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DoomUK

Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die

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Not sure if this has been shared on here before, but earlier this year Terry Pratchett did a documentary aired on the BBC about assisted suicide. As most of you probably know, back in 2007 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and has since declared his wish to end his own life in as peaceful a manner as possible before he is unable to do what it is he gets out of bed in the morning for. YouTube seems to have blocked the documentary from being shown on copyright grounds, but you can watch the whole thing here.

Catch it while you can if you haven't already seen it. While I've always been unequivocally in favour of the concept of assisted suicide, it's a moving documentary that's worth spending an hour watching and makes as good a case as any for those who wish to die with dignity.

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I'm a supporter of assisted suicides. I can see why doctors dislike them, it s against their oath in general after all.

When it comes time of desperation, and you choose to die by your own means, why not?

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Technician said:

When it comes time of desperation, and you choose to die by your own means, why not?

The risk of doing it recklessly, without serious thought. Depression can be a cause, but depression can be treated, thereby canceling the suicide thought.

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printz said:

The risk of doing it recklessly, without serious thought. Depression can be a cause, but depression can be treated, thereby canceling the suicide thought.


I see your point, but aren't we talking mostly about people who are in constant pain or who are making a clear, non-reckless decision to stop living? Or perhaps there is even another reason which has been well thought out by the person? As a supporter of freedom, I think everyone should have the right to choose death over life. It should be a doctor's duty to ensure that a person choosing to die is not simply "temporarily depressed" or in need of treatment, but then again that might give them too much power to stop people from making a choice they should be allowed to make.

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I think one of the strong arguments in favour of assisted suicide is that people commit suicide anyway. However, with a lack of a suitable, humane, painless and legal procedure, many end up doing something slow, damaging, painful and not even particularly efficient or successful. What's more, they tend to leave a far more traumatic mess (both literally and figuratively) for someone else to cope with afterwards.

When it comes down to it, a person committing suicide is usually an amateur in the life-taking business and does an amateurish job. They may get the job done, but there are usually far better ways to do it.

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I think one of the strong arguments in favour of assisted suicide is that people commit suicide anyway.


That's not a strong argument at all.

The logic itself is flaky at best. Replace "suicide" for anything else and see how that goes. "I think one of the strong arguments in favour of assisted pedophilia is that people rape kids anyway". "I think one of the strong arguments in favour of assisted cannibalism is that people eat people anyway". If you'd rather stick to things that only affect the individual (although it could be argued a suicide affects everyone in a social circle, to some extent): "I think one of the strong arguments in favour of assisted obesity is that people eat too much anyway". People doing stuff doesn't mean what they're doing is good, nor that is an absolute scenario where either they do it or they don't and quantity is irrelevant. Condoning stuff just because it happens doesn't work, as a moral or practical position.

Much more importantly, most suicides are caused by depression. That is an indisputable fact ; for anyone who stops and doubts this, please, please, please, go do some basic research on suicides if you really care about this topic ; and by research I mean actual scientific reports or studies conducted by professional therapists rather than some youtube video about a celebrity's lifechoice!

Depression can be cured or alleviated, suicides can be prevented. Of course, there's no guarantee. Of course, it requires a lot of work. Of course, it's much easier to just let someone kill themselves and forget about them after a few monts, weeks, days of grief...

I'm not against people taking their own life, at all. Everyone should be able to make that choice ; and in my opinion, our current system is pretty good as is : the information is out there for anyone who's willing to look for it, but you still have to be proactive and determined enough about it.

Assisted suicide, on the other hand, is wrong for a number of reasons. Why should anyone believe people who aren't smart enough to figure out how to kill themselves in a painless and efficient way are smart enough to make a much more important decision, the choice to live or to die, without being influenced by a lobby, a company or society itself telling them it's fine to kill yourself? Not to mention the pain itself makes it harder to make rational decisions - harder than it already is, as we as human beings already tend to base our decision-making on emotion rather than logic even when we're in perfect health.

To put it simply, anyone who believes assisted suicide didn't result in at least one person killing themselves whereas that person might have stayed alive and lived a relatively happy life is living in a fairy tale, and that's what doesn't jive well with me.

Ideally, assisted suicide should sort out between the vast majority of people who need counceling and the few people who legitimately need help to die with dignity ; but people make mistakes, and when we're talking about life or death, any mistake is unacceptable, especially when the net benefit is so vague and ill-defined.

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slippery slope in deciding who "deserves" assisted suicide or euthanasia is a real problem indeed, but moralizing into faces of terminally ill real people, pontificating how there's so much beauty in life and how they might be making a mistake... well, that's just deplorable pretentiousness.

edit: i've just finished watching the documentary. it's beautifully done, i wonder if the critics merely bash the topic without even seeing it. to me it was a gentle, moving show that broadened my horizons.

