Healthy 24-year-old granted right to die in Belgium

[The Brain]

just like the child, the mentally ill are not capable of understanding the consequences of their actions,

You appear to have a cartoonish understanding of mental illness.

[Ideologue]

Maybe the mentally ill, like the child, just need to grow up?

[The Brain]

I am amazed that 50% of the people here responded positively to this statement:

I believe people should be able to choose to euthanized for any reason.

Anyone? For any reason? Seriously?


So if some 18 year strolls into their doctors office and says "I want to kill myself because my cat died" the doctor should just write her up a prescription, have a nice day?


ANY REASON?

That seems to me a much safer call for help from the 18 y/o than a botched sucide attempt.

[Berkut]

I am amazed that 50% of the people here responded positively to this statement:

I believe people should be able to choose to euthanized for any reason.

Anyone? For any reason? Seriously?


So if some 18 year strolls into their doctors office and says "I want to kill myself because my cat died" the doctor should just write her up a prescription, have a nice day?


ANY REASON?

That seems to me a much safer call for help from the 18 y/o than a botched sucide attempt.

Not at all, if in fact the "correct" response is to give her a more certain means of killing herself.

The vast majority of suicide attempts, after all, don't result in someone dieing - hence, the "botched" attempts are by definition much less safe than a doctor giving you a sure fire tool to get it right.

[Berkut]

just like the child, the mentally ill are not capable of understanding the consequences of their actions,

You appear to have a cartoonish understanding of mental illness.

Nice edit job.

[The Brain]

This is where a healthy and reasonable respect for personal liberty diverges into just basic fucking crazy.

Liberty is predicated on the concept that people are best able to decide for themselves what is in their own best interests, or at least that in general, this is true compared to the alternative of the state or society making those choices for them.

When the individual is making choices that are clearly NOT in their own best interests, it is very much the case that we step in in a variety of different ways. We do not let children play with matches, even if they really, really want to - that isn't "hypocrisy" because we are restricting their liberty, that is having the rational and sane understanding of the limits of a governing principle under the particulars of actual circumstances. In this case, the realization that children lack the complete capacity to understand what is actually in their own best interests better than their parents.

That exact same principle applies when someone asks to destroy themselves - by definition, that is a request that has a very, very low chance of actually being in that persons best interests, even if they genuinely beleive that it is - just like the child, the mentally ill are not capable of understanding the consequences of their actions, and it is perfectly reasonable to judge that those desires are not in that person's actual best interests.

Now, to top all that off, we are talking not about interfering in their ability to take their lives, which would be one thing, *but actively assisting them in doing so!*

The demand that you use the power of the state to help people destroy themselves as a test for True Libertarian makes me vomit. It makes me start to understand why some people hold the term "libertarian" in such contempt.

You appear to have a cartoonish understanding of mental illness.

[The Brain]

I am amazed that 50% of the people here responded positively to this statement:

I believe people should be able to choose to euthanized for any reason.

Anyone? For any reason? Seriously?


So if some 18 year strolls into their doctors office and says "I want to kill myself because my cat died" the doctor should just write her up a prescription, have a nice day?


ANY REASON?

That seems to me a much safer call for help from the 18 y/o than a botched sucide attempt.

Not at all, if in fact the "correct" response is to give her a more certain means of killing herself.

The vast majority of suicide attempts, after all, don't result in someone dieing - hence, the "botched" attempts are by definition much less safe than a doctor giving you a sure fire tool to get it right.

Yes?

[crazy canuck]

But ultimately, from that person's point of view, that's reality - whether the pain they feel is "real" or "just in their head", it doesn't matter - they feel it all the same. So, as I said earlier, the only condition should be whether the condition can be treated and whether the treatment is something the patient wishes to undergo.

Why is the persons "point of view" important when their point of view is directly impacted and a creation of the very thing which is being treated.  Without the depression there would be no suicidal ideation.  Without the suicidal ideation there would be no wish to die.

Might as well say, "Without that broken spine, there would be no wish to die."

You are missing the point entirely then.  The broken spine is the direct cause of a person's inability to walk.  The depression is the direct cause of this person's suicidal ideation.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

you'll have to translate it yourselves.

the law:
http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi_loi/change_lg.pl?language=nl&la=N&cn=2002052837&table_name=wet

the point-by-point version, in human-speak rather than legalese (though the legalese is oddly comprehensible):
http://www.belgium.be/nl/gezondheid/gezondheidszorg/levenseinde/euthanasie/

[crazy canuck]

Here in Canada the criminal prohibition against doctor assisted suicide has been stuck down by the SCC.  The government has not yet created new laws reflecting the decision and so the College of Physicians and Surgeons has created guidelines for its members regarding how to approach the issue.

