Hope For The Dying

[Worldtraveller]

I just posted this on FB this morning, and decided to peak in on this thread.

Watching S5, EP 16 of ST:TNG
This is the episode where Worf is injured, paralyzed, and because he's Klingon, decides that an honorable death by his own hand is preferable to living as a paraplegic.

I think the writers cheat the really difficult moral/ethical dilemma here by having a medical miracle that saves him and allows him to walk again.

Here goes.....

I have a different perspective on death, and suicide. I think our lives are our own, and if we feel that death is the best alternative that we, as a society, should learn to recognize, accept and honor that.

Some of that perspective comes from living in Okinawa, and a more than the usual study of Japanese culture and their views on Seppuku/Hari Kiri/suicide. Some of it is just my belief that if we don't ultimately own our own bodies and lives, then we are not truly ever free.
I don't think it should ever be the first choice, just because life is inconvenient, but I also don't think we get to judge other people's ideas of what they can, or think they can, handle in terms of life's difficulties.

I don't say this lightly. I have had four friends commit suicide. Two of them I was quite close with, and I won't pretend that it didn't suck. That's more than most people ever have to deal with, so I think my perspective is at least tempered by this experience and knowledge.

I also want to add a few things here to address US' strawmen. Like SoHy and EricH, and probably unlike US, I have been at someone's bedside as they passed peacefully. Several times, in fact. One of those was my best friend who committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, and only died a little over a week later after his family agreed to terminate life support. I sat by with my wife while her mom died, and 17 months later, her dad.

Writing this brought up some very painful (even after more than 20 years) memories, and I'm crying as I write this, but I stand by my convictions.

I am my own man, and my life is mine.

 

[Lion IRC]

...if we don't ultimately own our own bodies and lives, then we are not truly ever free.

This is a good and easily understood summary of the opposing viewpoint.

But how is it justified?

Metaphysically? Ontologically?

How does self-harm translate to 'freedom' if its a last resort...imposed on you by that 'celestial dictator' called aging/disease?

How do you have more ownership of your body by hastening the very thing which takes your body away from you?

 

[bilby]

...if we don't ultimately own our own bodies and lives, then we are not truly ever free.

This is a good and easily understood summary of the opposing viewpoint.

But how is it justified?

Metaphysically? Ontologically?

How does self-harm translate to 'freedom' if its a last resort...imposed on you by that 'celestial dictator' called aging/disease?

How do you have more ownership of your body by hastening the very thing which takes your body away from you?

Your body IS you. Dualism is both stupid and wrong.

Although, if you did foolishly believe that you had a "soul" that can continue to exist after the destruction of your physical body, it would follow that un-binding "yourself" from your body would be a liberation.

As I have said before, there's no significant moral distinction between a third party requiring you to live, against your will; and a third party requiring you to die, against your will. Requiring a person (who wishes to die) to continue living is morally comparable to murder.

As to "self-harm", choosing to die may (in some circumstances) be less harmful to oneself than choosing to live. The only person in a position to say with certainty which is more harmful to the individual, is that individual himself, and to overrule his choice in either direction is morally indefensible.

 

[southernhybrid]

"Death With Dignity": A Recipe for Elder Abuse and Homicide (Albeit Not by Name)

Death with Dignity Acts in Oregon and Washington authorize physicians to write life-ending prescriptions for their patients. This article addresses various problems with the Acts, including the wording about who may administer the lethal drug and the fact that both Acts lack a consent...

scholarship.law.marquette.edu

I read that. It's a very biased article with very little evidence that people are being forced to choose euthanasia. But, if that is something that is suspected, the law could be changed or enforced better, to make it more difficult for someone to be taken advantage of when making this decision.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

My Dad was fortunate to land himself in a palliative care wing at the local hospital. He had the absolute best care he could have ever really hoped for. But they were always chasing the pain. They didn't want to dope him up to unconsciousness, but really, that is what was needed. It was awful having to let him sleep, rather than spend waking moments with him. It was what he wanted, what he needed. His last few days were awful. Watching a person's body shutdown is arduous and painful. But some people don't want to allow to push them pass quickly and with less needless suffering.

Unfortunately, we're not hearing from your Dad but from you. Are we to trust your judgment regarding who should live and who should die? Didn't you object to my choosing those alternatives? I've noticed that it is common for family members to tell these horror stories rather than the person they say was suffering.

That sounds like an accusation of lying.

You might earn my trust if you answer my questions. Why should any of us believe these "second-hand testimonies" of the dying needing what some call a "good death"?

You do realize Hospice isn't about sustaining life, right? It is about allowing someone to die, but with comfort. The goal of Hospice isn't to help a person live an extra second.

