It's My Life: A Discussion on Euthanasia

reply to post by AfterInfinity

I believe that if you have no outstanding debts or legal obligations

Pretty sure, assisted suicide is illegal across the board here in the US, and life insurance won't pay out on a suicide death. If Assisted suicide becomes legal, I wonder how that would effect life insurance pay outs?

reply to post by windword


Sorry to correct you. Assisted suicide is legal in 4 states.

euthanasia.procon.org...

Don't know about insurance, but if they can find a way not to pay, they certainly will.

reply to post by windword

I'm guessing there will be a clause introduced that will release the insurance companies from paying out on assisted suicide. I don't see assisted suicide becoming broadly legal in the near future, unless the government and medical industry sees a benefit to themselves in enacting it. But one never knows...

reply to post by Iamschist


Thanks for posting that. I did not know.

I draw the line on agonizing painful terminal illness, (except for children being put on starvation and deprived of water while in hospital for treatment of cancer, for that is OBSCENE BEYOND BELIEF!!!!!!!!! ITS MURDER ONE!!!!!!!!)

Now, aside from any euthanasia, MURDER ONE, in the hospitals going on, for that must be weeded out and those doing so imprisoned....including any politiicans allowing it!!!!!!!

However, suicide is often with mentally ill, or clinically depressed people or those in very sad and devasting losses or circumstances, and NO THEY SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO GO INTO A CLINIC AND KILL THEMSELVES. THEIR DISTRESS IS TEMPORAL AND WILL PASS! They need friends, and family to intervene and lots of LOVE AND HEALING. AND COUNSELING. NOT DEATH!!!!

I would rather the sun supernova'd than society becomes completely overtly murderously demonic, for I've really had enough.

LOVE LOVE LOVE. HELP. EQUALIZE. FIRE GOVERNMENTS. SHARE. MAKE SURE ALL HAVE LAND AND FOOD OF THEIR OWN. BE A FAMILY. THROW OUT CULTISH RELIGIONS SO YOU CAN BE CARING TO EVERYONE. AND ALWAYS BE THERE FOR THOSE IN NEED. THOSE AT THE EDGE OF THIS INSANITY ARE IN NEED BIG TIME!!!!! THIS IS A CRY FOR HELP!!!!! We've lost some amongst family and friends and the issue is not the free right to do yourself in. This one is an issue of society, and whether we are living in hell or heaven and never would anyone with children or family ever support this, for there are many times that adolscents, the divorced, elderly and depressed, or those with OCD attempt suicide. Thank God for the saves at those moments of crisis and need, and the losses are HEART WRENCHING.

reply to post by Unity_99


It's possible to just hate Earth and its inhabitants. If such is the case, and you have no legal or financial obligations outstanding, I think you should be able to self-terminate if you choose to do so.

It was part of our tribal life... A person knows when they are doneski...so why FORCE them to suffer.

Note - When I get to that point, it'll make CNN.

'Man ingests 120 Armageddon peppers and dies from heavy internal bleeding' will be the headline.

reply to post by Unity_99


It is easy to deny someone the right to die UNTIL it happens to someone close to you! I told the story of my mother earlier on in this thread but left out details that I find very very difficult to talk about, but now I will!

After my mothers stroke she was left with little use of her own body and mind, she needed to be fed, washed, turned over when she had been lying in one position for too long, carried to and put on a toilet and cleaned afterwards etc, etc, etc., this was a woman who had raised three children and worked until she went into hospital after her heart attack.
She had started to become nauseous after every meal and I discovered that it was due to the hospital staff feeding her too quickly and straight after basically force feeding her they would put her hospital bed in the "flat" position and leave her, one night she became nauseous while flat on her back and suffered Pulmonary Aspiration, her lungs had filled with fluid AND FOOD, she was dying due to lack of care, her lower limbs had by the time I got to the hospital already started turning blue due to lack of oxygen, she was asphixiating on her own vomitus due to lack of proper care, she was dying, being killed, being murdered by unproper or lack of care by hospital staff. I honestly don't know how she even managed to speak to me the last time, her last request which I would have fulfilled if I had had the means and the opportunity! Could you, honestly, say you would be able to sit by your parents bed and watch them suffocating and in agony until they died? If you can you are a much stronger person than I am, I was torn apart and to this day I agonise over not being able to help her, being forced to just leave her, go to work and return home to find her dead! I never got the chance to help her end her pain and I also never got the chance to say goodbye! Euthanasia or Assisted Suicide MUST be made legal!

And regarding Lfe Insurance, does it really matter? Would you, anyone of you be able to force your parent to carry on living in pain just to ensure that your parents life insurance pays out?

reply to post by wiser3


Sorry for your loss and ordeal.

Most won't understand unless they see it as you have stated(and shared). My grandmother went through that stage...she waited many years to die. I was happy when she finally passed - no human should suffer like that.

The ones that have experienced it, but against it are the 1%.

No jackoff wants to see their family suffer.

Almost seems like people treat their pets better than they do each other... WTF is wrong with people??

reply to post by ChuckNasty


Thanks CN! This thread, and previous ones about the same subject, upset me terribly, especially when people start to spout about hell and murder when the only reference they have is a fairy tale which has for centuries been used as a form of mass mind control!

Worship this, or else!
Pay us so much, or else!
Live, even if you don't want to, or else!

