Right to die

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So, what do you think?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/ ... icide-case

In this specific case, it is obvious that it is his choice to die. The only thing that makes it different for him than to other suicidal people is that he is paralyzed and needs help to do it.

I'm not a legal expert but I liked what one of the commenters said; that if its legal necessity for the patient in assisted suicide to flip the switch for themselves, maybe they should find a way to wire in his perspex board on a very specific set of his own commands to do the same thing.

So long as the choice to "pull the switch" is his alone and he's not doing so under duress, I take no issue with it regardless of whether he or another person pulled it.

There's one other thing that differentiates cases like this from healthy people who feel suicidal: The fact that he's sick(as in paralyzed)means that as long as he is living he needs medical care..............And as long as he needs medical care, the medical industry can milk him for every bloody pound he's worth!

The REAL reason why the right-to-die has met such fierce legal opposition is because certain institutions(and the people associated with them)derive economic benefit from keeping chronically and terminally ill people(along with those who have permanent, irreparable injury)alive as long as they can so they can keep billing them and/or their families. It's a shame people don't recognize it when pure GREED is disguised as morality.

Gruesome thought, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

How does physical ailment differ from mental ailment within this context?

It may interest you both to know insurance companies have been known to tell terminally ill patients they should off themselves. Both sides are terrible, but my guess is it's not an either/or sort of deal.

I have no doubt that insurance companies do everything they can to deny coverage to terminally ill patients. This only forces such patients and their families to pay their medical bills out of pocket. Nonetheless, someone is getting money from someone elses misfortune.

And what of those that do not have family to take on the financial burden?

Lol, @ them: Get your f'ing lobbyists on it.

This.

He lives in the UK. The taxpayer is paying to keep him alive against his will.

I think there needs to be a valid reason for it, like extreme pain or something like that; maybe an age limit too. I don't think a depressed 16 year old should be given help killing themselves, for example.

Well, you wouldn't want anyone offing themselves just because they're depressed.
But if someone IS depressed, and knows they have to pass a depression screening in order to qualify for an assisted suicide.....couldn't they fake it?
Perhaps this guy should have to take anti-depressants for a couple months before he is allowed to make this choice?

It really depends on whether the person who's depressed is old enough to know what they're saying. If they're 30+, aren't suffering a chemical imbalance, and their own take is that life is too vacuous and their enjoyment of this world too low to want to keep going or to see life as a net positive, if they're really serious about that, it should be their right as much as anyone else's.

That said I'd generally tend to agree that kids (<18 ) are still in a position where their lives are shaping up and they likely won't have enough of a balanced perspective to be able to call it accurately - unless that is they have some type of neurodegenerative disease that will be taking their life by 25 or something else along those lines that they simply don't want to plod along with.

^

I definitely support his right to do so. Life is so finite though, couldn't you find some type of enjoyment with what you have left? It doesn't say that he has intolerable physical pain, or lack of access to support...