Topic: Suicide tourism? - page 2. (Read 1555 times)
For me personally, I do not judge a person like Robin Williams for what he did. He made his decision, I have no desire or need to add insult to injury to a dead man by emphasizing illegality after the fact. I feel the same in regard to someone who refused to eat or treat their disease or an infection or personally offed themselves to hasten their demise. In that sense, I support their "right" and they can work it out with their God or karma or whatever higher power there may be. I will extend compassion to these folks who in their minds feel they cannot make a different choice. But in no way will I ever embrace state sanctioned murder of the sick. I watched a dear friend die of cancer slowly and with tremendous suffering, and he did with such courage, unfailing good humor and selflessness, and gratitude for every minute and every person in his life, it was so powerful and humbling and inspirational, I dare anyone to argue that is not the epitome of what dying with dignity really looks like. Dying, and dying is a messy way, is part of life and it has a value even if it is painful and hard which I think in the long run and larger picture will not benefit the larger community to sanitize.
I don't really understand why people need to travel to a foreign country to commit suicide. It seems like such a stress and added cost, and why can't they just take a drug overdose at home of painkillers or whatever. That's all these clincs would probably give them anyway (or some other fatal amount of another drug).
"Suicide tourism" is a very wrong name of the whole concept.
If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
If I was dying of a painful disease, like cancer, I would ask for whatever got rid of the pain and take in as much as I needed, whether it killed me or not. I don't want to be in pain at the end of my life. I want to die in bliss.If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
"Suicide tourism" is a very wrong name of the whole concept.
If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
If I was dying of a painful disease, like cancer, I would ask for whatever got rid of the pain and take in as much as I needed, whether it killed me or not. I don't want to be in pain at the end of my life. I want to die in bliss.If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
Most major religions and large denoms of our majority Christian population support their respective version of the sanctity of life, the exceptions are those which are heavily based or influenced by humanist tenets. It doesn't always follow that what the individual or majority of religions believe is immoral should be reflected in law....I don't ascribe to that view because there are lots of things which the government has no compelling interest to prevent heathens from doing if they are only harming themselves or other consenting adults. If someone wants to kill themselves, I wouldn't stand on "moral principle" to make that illegal per se because once they are dead, what in the world can you do to them that would matter? But the problem with suicide is that if it is not made illegal, then you have no authority to try to stop someone in process and get them help. Furthermore, assisted suicide (another euphemism) is not just the person offing themselves, it is the sanctioning of a government authorized doctor to kill you with your permission. So setting aside the morality, how do we logically reconcile that we need to keep suicide illegal so we can intervene to stop someone who wants to do it themselves with making suicide legal as long as it is someone else killing you after you beg for permission from Big Brother? That is about the screwiest justification of a "personal right" there is, not to mention compassion.
Very well stated. I'd only add that I lived with my mom while she died of lung cancer a few years ago. Nothing very graciousabout it, but it did give us six months to discover two people neither of us knew existed before that.
Most major religions and large denoms of our majority Christian population support their respective version of the sanctity of life, the exceptions are those which are heavily based or influenced by humanist tenets. It doesn't always follow that what the individual or majority of religions believe is immoral should be reflected in law....I don't ascribe to that view because there are lots of things which the government has no compelling interest to prevent heathens from doing if they are only harming themselves or other consenting adults. If someone wants to kill themselves, I wouldn't stand on "moral principle" to make that illegal per se because once they are dead, what in the world can you do to them that would matter? But the problem with suicide is that if it is not made illegal, then you have no authority to try to stop someone in process and get them help. Furthermore, assisted suicide (another euphemism) is not just the person offing themselves, it is the sanctioning of a government authorized doctor to kill you with your permission. So setting aside the morality, how do we logically reconcile that we need to keep suicide illegal so we can intervene to stop someone who wants to do it themselves with making suicide legal as long as it is someone else killing you after you beg for permission from Big Brother? That is about the screwiest justification of a "personal right" there is, not to mention compassion.
"Suicide tourism" is a very wrong name of the whole concept.
If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
If I was dying of a painful disease, like cancer, I would ask for whatever got rid of the pain and take in as much as I needed, whether it killed me or not. I don't want to be in pain at the end of my life. I want to die in bliss. If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
"Suicide tourism" is a very wrong name of the whole concept.
If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
There is a popular novel on this topic called "Me Before You" which as fiction goes, does a fairly good job at portraying both sides of this issue through one man's personal quest to off himself in Switzerland. If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
As for the argument for "assisted suicide", calling it that is the first step down the slippery slope with all respect to the two gents who just said it. The slippery slope always starts with appealing euphemisms...after all, who doesn't want women to have choice? Who wouldn't want folks to be treated equally? Who doesn't want to die with dignity? Try calling it what is really is..."state sanctioned murder of an innocent helpless sick person"....and see how much traction that will get advocates.
"Suicide tourism" is a very wrong name of the whole concept.
If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
If you haven't seen with your eyes what a cancer disease can do, than maybe that's the right term. These people are in immense physical pain, so choosing to die with dignity is the best someone can let them do, since they have already lost control over their bodies and obviously - the battle with cancer.
My opinion (which can't be disputed, disproven or otherwise challenged bwahahaha) is the commercialized Swiss suicide spas, where suicide is on offer not only to the terminally ill or those with agonizing conditions, are a life-negating slippery slope. I'd append "What do you think?" but that would be disingenuous because I don't want to consider member thoughts, refine or elaborate on mine or bother with addressing arguments to contrary. "Ditto" is an acceptable reply of course. ;-)
Personally, I don't understand why this isn't allowed in all states. With close regulation to prevent exploitation and to prevent that "slippery slope" it seems only proper to allow someone to willfully expire with dignity.