If that is what floats their boats thats fine but they should leave me and MY GOD, who does not sit on a throne in a multi-million dollar building, out of it! I am closer to my god when I am sitting next to the ocean or on top of a hill watching a sunset sharing my thoughts with MY GOD than they will ever be dressed up in their finest in church on a Sunday, looking left and right to see who is driving what car, who is wearing a new hat or outfit and the minute they leave the "house" of their god they are back to gossipping and judging others!

OP, thanks for a thoughtful, well set out thread.

a) Pain, suffering and distress (PSaD) are all apart of God's divine plan...

As my government 'allows' but does not 'enforce' any given religion, this one is out as a consideration.

I also want nothing to do with a god that inflicts suffering and distress on me for his amusement, but fortunately for my learning life path, I seem to inflict more than enough on myself without his assistance lol.

I think one of the few most horrible pollutions of the religious philosophies of the world is the idea that god arranges suffering but for some reason HE finds 'good.' That one may come out of bad situations with positives, doesn't mean the bad situations existed solely for the later positive.

b) PSaD are actually beneficial (in the long-term) in terms of building resilience and character...

We could argue PSaD has the opposite effect also, and that having a healthy life rather than at home/hospital in misery is better, I think this point is shaky.

c) Deciding to take one's own life is still taking a life, which is intrinsically wrong.

More religion, since scientifically we are just biological tissue; but if we're going to use religion we might as well say that if one does not really die but reaches (check one glorious alternative), it shouldn't matter.

d) Those stating they wish to take their own lives are usually not mentally fit to make such an extreme decision.

That is nearly always true. However, there simply must be something that makes life worthwhile and when pain and lack of hope outweigh that, the whole point of getting up (or even breathing) is lost.

To be more literal: we forcibly extend the misery of innocent people to satisfy our selfish need to put our own fears of death above their enduring agony.

e) PSaD - whether physical, mental or both - can be overcome through time.

Depends on the situation. There are plenty of conditions, diseases etc. that are merely going to get worse.

I'm assuming that we are never discussing assisted suicide for situational or emotional reasons, but always for physical reasons, btw.

f) We are all ONE and any act that harms a part of the collective whole affects all that are connected.

I agree but it must join the other religious stuff above.

g) Euthanasia might be encouraged by those surrounding the individual for the wrong reasons, e.g. a written will/insurance policy or extreme hatred of that person.

Possible, but a good reason for arranging things so there is third party counseling and a time span required first, and some issues related to inheritance should probably be specialized here.

a) Euthanasia puts an end to pain, suffering and distress (PSaD)

Primary one I'd think.

b) Euthanasia extinguishes the PSaD felt and experienced by those surrounding the individual.

I don't consider that an argument for it. I consider how other people feel to be irrelevant. It's solely an issue of the individual in question to me.

... If the condition is irreversible and will lead to death in 1 week, 12 months or 5 years, why make the individual suffer for no reason?

Psychology and circumstance and pain are likely to greatly distort the relevance of the time period (in one direction or the other), but then again, physical pain and lack of quality of life are just about everything.

f) Taking one's life in a planned systematic and consensual context avoids the chance that they will take their own life in a public place which is likely to be sudden and barbaric in execution.
g) The less resources spent on prolonging the lives of those whom are terminally unwell, the more resources available to help those who need help and are not terminally unwell.

Agreed but these are issues of others I don't consider relevant to the question which is only for the individual.

I think some things could be added to your list:

* Soylent Green's "lovely environment with a peaceful slipping away" experience gives people the ability to make death a lovely thing with planning, instead of a surprise painful trauma.

* Allows slight needed population reduction, sometimes of those most expensive to society (for medical reasons).

* Could maximize harvesting of critical biological components which could help others to live.

1) How do I define a life?

I'm a mystic so my definitions far exceed anything reasonable already lol. I don't even kill bugs generally.

2) Is Euthanasia morally justifiable in certain cases?

I believe the question should be up to the individual, so I don't feel that the issue of morals should come into it. I could do all kinds of things to my own body that I'd get arrested for doing to someone else's.

I don't think it should ever be allowed for others to do "to" someone, although I believe in very tightly controlled situations, 'assistance' could be given to allow the process to be medically supervised and painless.

It is a problematic argument to kill fetals for convenience and animals for coats but not be willing to let someone in hideous chronic pain kill themselves to end their suffering.

3) Should Euthanasia be legalised?

I feel iffy about it, not because I have any issues with it inherently, but because anything government is involved in will be bureaucratically screwed up in every possible way, and if there's one more thing I don't want government having the ability to screw up, it's how-when-why to kill people openly.

5) What are the moral implications for the person who assists the individual with their suicide?

There are implications for soldiers and cops shooting people even when it's part of their job and genuinely self defense, and they have to deal with those repercussions of being part of the death of someone. This doesn't seem to be too well recognized (probably because people don't want to think about it, and simply cannot do so when in the midst of it for their own sanity and survival, but years often decades later, it often catches up with people psychologically, at least my soldier friends). I think this may be an issue even when the death is a huge favor to someone and done out of love.

My own spiritual views bias here, as I consider involvement with the end of a life to have energetic repercussions, although, so do many things... that can be part of life, this being part of others' death. I don't consider it without effect, but I would be willing to take on that effect for my own reasons, just as soldiers do for example. I consider this almost a strange form of the old sin-eaters, if you recall that tradition; sometimes a whole category of people who 'take it on' for everyone else; sometimes just an individual who does.

reply to post by RedCairo


I appreciate your well thought out and presented response to the questions posed by the OP!
I starred your post and would do so again if I could! I don't think I have ever read a more balanced approach to this subject matter!