It’s not that simple. Granting a right to die shifts a heavy burden of responsibility onto the patient. The current situation in most countries is that euthanasia is not legal. That means the patient’s family had a sense of obligation to support a terminal patient as best they can for as long as they can (and in geographies with universal healthcare “family” extends to a much broader definition of society). Granting the patient the right to die also puts them into a place where they have to make considerations about how much of a burden they are to those around them. The status quo allows a terminally ill patient to be selfish without guilt (well, modest amounts of guilt) because the alternative is illegal. It comes at the cost of undue suffering for many at the end. The alternative shifts this and risks people who’d have otherwise been able to eek out some continued enjoyment from what remains being forced into a thought decision out of a sense of guilt and obligation to not burden those around them.
It’s a complicated issue with lots of unsatisfying trade-offs. I’m personally conflicted about which path is better. It’s definitely not as simple as obvious as to which way is better that people want to imply.
Hard disagree. People already kill themselves. They already reason about how much of a burden they are and they already kill themselves because they think they are too much of a burden. People already do everything that you said.
The only major difference between the two worlds is that in one, death is grizzly, painful and traumatic and usually preceded by an enormous amount of suffering — and in the other death is none of those things.
You are clearly very naive and you clearly have never been in the position of needing to die.
Apparently it is because the only people who find themselves advocating it are people for whom the topic has become real rather than just words on a screen. Just like everything else in life. Nobody gives a shit until it’s their own skin.
I hope that your life improves and one day you can meet emphathetic people who do give a shit about others skin. Maybe that day, you can make good posts online.
Interesting. The fact that people already do kill themselves regardless of it being permitted or not seems to me to be an argument against legalizing it because it being illegal doesn't stop many people... but it may help them avoid being coerced into it.
I wouldn't care to argue that case-- I think assisted suicide should be legal, but the concern that the legality of it can lead to people feeling pressured into it seems quite legitimate to me.
You're arguing we should force people to live against their will in terrible pain so that a few people don't have to feel guilty?
How many people have you watched die? By the time you get to the point anyone is talking about hospice or refusing life saving care that person's life has been nothing but misery, pain and suffering for a while.
This kind of comment is exactly why I'm glad you don't have the option of deciding that my life is not worth living.
I'm not sick or anything right now but people who say things like this terrify me.
Everyone is going to have to depend on other people's judgement sooner or later, and by the numbers, most people still think there is some kind of soul or afterlife, or at least don't assume there isn't! The only protection from people like that is for there to be no mixed messages and no option for them to commit what they believe to be mercy.
> I'm glad you don't have the option of deciding that my life is not worth living.
The comment you are responding to is not asking for the option to decide if your life is worth living. It is asking for everyone to have the option to decide for themselves if their own life is worth living.
> I'm not sick or anything right now but people who say things like this terrify me.
I made no such argument. I even specifically called out how conflicted I am in how to even assess what the right answer is.
To answer your question: numerous, with a multiple of that impacted in terms of the long painful witnessing of someone dying and/or carrying the emotional and physical burden of supporting the patient. Which is precisely why I am so conflicted.
Though I feel like your question was rhetorical and not an actual attempt to engage in understanding an alternate perspective.
Your experience must be vastly different from mine.
Did you have the experience where people were talking about end of life care before the afflicted individual was ready to go, and you believe if euthanasia were legal they would have pressured the individual to go through with it?
Yeah... if you continue that idea, you just might end up with a society where everybody customarily commits suicide at the age of 60 to avoid being a "burden to society", like in this Star Trek episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_(Star_Trek:_The_Ne...
This would greatly increase our ability to enjoy our earnings instead of having to save a retirement fund large enough to take us to 90. Sixty is silly, though; my parents do more for me than I do for them and they're 70.
It’s a complicated issue with lots of unsatisfying trade-offs. I’m personally conflicted about which path is better. It’s definitely not as simple as obvious as to which way is better that people want to imply.