? Oh my. I am getting old. I forget things sometimes. I am obese. I can't "perform" all night anymore. I'm just a dentist, nobody loves me. Worse yet, TCR is starting to sound good to me. Please, Please, somebody shoot me, even though I am behaving irrationally. You do realize we're talking about people who are terminally ill, don't you? And yet, while I mention people facing imminent and horrible deaths, you talk about being obese, impotent or aged. Hardly the same topic. |
| Saint Jiub 13.12.2008 22:31 |
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/12/60II/main540332.shtml From the above link ... Like many Swiss people, psychiatrist Thomas Schlaepfer, a specialist in depression, is not opposed to assisted suicide - but he's disturbed by the way Dignitas operates. “If somebody flies into Zurich Airport, is brought into an interview for an hour and prescribed medication, that’s totally wrong,” he says. “That’s ethically wrong. Legally, it might be OK in Swiss law, but ethically it’s wrong.” Schlaepfer says it is “totally impossible” to find out in a brief visit or two whether someone is of sound mind. Minelli, however, claims to have no doubts about what he is doing: “Ah, it is not knowing,” he says. “It is feeling, and that is much better than knowing.” ---- Worse than having fruitcakes like Minelli base their decision "on a feeling" and a brief interview ... Digitas has a less glamorous side ... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-431793/Swiss-suicide-clinic-like-backstreet-abortionists.html |
| magicalfreddiemercury 14.12.2008 09:38 |
Panchgani wrote: link From the above link ... Like many Swiss people, psychiatrist Thomas Schlaepfer, a specialist in depression, is not opposed to assisted suicide - but he's disturbed by the way Dignitas operates. “If somebody flies into Zurich Airport, is brought into an interview for an hour and prescribed medication, that’s totally wrong,” he says. “That’s ethically wrong. Legally, it might be OK in Swiss law, but ethically it’s wrong.” Schlaepfer says it is “totally impossible” to find out in a brief visit or two whether someone is of sound mind. Minelli, however, claims to have no doubts about what he is doing: “Ah, it is not knowing,” he says. “It is feeling, and that is much better than knowing.” ---- Worse than having fruitcakes like Minelli base their decision "on a feeling" and a brief interview ... Digitas has a less glamorous side ... link Previously, you suggested rigorous psychological evaluations and waiting periods should take place - which for a terminally ill person could outlast life itself. Now, as mentioned here, "it's totally impossible to find out in a brief visit or two whether someone is of sound mind." Well... then what is the suggestion? To force a suffering and dying person to attend hours upon hours of evaluations to determine why or if s/he'd rather die than lose control of all bodily functions, remain alive in agony and with the knowledge that things will only get worse for them and their loved ones before they mercifully end? And as for the second article you indicated... if I were this person, I would have high-tailed it out of there the moment this occurred - "When we arrived at the place it was a block of flats, with a buzzer marked Dignitas but there was no answer. We were standing there for about three-quarters of an hour until a man arrived wearing a leather jacket with a sports bag over his shoulder, a dirty blue Tshirt, jeans with the knees cut out and smoking a roll-up." Seriously. Backstreet abortions in areas where abortion is illegal is bad enough. But backstreet assisted suicide in a country where assisted suicide is legal is... bizarre, to say the least. The controversy surrounding this issue has to be lifted so there are fewer of these shysters out there praying on the sick and needy. |
| YourValentine 14.12.2008 15:02 |
Dignitas is the last hope for many people because in most other European countries (except Holland) assisted suicide is illegal. I have not clicked on the link posted above but I have seen may critical articles about Dignitas and I am definitely not defending them. If assisted suicide were legal in other countries there would not be a "suicide tourism" to Switzerland. Let's face it: assisted suicide occurs all the time when terminally ill, suffering patients receive the help by their doctors or family members. However, doctors and family members commit a crime when they help the suffering person and it's not right that on top of all the grief and the suffering people are left alone with the moral and legal consequences of respecting the wishes of the dying patient. Instead the society should respect the patient's right to end his/her life when the suffering becomes unbearable and nobody should be given the power to evaluate this decision and overrule it. There is this dark side of Euthanasia when people are killed on the pretense of sparing them further suffering. This is of course murder like any other murder and not the topic of this dicussion. The free and unmistakenly expressed will of the patient is mandatory and must be the basis of such laws and procedures. If someone commits suicide for other reasons (depression, unhappiness), it's suicide and not illegal. Usually obese people do not need assistance to kill themselves. |
| Saint Jiub 14.12.2008 21:35 |