You're dodging my questions so until you answer them, I won't answer your questions. Besides, your question is irrelevant to what I posted.

I've read many times that few people actually choose euthanasia but many are comforted knowing they have that choice. I want to have that choice. Why would you deny someone like me that choice?

That's a bizarre question because I can't deny you anything. But if you are suicidal, then I urge you to contact:

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Hours: Available 24 hours. Languages: English, Spanish. Learn more
988

Are you for real? Are you incapable of understanding their context?

I'm very serious when it comes to matters of life and death. Please get help if you are suicidal.

Isn't this the gist of the issue here. You are incapable of determining if someone is suicidal.

I'm not sure why I should be able to tell if a person is suicidal. So rather than take any unnecessary risks, the prudent thing for anybody to do is urge apparently suicidal people to get help.

Okay, so you said you shouldn't be able to tell if a person is suicidal..

No, I said I don't know why I need to be able to tell if a person is suicidal.

...but then say you urge people are you think are suicidal to get help. That makes no sense.

I don't know why you're confused by what I posted, but the important thing to understand is if you think somebody is suicidal, then urge them to get help. Is that much clear, or are you opposed to doing that for some reason?

Years ago a friend of mine, a Christian, told me he was contemplating suicide. I explained to him that according to many Christian sects, suicide is a ticket to hell. He's with us to this day! Isn't that interesting?

It is a "second-hand testimony". So I'll file it where you file "second-hand testimonies".

You can at least check out what I said to see if it works. If you know a religious person who is suicidal, then tell them that God wants them to live. I think it's likely to help.

You have repeatedly provided indications that you are actually a danger to people who are suicidal and more likely to shame them into killing themselves.

LOL--where do you get that?

When you said you allegedly were trying to shame a person who tried to commit suicide, which is a very good way to help push someone to try again.

I just checked Google, and it appears that shame in general can cause suicidal tendencies, but I couldn't find anything about shaming a person's suicide attempt itself as causing suicide.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I just posted this on FB this morning, and decided to peak in on this thread.

Watching S5, EP 16 of ST:TNG
This is the episode where Worf is injured, paralyzed, and because he's Klingon, decides that an honorable death by his own hand is preferable to living as a paraplegic.

I think the writers cheat the really difficult moral/ethical dilemma here by having a medical miracle that saves him and allows him to walk again.

I've heard of that episode. It was protested by some disability rights groups for portraying people with spinal-cord injury as better off dead. I personally feel very insulted by the theme because it hits very close to home. It's like a slap in the face. For once I wish that a major motion picture would be made about what really disables the disabled: bigotry, discrimination, and lies.

Here goes.....

I have a different perspective on death, and suicide.

Different from whom? It looks like the same old IIDB spiel.

I think our lives are our own, and if we feel that death is the best alternative that we, as a society, should learn to recognize, accept and honor that.

Obviously what people are free to choose is limited to what effect those choices have on others. I don't want to live in a society in which human life is so cheap that it can be tossed into the garbage.

Some of that perspective comes from living in Okinawa, and a more than the usual study of Japanese culture and their views on Seppuku/Hari Kiri/suicide. Some of it is just my belief that if we don't ultimately own our own bodies and lives, then we are not truly ever free.

Well, we aren't completely free and for good reason. Any civilized society knows better than to just stand back while people do whatever they want to do.

I don't think it should ever be the first choice, just because life is inconvenient, but I also don't think we get to judge other people's ideas of what they can, or think they can, handle in terms of life's difficulties.

Then why disregard the people who's lives are decimated by others committing suicide? What if those who commit suicide leave behind young children? How will you tell little Mary Jean why Mommy took her own life explaining that you believe Mommy had the right to do so?

I don't say this lightly. I have had four friends commit suicide. Two of them I was quite close with, and I won't pretend that it didn't suck. That's more than most people ever have to deal with, so I think my perspective is at least tempered by this experience and knowledge.

With experience like that, you should know better.

I also want to add a few things here to address US' strawmen.

I posted no straw-man arguments. I know exactly what's being implied by the death mongers on this board.

Like SoHy and EricH, and probably unlike US, I have been at someone's bedside as they passed peacefully. Several times, in fact.

I have spent time with at least one dying person to let her know I still valued her and respected her life. She never requested death.

One of those was my best friend who committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, and only died a little over a week later after his family agreed to terminate life support. I sat by with my wife while her mom died, and 17 months later, her dad.

Writing this brought up some very painful (even after more than 20 years) memories, and I'm crying as I write this, but I stand by my convictions.

That doesn't make much sense--to be convicted that people should take their own lives when you know how much it harms people.