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Phml said:

Why should anyone believe people who aren't smart enough to figure out how to kill themselves in a painless and efficient way are smart enough to make a much more important decision, the choice to live or to die, without being influenced by a lobby, a company or society itself telling them it's fine to kill yourself?


Oh come on. What about people who are physically incapable of killing themselves? What do they do? Wait for someone to walk by one day and trip on the cord to their life support machine? Besides, not everyone is brave enough to attempt suicide, they may be afraid that it will go wrong and they will live on in even more pain/suffering. There needs to be a legal way for an outside party to facilitate someone's death who chooses to die, but with enough oversight to prevent every broken-hearted teen from waltzing in to the clinic to get offed in the heat of the moment.

Most of your post was good but some parts in particular need more thought.

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I think that most of us fear suicide (going as far as to criminalize it in some countries) because it worries us that rational people would freely choose to give up their lives, when life is all that the rest of us live for. When we pontificate on the beauty of life at the bedside of someone in chronic pain, we're really trying to convince ourselves.

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"Life isn't a gift, it's a responsibility."

"The only reason people die is because they were forced to exist."

I think assisted suicide is great! If someone wants to die, whether it's because they are sick and untreatable or because they're just depressed, then that's usually fine with me (unless they have kids). In a world where all life is destined to end, I think it's ridiculous that we can force people to exist (by having kids), yet we can't choose to end our life in a decent way.

If people choose to continue this charade of everlasting importance and meaning by bringing children into our dying world, then they should have to accept the wonderful world of suicide.

Suicide could be awesome if people had a decent place to end their life in a painless way. Instead of doing it somewhere that leaves a big mess and/or other people find their body.

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That was interesting. Thanks for sharing.

As for suicide, well, booking a one way ticket to Somalia should do the trick. (Although the "painless" is kinda questionable using this manly method.)

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I don't think I want to watch this right now. I'm not in the mood for getting depressed.

I'm all for assisted suicide. My parents both have living wills that say to pull the plug if they lose their minds. It helps that they both saw their mothers slowly die of Alzheimers and their fathers have strokes.

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printz said:

The risk of doing it recklessly, without serious thought.

People have the right to lots of things recklessly, without serious thought. Why should suicide be any different? Suggesting otherwise implies that you feel that people don't have ownership of themselves, a position that I find morally sickening.

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Personally I am for assisted 'suicide'. My grandparents both have dementia, my mum had been looking after my grandmother for 2 years after her hip replacement. It's funny because 6 of her sisters are pathetic and won't help out as much (Oh wow I got this loan thingy, my work is more important than looking after her, you do it).. well only 2 of them are likable and what I'd consider my aunt, but they all mostly hate my mother, and there's this constant battle of trying to keep my grandmother alive when they cannot accept the fact she's inevitably declining with heart attacks, infections and all the works. She's still alive but my mum won't go over to risk being scratched and figuratively torn apart by one of her absolute crazy sister who thinks she's Nietzsche's overman and relies on the bible and google for medical facts and changes all prescriptions assigned by medically qualified doctors. Obviously nan got a lot worse.

I've once went with my mum when she looked after nan for three weeks, I was pretty much supporting my mum so it wouldn't seem so meaningless for her. I have to say, dementia is really frightening and harrowing. I've seen my nan, who is so soft-hearted and warm become this violent creature throwing plates and cutlery at my aunts, even at my mum who she'd adore the most (as she was the only one who cared years beforehand), she'd go outside naked and wave to the oncoming cars, and have extreme moments of depression. I don't know why people would insist on keeping people who have dementia alive, when they have to go through moments like this. You just lose control of your mind. Once your mind's gone, your body's just a pathetic vessel and the real person's vaded. My nan knows this and she's just saying 'please let me die' over and over.

Suicide for depressed people on the other hand is a sign of weakness. To think that the world is meaningless or your life is horrible is pathetic. I say, harden the fuck up and get your mind working (I know I make it sound like it's simple, it isn't, but still). Admittedly, after staying at my grandparents and seeing all the dementia, I felt somewhat emanicipated knowing that I didn't have anything bad in my life. I've been depressed since like 2006 (It got worse right when mum was away from home a lot to look after nan), it seems to be an ongoing condition, it's not going to go away from a magic pill, there needs to be a cyclical healthy routine like exercise, good eating and plenty of socialising at least. I've contemplated what it would be like to commit suicide, the thought is rather repelling. To do it means you don't care, you let everyone else suffer thinking they could've done something to keep you alive and that plagues them for the rest of their lives. I don't understand how anyone would commit suicide recklessly or without thought, but then again, the amount of idiots that occupy this world is.. a lot, yeah..