Reminds me of Soylent Green and Edward J. Robinson's famous line..."I'm going home." Really loved the musical overture they played after he drank the poison and all the beautiful clips of how abundant life used to be, not a bad way to go if one has already made up their mind.
And suicide is a very personal decision, it retains at least a measure of dignity, it should be legalized but with certain restrictions, certain age limits and of course, at a reasonable cost. All Catholics must sign a waiver.
And suicide is a very personal decision, it retains at least a measure of dignity, it should be legalized but with certain restrictions, certain age limits and of course, at a reasonable cost. All Catholics must sign a waiver.
My opinion (which can't be disputed, disproven or otherwise challenged bwahahaha) is the commercialized Swiss suicide spas, where suicide is on offer not only to the terminally ill or those with agonizing conditions, are a life-negating slippery slope. I'd append "What do you think?" but that would be disingenuous because I don't want to consider member thoughts, refine or elaborate on mine or bother with addressing arguments to contrary. "Ditto" is an acceptable reply of course. ;-)
This is what happen when you make law based on "moral" instead of rational arguments.
Killing yourself or ask someone to help you is illegal because some religious pedophiles said it is wrong.
Fuck religion, fuck moral. Use your brain people, it's made for it.
I can see tremendous commercial potential for the first country that makes the theme park. People are going to pay money to pick the way they die. Some will see it and some won't.
Quote
'Suicide tourism' to Switzerland has doubled since 2009:
(CNN) -- The law on assisted suicide in Switzerland isn't clear, according to a paper published in the journal Law, Ethics and Medicine this week. That's why, the authors say, people from other countries are traveling to the state of Zurich for the "sole purpose of committing suicide."
They're called suicide tourists.
Between 2008 and 2012, 611 "tourists" came to Switzerland for assisted suicide, according to the published analysis. They arrived from 31 countries around the world, though the majority were from Germany and the United Kingdom.
"In the UK, at least, 'going to Switzerland' has become a euphemism for (assisted suicide)," the study authors write. "Six right-to-die organizations assist in approximately 600 cases of suicide per year; some 150-200 of which are suicide tourists."
This published paper is the result of a pilot study completed for a larger project on assisted suicide in Switzerland being done by experts at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Zurich.
Of the 611 assisted suicides identified during the four-year study period, just over 58% were women. The patients' ages ranged from 23 to 97, researchers found, but the average age was 69. Close to half of the patients had a neurological disease. Others stated they had cancer, rheumatic disease or cardiovascular disease. Many had more than one condition.
In all but four cases, the assisted suicides were done using sodium pentobarbital. A fatal dose of this drug causes the patient to slip into a deep coma. Sodium pentobarbital paralyzes the patient's respiratory system, causing him or her to stop breathing. The total number of suicide tourism cases dropped from 123 in 2008 to 86 in 2009. But the number of cases doubled between 2009 and 2012, to 172.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/20/health/suicide-tourism-switzerland/index.html?hpt=hp_t4(CNN) -- The law on assisted suicide in Switzerland isn't clear, according to a paper published in the journal Law, Ethics and Medicine this week. That's why, the authors say, people from other countries are traveling to the state of Zurich for the "sole purpose of committing suicide."
They're called suicide tourists.
Between 2008 and 2012, 611 "tourists" came to Switzerland for assisted suicide, according to the published analysis. They arrived from 31 countries around the world, though the majority were from Germany and the United Kingdom.
"In the UK, at least, 'going to Switzerland' has become a euphemism for (assisted suicide)," the study authors write. "Six right-to-die organizations assist in approximately 600 cases of suicide per year; some 150-200 of which are suicide tourists."
This published paper is the result of a pilot study completed for a larger project on assisted suicide in Switzerland being done by experts at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Zurich.
Of the 611 assisted suicides identified during the four-year study period, just over 58% were women. The patients' ages ranged from 23 to 97, researchers found, but the average age was 69. Close to half of the patients had a neurological disease. Others stated they had cancer, rheumatic disease or cardiovascular disease. Many had more than one condition.
In all but four cases, the assisted suicides were done using sodium pentobarbital. A fatal dose of this drug causes the patient to slip into a deep coma. Sodium pentobarbital paralyzes the patient's respiratory system, causing him or her to stop breathing. The total number of suicide tourism cases dropped from 123 in 2008 to 86 in 2009. But the number of cases doubled between 2009 and 2012, to 172.
Its a rather strange phrase "suicide tourism" for people who go to a foreign country to receive assistance in ending their life. It must be strange as well to know exactly when and how you will die. To actually have an appointment for it to happen. When you land at the airport in Switzerland you have to realize everything you see and do from now on will be for the last time.
Its doubtful these people are thinking too much about such things. They are looking for relief from agony and an end of suffering....for them and their families. Death can be very difficult and everyone needs help at the end even if that means help to die. The fact that so many have to leave their own countries for this final assistance is both sad and a shame.
In America only four states, Vermont, Oregon, Washington and Montana allow assisted Suicide. I am convinced sooner or later more will allow it. It just seems the right thing to do. All the so-called "slippery slope" concerns should be able to be alleviated as this is really an issue of common sense. No one wants to die in agony and without dignity or watch someone they love go through such an end. Folks have no control over their birth and sometimes not much control over their lives so at least we should have control over how we wish to die. Don't you think?
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