copenhagen120 t1_jacp8ek wrote on February 28, 2023 at 2:21 PM

This is one of those issues that a lot of people feel uncomfortable facing. Lots of slippery slope arguments, religious/moral arguments, etc. Opinions change when you have a dying, suffering loved one who wants nothing more than to end the pain, and isn't able to. I promise, your take on the subject will quickly shift to "it's absolutely unacceptable that someone in terminal pain doesn't have the agency to end their struggle on their own terms".

My father-in-law is terminally ill, and for him the only thing worse than the physical pain is the emotional distress of knowing that his last days will be be a painful drain of emotional and financial resources on himself and the family he's leaving behind.

And I can't emphasize the agency part enough. Getting a terminal diagnosis is so emotionally difficult, partly because you're officially at the end of the line. There's nothing you or anyone else can do to keep the fight going. You've been stripped of agency in your fight to live, and you don't even have the agency to decide to end it if that's what you want. It just contributed to the powerlessness of a terminal diagnosis in such an unnecessary way and is heartbreaking to witness.

crake t1_jadn2ts wrote on February 28, 2023 at 6:04 PM

I identify with this. As a lawyer, I spent years justifying the government's anti-death position, arguing (mostly with myself) that as a policy matter, letting people commit suicide by medical means would introduce all kinds of mischief into estate and family planning.

However, having seen both my father-in-law and my dad die from cancer, my mind is completely changed. I'm sure there are worse deaths than late stage renal failure, but my FIL was begging the doctors to kill him by the end, it was totally macabre. My dad's death in hospice care was better, but it still took almost two weeks before he took his last breath. Both deaths were traumatic for everyone around them except the doctors and nurses who see it every day.

What aggravates me is that people like me simply do not see death every day. We see it maybe once or twice close up in our entire lifetimes. So why are people like me being asked to advocate for this? MDs in hospitals see this every. single. day. Doctors and nurses should be advocating for some form of assisted suicide for terminal patients because dying is a million times more painful than whatever possible self/assisted-inflicted death moment could ever be.

If I treated my dog like the doctors treated my relatives, I think I'd be charged with cruelty to animals - and perhaps rightly so. Nobody would let a horse or a dog die an agonizing death from cancer; they would feel duty-bound to put the animal out of its misery. Yet with humans we all want to pass the buck: the family doesn't want to do it, the doctors don't want to do it, and the dying person desperately wants to do it but cannot.

I don't think there is anything morally wrong with committing suicide if you get a terminal cancer diagnosis. I'm sorry, but my own plan is to go off in the woods with a shotgun and a single shell and eat it somewhere where it won't leave a big mess. Maybe send a note to the local PD by snail mail so they can find the body before anyone else does. That strikes me as a completely reasonable, even considerate thing to do.