What about if a dentist is suffering from clinical depression and he commits suicide? Is it legal even though he is not of sound mind ??? ... But no matter ... It's OK because everyone hates dentists ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMEa2Q61l_0&feature=channel_page ... YV ... are you joking about suicide not being illegal, or are you stating the obvious that obese people are killing themselves by overeating? Or both? ... MFM - I think a one month or shorter waiting period would be acceptable. Suffering, critically ill people usually do not make a snap overnight decision to end their life ... and I would bet that vast majority were thinking about wanting to die for several months. Thus, a short waiting period should not extend their agony much, if at all. People still need to make and wait for an appointment for assisted suicide anyway, so the review can be done during the wait for the appointment. ... I think that life is too precious to allow it to snuffed out by a snap judgement, without any review of whether the person is of sound mind while not being influenced into a decision by potential heirs (or a grab for business by the "assisted suicide industry"). People who senselessly commit suicide usually have family, friends, and associates who are greatly affected by the senseless suicide. Unfortunately, a clinically depressed person has an unrealistically negative of life, and often overlooks the effect that one's self inflicted demise will have upon others. Perhaps, as we are in the holiday season, it might be appropriate to watch the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" one more time. "Merry Christmas Everyone" |
| ***Marial-B*** 15.12.2008 01:45 |
Man, you're reading between lines, look what YV said at the end!!!!! BTW, I'm in a line between being positive about the euthanasia and not. My grandma was in vegetable state (She could breathe without machines, but she was like in a coma) when the case of the woman who got her gastrical tube for food cut thanks of a judge. I was a bit against it 'cuz sometimes those cases you have hope that the other person will get better, My grandma died a couple of months later. After that, I realize that she was better 'cuz she was suffering for months and months, a year and a half in fact, and not only her, but also everyone in my family, specially my grandpa and my mom and her brothers, aside one, but that's another story. Anyways, I'm not against in those terminally ill cases in a consense of family and patient. About the suicide part, I lived 3 suicides in my life, of people I knew all my life, and because of depressions. I'm against that part 'cuz mostly they are releaved from living, but then they leavethe rest suffering. That's when the psicological study comes, 'cuz they're ill, but mentally ill, not terminally ill. And that's obvious to see, when a person is dying of cancer and when a person has a depression. So Pangchagi or whatever your name is, you're just have to lear to read completely, not between lines and start offending people man. If you're against all, don't get excuses to say "Yes but first this" cuz there are cases that are medically tested that there are just a few days or months for living and these people just want to stop the suffering for themselves and their families, not because they have a huge nose or too much fat in their bodies. |
| YourValentine 15.12.2008 04:42 |
Mike, suicide is not illegal, in fact. Only attempted suicide could be punished, anyway because you cannot prosecute dead people but attempted suicide is not a criminal offense in my country, either. In the old days a person who wanted to kill themselves was sent into a mental institution - since it was a sin to commit suicide a person was regarded insane if they wanted to take their own lives. These days we are beyond that. We know that people commit suicide for reasons nobody else understands and of course we must help depressed people to get better and avoid suicide. Anyway, this is not the issue here. In Germany we have a "patient testament" where we can lay down our will in case we get so ill that we can only live through tubes or end up in a coma. We can specify which life preserving measures we want to have used on as or not. Unfortunately, these patients testaments are not legally binding for the hospital or the doctors. The hospital is free to disregard the wishes of patients who are too ill to execute their right of self determination The parliament is totally unable to make a law to regulate this situation. As a result people need their relatives to take the case to a court to get permission to switch off the machines in hopeless cases. We need laws that protect our right of self determination even if we are weak and cannot jump off the bridge to end it all. Only legal framework avoids private institutes to benefit commercially from the misery of terminally ill people. For a relative it's so much easier to take the suffering patient to the hospital and hand over the responsibility to doctors (who have the hospital's profit in mind, too) It's harder to go all the way with your loved one and make it possible he/she can die in a dignified way and family surrounding. It's totally cruel to deny a terminally ill patient the right to put an end to the suffering. |
| thomasquinn 32989 15.12.2008 07:13 |
Cheap (and perverse) voyeurism all the way, but hopefully it'll get people to think, at least... |
| john bodega 15.12.2008 08:45 |
I think it really depends who's killing themselves. I would be all for assisted suicide on TV if we could talk people like Oprah, Michael Bolton, Tom Cruise, Billy Ray Cyrus and Rush Limbaugh into taking part. |
| Saint Jiub 16.12.2008 23:37 |
Barb - Assisted suicide organizations like Dignitas need to be regulated to prevent cases similar to the case mentioned in one of my previous links. In this case, Dignitas offered a "cut rate" price to the son of the dying mother if the grief became unbearable, knowing that the son had a history of depression. Without proper regulation, I fear that assisted suicide will be occasionally used when the patient is not teminally ill, as organizations like Dignitas still need a regular revenue source to pay their employees. Where I live, medical personnel are generally required to follow the wishes of the patient (as documented in a "living will" or equivalent legal document) . The only caviat, is that one's immediately family could torpedo the living will if they are not in agreement. |