You will see that the guidelines emphasize the importance of the patient being mentally competent to make the decision.

http://www.cpso.on.ca/policies-publications/policy/decision-making-for-the-end-of-life

As I understand it updated guidelines are being worked on now.

[Berkut]

CC.  looked over that, and it appears that in regards to this topic, it is still not acceptable to assist someone in taking their life:

3.4 Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Euthanasia is a deliberate act undertaken by a person with the intention of ending the life of another person to relieve that person's suffering where that act is the cause of death.10 Euthanasia is prohibited under the Canadian Criminal Code.

Assisted suicide is the act of intentionally killing oneself with the assistance of another who provides the knowledge, means, or both.11 Under the Criminal Code, counselling, aiding or abetting suicide is an offence, and the consent of the deceased to his or her own death does not prevent criminal liability from attaching to the person who assisted in bringing about the death.

None of this is to suggest that physicians should refrain from the aggressive management of a patient's pain and symptoms, as appropriate.

[Martinus]

just like the child, the mentally ill are not capable of understanding the consequences of their actions,

You appear to have a cartoonish understanding of mental illness.

Yeah a very small percentage of mentally ill people are actually incapable of making an informed decision. The thing is depression doesnt give you "suicidal thoughts" - it makes your life so unbearable, you start contemplating suicide. How is it different, then, from suffering from physical pain so strong, your life is so unbearable, you start contemplating suicide?

[garbon]

Yeah a very small percentage of mentally ill people are actually incapable of making an informed decision. The thing is depression doesnt give you "suicidal thoughts" - it makes your life so unbearable, you start contemplating suicide. How is it different, then, from suffering from physical pain so strong, your life is so unbearable, you start contemplating suicide?

I think I'm not going to take your word on the link between suicide and depression, Dr. Marti.

[Berkut]

just like the child, the mentally ill are not capable of understanding the consequences of their actions,

You appear to have a cartoonish understanding of mental illness.

Yeah a very small percentage of mentally ill people are actually incapable of making an informed decision.

Lovely. He creates a strawman, then you respond as if the strawman were the actual argument with yet another strawman. Classic

A very small percentage of mentally ill people are incapable, that is true. Of course, I never said otherwise.

Of course, a very small percentage of mentally ill people wish to kill themselves as well. Something you seem to have missed.

What percentage of mentally ill people WHO WANT TO KILL THEMSELVES are capable of making an informed decision?

That is the actual question I am raising.

Your answer is that we don't care - as long as they say that is what they want, we should not care at all. I think we should care, and in fact they should be evaluated by a competent medical professional to make certain that they are in fact capable of making that decision, and that the decision is based on actual medical facts rather than being driven by the very condition itself.

Just like if someone said "Hey, I want euthanasia because I have an incurable cancer" and a doctor knows in fact that it is NOT incurable, he should probably not just write the prescription. OH WELL IT IS WHAT THE PATIENT WANTS LOLZORS LIBERTY!

He might, in fact, choose to refuse such a prescription and instead..you know...tell them it can be treated.

The thing is depression doesnt give you "suicidal thoughts"

Now you are the one with a cartoonish understanding of depression. It most certainly does create suicidal thoughts.

- it makes your life so unbearable, you start contemplating suicide. How is it different, then, from suffering from physical pain so strong, your life is so unbearable, you start contemplating suicide?

Because it has in fact been shown that people suffering from depression contemplate suicide far out of proportion to their experienced pain.

[crazy canuck]

CC.  looked over that, and it appears that in regards to this topic, it is still not acceptable to assist someone in taking their life:

3.4 Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Euthanasia is a deliberate act undertaken by a person with the intention of ending the life of another person to relieve that person's suffering where that act is the cause of death.10 Euthanasia is prohibited under the Canadian Criminal Code.

Assisted suicide is the act of intentionally killing oneself with the assistance of another who provides the knowledge, means, or both.11 Under the Criminal Code, counselling, aiding or abetting suicide is an offence, and the consent of the deceased to his or her own death does not prevent criminal liability from attaching to the person who assisted in bringing about the death.

None of this is to suggest that physicians should refrain from the aggressive management of a patient's pain and symptoms, as appropriate.

Yeah, that is the part that is no longer applicable because of the SCC case.  Now doctors are only left with the informed consent guidance.  Everyone recognizes that is not sufficient but it at least emphasizes the point you were making.