Polonius wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

In my instance, there is extreme chance I am going to get a lethal form of cancer. I aint going through that gak thank you very much, and everyone knows it. Please justify your statement that I am incompetent without involving a personal view on your part.

Except ending life when facing terminal illness is exactly the situation the bill in the OP addresses, which is a very different situation from other decisions to end life.

Trading a slow death for a quick one might still be suicide to some people, but the ethics are very different from an otherwise healthy person deciding to end his life.

 Peregrine wrote:
Can we make it clear just what kind of suicide we're talking about here? Because there are two potential situations with very different ethical principles involved:

1) A person has a temporary crisis, can't take it anymore, and tries to commit suicide. This kind of person is usually glad they didn't die once they get through their temporary problems (if they survive the suicide attempt), and only wanted to die because they were overwhelmed and unable to cope.

2) A person has an ongoing quality of life problem with little or no hope of improvement and decides that it's not worth continuing to live just for the sake of living. This person has made their decision, maintained the desire to die for more than just a brief crisis, and is unlikely to change their mind.

There's a pretty big difference between seeing a person standing on the edge of a bridge and having someone submit the right-to-die paperwork after clearing any waiting periods/professional evaluations/etc. So they really shouldn't be treated the same way.

 d-usa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You said I was repeating my argument. I was because no one had answered it.

Coming up with the CBS answer is just justificaiton for doing what you want to do. You're claiming people aren't competent to make a decision, and that the decision they are making shows they are incompetent.

Read before you type, that will help with making sure that you are replying to the right posts and understanding the post that you are replying to.

1) If you spend even a cursory amount of time reading the posts it would be clear that I am replying to Prestor Jon who started that line of discussion in another thread and which I moved here since it seemed to fit more with the California thread. The original question basically was "why is it okay for terminal people to kill themselves in California but it's not okay for anybody else to commit suicide whenever they want to". I replied by explaining the legal reasoning behind the two areas: You have agency over your body as long as you are mentally capable of making those decision. In Right-To-Die states people have decided that wanting to die because you have a terminal illness doesn't make you crazy, but they still have inserted a mental evaluation that is required before you commit suicide to make sure that you have the mental capacity to make that decision. In these states if you want to kill yourself for other reasons, and in all other states for any reason, you are automatically deemed incapable of making an informed decision because you are mentally ill or else you wouldn't want to kill yourself. The follow by Prestor Jon was "but why does the state get to stop you", which doesn't really move the discussion forward at all and just repeats the original question over and over again.

2) I have also explained over and over again that I am simply explaining what the legal and medical viewpoint is, and that I'm not saying why I think you shouldn't be able to commit suicide but that I am simply saying why the state thinks you should't be able to commit suicide. Heck, I even posted a number of times the same argument that you made "You have to be competent to commit suicide, but wanting to commit suicide makes you incompetent, it's very circular reasoning and doesn't make much sense, but that is where the law is at right now".

WHY?
"I'm the PoPo and I'm going to shoot you if you try to kill yourself because you're incompetent!"
er...what?

Wanna find anywhere in this thread where anyone advocated killing suicidal people? Because if you are already going into the usual "say hyperbolic stuff just because you have nothing better to do" mode then I will just go ahead and be on my way.

In my instance, there is extreme chance I am going to get a lethal form of cancer. I aint going through that gak thank you very much, and everyone knows it. Please justify your statement that I am incompetent without involving a personal view on your part.

Texas Health and Safety Code, Title 7. Mental Health and Mental Retardation, Subtitle C. Texas Mental Health Code, Chapter 573. Emergency Detention

Which goes back to the whole "I'm explaining why the State has a legal right to intervene" thing, and not a "I'm saying that wanting to commit suicide automatically makes you crazy" argument.

Texas does not have Right-To-Die yet. Maybe more states will pick up bills like this. We can only hope.

And just to clarify in case you missed the fact that I started this thread and that I am okay with Right-To-Die law with the right safeguards (which are included in the bill): I'm just trying to explain why Right-To-Die laws are different than laws allowing the state from letting you commit suicide at any other time and why Right-To-Die laws are required in the first place.

 Frazzled wrote:

oh ok then, my bad. Carry on.

 d-usa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

oh ok then, my bad. Carry on.

Glad we got that out of the way

Regarding "regular" suicides, it is interesting to look at laws in other countries.

The main one that I am familiar with is of course Germany:

- It's not illegal to commit suicide
- It's not illegal to assist someone by providing the means to commit suicide
- You can't kill them though even if that is what they want, they have to do the act themselves.
- It is illegal to assist someone if they don't have capacity (under 14, mental illness)
- If you assist someone and they fail, you are required to provide first aid to keep them alive
- Certain people with a professional duty to help (doctors, EMTs, parents, police officers) are required to make an effort to prevent suicide or they could be held liable for "homicide by omission".

 d-usa wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

In my instance, there is extreme chance I am going to get a lethal form of cancer. I aint going through that gak thank you very much, and everyone knows it. Please justify your statement that I am incompetent without involving a personal view on your part.