I am my own man, and my life is mine.

You really aren't, and it really isn't. [removed by moderator]

 

[Rhea]

You really aren't, and it really isn't. [removed]

You really don’t get it at all.

Everyone here who is arguing that we are each our own person is talking about cases of permanent, debilitating conditions that they, themselves, would not want to endure.

Every one here has stated that if someone else can live with that condition then they deserve excellent care to do it. But that some of us might look at that for ourselves and choose an earlier exit.

Everyone here has been talking about what they want for themselves and has stated unequivocally that they would never, ever, tell someone else what they should do.

And you repeatedly mischaracterize all of us as “death mongers” who are telling people they don’t deserve care, when that is demonstrably untrue. All the posts are preserved here, NO ONE is saying that. Yet you keep libeling the entire community here for something that is not true.


You are repeating something, making accusations, over and over, that are false.

You’re the only one here saying that.

I can hear the anguish and fear in your words. You worry that other people think you are a burden. But no one HERE has said that. Your fears are from someone else, something else. Everyone here would help in a heartbeat to stop anyone who denied you care for your condition.

You need to stop libeling the community here. You need to stop repeating the falsehood that anyone here would participate in telling someone that they don’t deserve ongoing care. No one here has said that.

We GET that you cannot understand the choices some of us would make if we suffered an untreatable and irreversible condition that made life a misery. What YOU don’t get is that this does not mean we would promote it or wish it on anyone else, even someone in the same condition who can handle what we would choose not to handle.


Everyone here has been kind and understanding, even in the face of you tell untruths about us - repeatedly.

YOU ARE RIGHT, no one should be denied care when they want it. No one here disagrees with that. That would be barbaric and cruel. NO ONE here is doing that.

And you are wrong that we should be unable to make that choice for ourselves if something happens that we cannot change and we cannot tolerate.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We don't really know what people can be helped significantly. To find out we need to try to help them.

Except we do know it fails for some people.

Yes. But we don't know who those people are until we try to help them.

And nobody except the DEA is suggesting otherwise.

This isn't a case where there's one right answer. Some people can be helped, some can't.

The one right answer is to try to help people so we know who can be helped. It's simple common sense. Why keep chanting "we can't help some people"? Is that a call to withdraw support from those we assume are hopeless?

No. It is a call to recognize that sometimes we can't help. The best they can is sometimes less than the minimum required to make life a positive rather than a negative. Was my father helped by his last weeks with no longer making long term memories, all he had was what he could see and the pain from the cancer.

Isn't that crazy? I would need to be awfully gullible to believe them especially if they claim to be retired healthcare professionals.

Just because you disagree with his claimed credentials doesn't make them false. Especially since he claimed to be retired, not active.

I cry out with teary eyes--Loren, I believe; help my unbelief!

??

I was alluding to Mark 9:23-25 where Jesus implores the father of a deaf and dumb child to believe that Jesus can cast out the spirit. In a similar way this board implores people to be believe.

Nobody's asking for belief.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Nobody's asking for belief.

Great. Then you need not ask me to believe you.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

"Death With Dignity": A Recipe for Elder Abuse and Homicide (Albeit Not by Name)

Death with Dignity Acts in Oregon and Washington authorize physicians to write life-ending prescriptions for their patients. This article addresses various problems with the Acts, including the wording about who may administer the lethal drug and the fact that both Acts lack a consent...

scholarship.law.marquette.edu

Both Acts have an application process to obtain the lethal dose, which includes a written request form with two required witnesses.6 One of these witnesses is allowed to be the patient's heir, who will benefit from the death. 7 Once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy, there is no supervision over its administration. 8 The death is not required to be witnessed by disinterested persons.9 No one is required to be present. 10

They are objecting to the lack of supervision of the actual administration--but the important part is the consent, not the administration. They are trying to nitpick around the edges which says they don't have better reasons to attack it. (Admittedly, I don't have time to study the whole thing. Once I finish eating it's back to the plumbing. No hot water sucks!)

I only care about the patient's consent, not about the administration. If someone else helped them I'm fine with that. The only part of it that bothers me is the "written" part. I would like to see that replaced with "durable communication." Recording a video of them asking for it should be enough--and by "asking" I mean any form of communication that without a doubt conveys their desires. Come up with a suitable set of questions (this should be the job of the medical board, not the politicians) that can be asked of patients with limited ability to respond.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

You really aren't, and it really isn't. [removed by moderator]

You really don’t get...[removed and unread by Unknown Soldier]

 

[abaddon]

You really aren't, and it really isn't. [removed by moderator]

You really don’t get...[removed and unread]

Your will-to-stay-unaware strikes again and has "won" another argument.