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AndrewB said:

People have the right to lots of things recklessly, without serious thought. Why should suicide be any different? Suggesting otherwise implies that you feel that people don't have ownership of themselves, a position that I find morally sickening.

Some things can be repaired if done by mistake, obviously not suicide.

Maybe I'm taking this matter too lightly/technical/literally though.

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Joshy said:

Suicide for depressed people on the other hand is a sign of weakness. To think that the world is meaningless or your life is horrible is pathetic. I say, harden the fuck up and get your mind working (I know I make it sound like it's simple, it isn't, but still). Admittedly, after staying at my grandparents and seeing all the dementia, I felt somewhat emanicipated knowing that I didn't have anything bad in my life. I've been depressed since like 2006 (It got worse right when mum was away from home a lot to look after nan), it seems to be an ongoing condition, it's not going to go away from a magic pill, there needs to be a cyclical healthy routine like exercise, good eating and plenty of socialising at least. I've contemplated what it would be like to commit suicide, the thought is rather repelling. To do it means you don't care, you let everyone else suffer thinking they could've done something to keep you alive and that plagues them for the rest of their lives. I don't understand how anyone would commit suicide recklessly or without thought, but then again, the amount of idiots that occupy this world is.. a lot, yeah..

I think that you don't know what you're talking about.

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Suicide is one of the most SELFLESS acts you can do. To think that you are making a better world for others by offing yourself, there's no other way to describe that.


I still wish people with such thoughts would get help though. While you think you are helping people, you'd usually do the opposite, unless you were that much of a prick. :P

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exp(x) said:

I think that you don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, that's a nice way of saying what I'm saying doesn't make sense. Respect 1+ for you! Don't patronise me, and talk to me like a decent respectful human being. You'd be helping me out, and no, that's not me being a smartarse.

Are you saying I don't know what depression does to people? I might not know the whole spectrum, but I know friends and people going through severe depression and post-traumatic-stress disorder. The brain is an incredible organ..

Or I don't know how it feels to be depressed and my head plagued with bad thoughts and pessimism and I had no guidance to help me out, when my mum, who has been the strongest guidance in my life had to move 6 hours away from my home to help my grandparents going through dementia? My state of mind during that period was awful. I found after witnessing such horrible events like seeing loved ones like my mum hurt (having to stop a fight between my aunt and mum, not fun) and studying philosophy had strengthened my line of thinking, and now, I never have the need to look back and feel sorry for myself and wallow in my pool of depression. Even if I'm facing the prospect of not having a job that'll reel in 100k a year as that is nearly the result of just doing a BA degree.

Or is it the premise that people who are depressed shouldn't commit suicide and should 'harden the fuck up'? What I think: Suicide- selfish. I'm being blunt here but just because you have ownership of your life doesn't mean you're recommended to wave around it to prove the fact you're capable of making spontaneous actions. Spontaneous actions do not equate to 'freedom', it won't do anything to help depression to prove you have control (expressing yourself is another matter though, as long as it doesn't hurt people); there are family members and others to think of as well. That's just me, I don't want to hurt people I know at all, even at the expense of my own life. Life is hard, of course it is. Everyone knows that. Some people have it better than others and some are just absolutely unlucky. In this modern age, suicide rates are a lot higher compared to other epochs in history. I'd reckon that's since people are giving up when faced with a huge prospect of meaninglessness and purposelessness (or alienated labour for Capitalism) in life but that's no excuse.

I think depression is a condition one has to constantly battle for the rest of their life, it won't just go away after a few remedies or suicide. The real 'alienation' in this planet is to be unhealthy, alone and inactive. As bullshitty as it might sound, the whole beauty of life is to be alive, to exist. To commit suicide is just vomiting on that idea, and not attempting to making a difference or to make sure other people can have a decent life. It would help many other depressed people to see people having gone through depression had made it out and proved that it is not an eternal and hopeless condition that is futile to 'battle'.

Or is it me saying there are lots of idiots in this world? Okay sure, I probably was silly for saying that. Just me being pessimistic.

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Joshy said:

What I think: Suicide- selfish.

What I think: You- idiot. Selfish doesn't mean "should be banned".

I'm being blunt here but just because you have ownership of your life doesn't mean you're recommended to wave around it to prove the fact you're capable of making spontaneous actions.

You don't seem to have any comprehension of what the word "ownership" means. Anything short of full legality of all self-action, including taking drugs, suicide, self-mutilation, or whatever the hell you feel like doing, is not personal ownership. It's government ownership of your body with certain privileges extended to you by the government. It's the type of world we live in, and it's morally disgusting.