Except ending life when facing terminal illness is exactly the situation the bill in the OP addresses, which is a very different situation from other decisions to end life.

Trading a slow death for a quick one might still be suicide to some people, but the ethics are very different from an otherwise healthy person deciding to end his life.

And it still took us a long way to get to that point.

There are still people who are not okay with a loved one signing a "Do Not Resuscitate" order, and who think that doing so is "giving up" and "not fighting anymore". And I have stood up for those patients every single time. Both against family members who tried to tell their mother "you can't sign that yet, we haven't had a chance to talk to the rest of the family about this yet" and me trying to explain to them that the only person who gets to make that decision is her and nobody else, as well as standing up to multiple physicians who wanted to work a code because the family was telling them to do it even though the patient had a signed DNR on the chart. If a person has a signed "let me die" form on their chart then I will not go against that final wish and put them through the hell of CPR.

But DNR requests are becoming a lot more accepted. And more and more people are pursuing hospice care and palliative treatments instead of curative treatments. Society is slowly moving towards a "it's okay to die, you don't have to always fight tooth and nail to the end" mindset, and Right-To-Die is just another step along the way. Hopefully one that will expand to the rest of the country.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Can we make it clear just what kind of suicide we're talking about here? Because there are two potential situations with very different ethical principles involved:

1) A person has a temporary crisis, can't take it anymore, and tries to commit suicide. This kind of person is usually glad they didn't die once they get through their temporary problems (if they survive the suicide attempt), and only wanted to die because they were overwhelmed and unable to cope.

2) A person has an ongoing quality of life problem with little or no hope of improvement and decides that it's not worth continuing to live just for the sake of living. This person has made their decision, maintained the desire to die for more than just a brief crisis, and is unlikely to change their mind.

There's a pretty big difference between seeing a person standing on the edge of a bridge and having someone submit the right-to-die paperwork after clearing any waiting periods/professional evaluations/etc. So they really shouldn't be treated the same way.

My original posts when this thread started was pretty much just talking about and in support of #2, with the follow up discussion being about how #1 is different than #2.

Relapse wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

In my instance, there is extreme chance I am going to get a lethal form of cancer. I aint going through that gak thank you very much, and everyone knows it. Please justify your statement that I am incompetent without involving a personal view on your part.

Except ending life when facing terminal illness is exactly the situation the bill in the OP addresses, which is a very different situation from other decisions to end life.

Trading a slow death for a quick one might still be suicide to some people, but the ethics are very different from an otherwise healthy person deciding to end his life.

And it still took us a long way to get to that point.

There are still people who are not okay with a loved one signing a "Do Not Resuscitate" order, and who think that doing so is "giving up" and "not fighting anymore". And I have stood up for those patients every single time. Both against family members who tried to tell their mother "you can't sign that yet, we haven't had a chance to talk to the rest of the family about this yet" and me trying to explain to them that the only person who gets to make that decision is her and nobody else, as well as standing up to multiple physicians who wanted to work a code because the family was telling them to do it even though the patient had a signed DNR on the chart. If a person has a signed "let me die" form on their chart then I will not go against that final wish and put them through the hell of CPR.

But DNR requests are becoming a lot more accepted. And more and more people are pursuing hospice care and palliative treatments instead of curative treatments. Society is slowly moving towards a "it's okay to die, you don't have to always fight tooth and nail to the end" mindset, and Right-To-Die is just another step along the way. Hopefully one that will expand to the rest of the country.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Can we make it clear just what kind of suicide we're talking about here? Because there are two potential situations with very different ethical principles involved:

1) A person has a temporary crisis, can't take it anymore, and tries to commit suicide. This kind of person is usually glad they didn't die once they get through their temporary problems (if they survive the suicide attempt), and only wanted to die because they were overwhelmed and unable to cope.

2) A person has an ongoing quality of life problem with little or no hope of improvement and decides that it's not worth continuing to live just for the sake of living. This person has made their decision, maintained the desire to die for more than just a brief crisis, and is unlikely to change their mind.

There's a pretty big difference between seeing a person standing on the edge of a bridge and having someone submit the right-to-die paperwork after clearing any waiting periods/professional evaluations/etc. So they really shouldn't be treated the same way.

My original posts when this thread started was pretty much just talking about and in support of #2, with the follow up discussion being about how #1 is different than #2.

My hat is off to you for being able to help people though what are some truly hear breaking situations. We've had some ugly disagreements, but at the end of the day, I think you are a hell of a man doing good in the world.