 

[EricH]

Right. We don't really know what people can be helped significantly. To find out we need to try to help them.

Because nobody in the history of humanity has ever thought about trying to help people in need. You are the first person in history to come up with this idea.

Yes. But we don't know who those people are until we try to help them.

Because the millions of healthcare workers who get up every morning and go to work are not trying to help their patients. But you telling your Christian friend that Jesus wants them to live - that's how people should be helped.

Then why disregard the people who's lives are decimated by others committing suicide? What if those who commit suicide leave behind young children? How will you tell little Mary Jean why Mommy took her own life explaining that you believe Mommy had the right to do so?

Yes, its much better to torture mommy for another 6 months and force little Mary Jean to watch mommy wither away to a husk while moaning in pain in front of her eyes. That's going to make Mary Jean feel so much better. And when mommy's gone, we can send her to Billy the taxidermist so Mary Jean can always have mommy sitting in the chair by her bedside.

I don't know if this naïve, simple minded, childishly bizarre nonsense you spout is just an over-the-top act created for your personal entertainment, or if you are sincere, genuinely think this way, and are unable to wrap your mind around concepts that might be a little more challenging than "A is for Apple". And this compulsive desire to repeat untruths and misrepresent what people say, even after you have been called out for this bad behavior - that's just a bonus.

 

[EricH]

The prophet of pain has been banned. Let us hope and pray that he stays away from people who are suffering, people who might be thinking about self harm. I can't imagine the damage someone like US could do to the vulnerable.

This thread was hard for me. I lost my wife to cancer in 2015 after an excruciating 4-year battle. Emily wanted to live, and she went through multiple rounds of therapy trying to stay alive, even against her doctors and my advice. She wanted to live for her family, not for selfish reasons, but in the end she understood that she had made a mistake. There are no do-overs with cancer, you pick your path and stick to it. To see US bloviating on the subject with the grace and understanding of a bull in a china shop rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[Worldtraveller]

yeah. I'm glad he's banned. He completely ignored so many of our real experiences, and just continuously mischaracterized what was actually being said. I am sorry you went through that with your wife. I went through the same with my baby brother (throat cancer, he died just before his 40th birthday) in 2018.

 

[TomC]

yeah. I'm glad he's banned.

I'm never exactly glad about this sort of thing. But when I realized that I'd known him for over 20 years, on the internet, I figured it was just a matter of time before the staff here did the same thing every other forum staff has done. It's been many another forum.

I still feel bad for him though. For all those years, and before, he's been in a living hell of entitlement, self-absorbtion, disability, and dysfunction. Nothing anyone here can do help when he recreates it everyday.
Tom

 

[Tharmas]

I deliberately avoided commenting in his threads. At first he seemed to me like someone who wasn’t interested in discussing, but only in arguing, and I have no use for arguing for its own sake. As time went on his posts seemed more and more like trolling, and I am a firm believer in DNFTT.

I commend TomC for the compassion and empathy he is able to bring to the situation. Me, I just got irritated at the number of threads US started.

 

[southernhybrid]

I deliberately avoided commenting in his threads. At first he seemed to me like someone who wasn’t interested in discussing, but only in arguing, and I have no use for arguing for its own sake. As time went on his posts seemed more and more like trolling, and I am a firm believer in DNFTT.

I commend TomC for the compassion and empathy he is able to bring to the situation. Me, I just got irritated at the number of threads US started.

I understand how you feel. I felt sure that US had some type of mental health issue, which may have been related to his combat experience along with his physical disability. He certainly has some type of persecution complex, among other things. Still, he made it very hard for people to have much compassion for him, considering the way he attacked other posters, including those of us who worked in health care or had a close friend or family member who suffered at the end of life. It's hard to be called a liar when you're trying to share some of the difficult things you've witnessed during your career. So, I'm glad he's gone and hope he finds some help. We just weren't prepared to help him, considering his attitude.

I kept telling myself to ignore him because I felt that all we were doing was giving him attention and attention seems to be what he wanted most of all. His presence here caused too much conflict.

 

[BH]

I hate to admit it, really it isn't something that should be funny but I giggle anyway when I think about it. I think about all the parents and grandparents who abused their kids and grandkids being scared of this assisted suicide stuff being "abused" and forced on them.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

yeah. I'm glad he's banned. He completely ignored so many of our real experiences, and just continuously mischaracterized what was actually being said. I am sorry you went through that with your wife. I went through the same with my baby brother (throat cancer, he died just before his 40th birthday) in 2018.

Same as Lion IRC but he hasn't been banned yet. All he does is mischaractertize.