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AndrewB said:

What I think: You- idiot. Selfish doesn't mean "should be banned".

I never said that it should be banned. Not sure where you got that from. No-one can ever say what is right or wrong in absolute terms, and it would definitely be degrading to impose subjective morals and restrict people's choices in their lives. I was only saying it is not the (only) right way to go (it is selfish when you see how people react to suicides, even if the person committing suicide had no friends or relatives, it's utterly depressing, and depression is very contagious. This is not to confuse death as something tragic, but the idea that someone had enough willpower to give him/herself away, one could only imagine the tragic circumstances? Ironically, what I've said probably sounds selfish but I know what pain I'd cause if I killed myself), and people should realise that there are much better options. What's the point of degrading yourself when you can do the opposite without resorting to illusions/shortcuts to veil yourself from pain? To battle depression boils down to the individual, no-one can ultimately do anything to intervene or help, even though support goes a long way.

You don't seem to have any comprehension of what the word "ownership" means. Anything short of full legality of all self-action, including taking drugs, suicide, self-mutilation, or whatever the hell you feel like doing, is not personal ownership. It's government ownership of your body with certain privileges extended to you by the government. It's the type of world we live in, and it's morally disgusting.

Personally, I think the term 'morally disgusting' is probably not a good way of putting it. There are morals that justify killing other people or degrading women or anything else that encourages fallacious relativist views. How do you know what morals are in itself perfectly universally right?

But I've never really imagined 'ownership' in terms of government owning your body in this context. I was only thinking of it in terms of individual choices provided that basic human rights are maintained (that one can have a really good life without resorting to extreme measures). But I'm assuming you're saying that people should have the rights to choices by means of self-activation when it comes to stuff like "taking drugs, self-mutilation" without moral judgement or intervention by the government? If that's the case, then it's not only the goverment activating that, it's the whole system where the so-called 'morals' are deeply rooted. You see people judging one another telling each other off on what's right or wrong all the time.

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AndrewB said:

You don't seem to have any comprehension of what the word "ownership" means. Anything short of full legality of all self-action, including taking drugs, suicide, self-mutilation, or whatever the hell you feel like doing, is not personal ownership. It's government ownership of your body with certain privileges extended to you by the government. It's the type of world we live in, and it's morally disgusting.

ownership of an animal doesn't give you the right to mutilate or otherwise torture it, so your definition is critically flawed somewhere and you probably don't comprehend the word well enough. when it comes to your own body... uh, taking drugs isn't illegal by itself, it's buying (or posessing) them, isn't it? and i'd argue that mutilating self is a sign of mental illness and a straight jacket is in order.

and blaming the control on government is misguided, imo. it might have been the case when lords didn't want their serfs take the easy way out of forced labour, but nowadays it's mostly religious nutters using their leverage.

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ITT: SERIOUS BUSINESS

Anyway, if I get too old or fucked up by an accident that I can't enjoy the finer points of life like um not shitting myself, then I would consider my life over.

There's being alive, and then there's living, if you know what I mean? Some of the people in this thread are missing that important point.

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dew said:

ownership of an animal doesn't give you the right to mutilate or otherwise torture it, so your definition is critically flawed somewhere and you probably don't comprehend the word well enough.

Despite the fact you can own an animal, that animal does have limited rights of it's own, depending on where you live of course. You can kill an animal, cut up it's corpse, and do with the flesh how you see fit. But a society can set down laws preventing you from doing demented things to the beast, much like any being's body outside your own.

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yeah, there are catches to the definition of ownership as andrewb presents it and while not the same as the animal thing i brought up, self-mutilation can (and should) lead to being declared insane and practically losing the ownership rights over your body. furthermore i believe that you could get sued for destroying your own property that was listed as part of cultural heritage or something. anyways, derailing badly.

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dew said:

self-mutilation can (and should) lead to being declared insane and practically losing the ownership rights over your body.

No. You do not understand. If what you say is the case, then it means that there never were ownership rights to begin with. Rights are not revokable. Rights cannot be lost. If someone can declare authority over them and take them from you, then they are correctly called privileges.

So let's please call it what it is.

dew should have said:

self-mutilation can (and should) lead to being declared insane and practically losing the privileges over your body.

Now that your statement is properly phrased, I'd be interested to know if you are still comfortable with it.

furthermore i believe that you could get sued for destroying your own property that was listed as part of cultural heritage or something.

Again, this is an abuse of words. If you can be sued for damaging your own property, it never was truly your own property to begin with. To suggest otherwise is just an attempt to obfuscate and confuse.

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