Why do people say assisted suicide and removing life support is murder?

I don’t know why Kevorkian was ever indicted. I think if the person has to be on life support in order to stay alive, that that is not a life at all. I wouldn’t ever want to have to be on life support. If someone wants to be dead and they are ready to move on, then by all means get someone to help them do it in a decent way. Much better than finding out of their suicide.

@kariered ; that’s what I’m saying! D:

People consider different things murder – sometimes it’s because they don’t want other people to ‘play God’, sometimes because they want life to take its course…I am on Kevorkian’s side, personally…I think a person should be able to choose freely when to end their life, without it being considered a sin

In most states, it’s against the law to attempt suicide, but only if you fail.

I believe Kevorkian assisted people who were chronically and terminally ill, but not on life support.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir For those that think it’s “playing God” to allow someone to die…I wonder if they ever consider that it’s actually “playing God” to force someone to go on living, long after God would have taken them.

@Val123; I think it’s cruel, really. I wouldn’t want a life like that.

@PandoraBoxx ; yeah, I just lumped two situations together. :P

@Val123 well yes but logic is rare in these cases…these cases are about emotions

@troubleinharlem It is cruel, but man, could you imagine being the one to make that decision? “It’s time to let mom go, and when I pull this plug she’ll be gone in the next five minutes…” So hard. I think it should be left up to each individual. I don’t think anyone has the right to say what is right and wrong for other people in that situation.

@Val123 ; I don’t think I could. D: I’d get you to do it for me. xD but you’re right.

I’ve worked with some wonderful doctors. One who took away the breathing apparatus at the request of a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease. This would certainly be assisted suicide but it also was a dignified end to this proud man’s life. Family all involved and approved this decision.

Lots of people are afraid that if assisted suicide is made legal, then drs will start to chose who is allowed to live and who dies. Making decisions maybe based on their judgement of who is worth more, and there is after all a huge shortfall in the amount of transplant doners available, would unscrupulous drs set about working less hard for some patients than for others? Irrational I know but fears that we hear time and time again when the subject is raised here.

Science moves on every day and finds ways to extend our lifespan, but its upsetting the natural order of things I suppose. People are routinely living into their 100’s and this is putting a huge strain on the benefits system (here in the UK) and also on pensions etc. Now I’m not saying we should follow the lead of “Logan’s Run” and have a top limit on our lifespan at all, but to keep someone alive when they are in pain, or their quality of life is non existent seems terribly cruel to me. Did anybody see the recent episode of House where they go off to a medical convention and Wilson writes a speach about assisted death which House delivers for him so that he doesn’t wreck his career by saying what he wanted to say. Wilson had a patient in that episode who was in so much pain they couldn’t relieve it anymore, and yet they had to wait and he had to endure it. It’s just inhuman.

Hubby knows that if anything happens to me, and its only machines keeping me going, then time to say bye and end it, but I do think its a very personal decision, and certainly a very emotive one. Also relatives/spouses can’t be expected to make decisions like that I can’t even imagine how difficult that would be.

I find hypocrisy in that assisted suicide to terminally ill patients at their wish is illegal and penalties can be imposed on this person who assists… yet murder in war creates “heros”.

How can one form of action leading to death be more right than the other. We are considered cruel when we don’t put an animal out of its misery when permanently suffering, yet many take issue with allowing these same rights to be extended to human beings.

Apologies if any offence is caused by my statements.

I like how we do it here. It is Physician Assisted Suicide.

Two doctors have to say you have less than three months to live. Then you get some pills.

It is up to you to take them when you want too. No doctor needed.

I watched my grandma die of cancer when I was 7. She kept on asking for my grandpa for a gun.

@johnpowell Where is ‘here’?

@faye :: Oregon

@johnpowell I did not think we had such in North America. I’m very impressed.

While I fully endorse both practices, there are some practical questions, especially when it comes to removing life support. People in a vegetative state can be (and have been) misdiagnosed. The scariest version of this is locked-in syndrome in which you are fully conscious, but can’t move at all. For a long time, people in this state were thought to be entirely unconscious since they couldn’t communicate.

Recently there has been another case in the news about a man named Ron Houben, believed to be in a vegetative state for 23 years. His doctor recently pronounced him to be conscious thanks to a very spurious form of communication in which his speech therapist claims to be able to communicate with him by sensing a twitch in a single muscle in his finger.

So I can see two problems with taking someone off life support: one, it is hard to be absolutely certain beyond any doubt whatsoever that the person will never wake up, and two, it is equally hard to be certain about the person’s state of consciousness. Imagine if you were fully conscious but couldn’t communicate, and your family pulled the plug and you slowly starved to death. Bummer, huh?

@nikipedia How horrifying….

@faye :: In the ten+ years we have had the law only 46 people have actually used it.

46 is the last number I heard. It is probably more by now. Point being that we don’t have lines of people doing it.

And I should say that what is done here is very different from what @nikipedia describes. The person needs to be physically able to put the pill in their mouth and swallow them.

Brain dead doesn’t apply.

@nikipedia I cannot think of any situation where I would want to die more than being fully conscious yet unable to move or communicate.

@Supacase I’m so with you on that!

@Supacase Yeah….

@nikipedia When they take life support off, and you still have brain function…and they give you lots of pain meds, is that “physician assisted” suicide almost? And don’t doctors recommend that for people who cannot breathe on their own, and will never be able to breathe on their own?
I just know that with my grandmother, I’m almost positive she still had brain function, and that it took over an hour of her trying to breathe on her own before she passed..but she asked for it before they intubated her..and it had been her wish for if she ever got sick.

@casheroo…..I’m so sorry….

I’m not sure what you would call it, but I think it’s wrong either way. Life is the greatest gift we have and losing it (especially intentionally) is terrible.

@NaturalMineralWater There are worse things than dying. And we are talking about elderly people who are dying anyway, who will never get better, who are in horrible pain and suffering, who want to die. I hardly think it would be a gift to force them to go on suffering. Also, we are not talking about people in their 20’s, who have a chance, no matter how slim to recover.

The responses to this question were quite touching and revealing…

http://www.fluther.com/disc/62236/watching-60-minutes-the-first-clip-was-about-elderly-people-living/

What about people with Alzheimers? I’m watching my mother disappear, bit by bit, fragment by fragment, losing bowel control, becoming combatant, not being able to read any more, friendless, no family nearby. She can’t even figure out how to turn on the television to pass time. It’s been 6 years, and all of her money is gone. She’s in great physical health and could go on like this for another 10–15 years.

@Val123 Well I respectfully disagree with people who do such a thing. Personally I will fight tooth and nail to experience every little breath of life I can manage.

@NaturalMineralWater You can’t say that beyond a doubt until you’re in that situation. If you’ve had to watch a loved one die, bit by bit, you’ll understand more. (Look through that question.)

@Val123 I’m not going to change my mind. We just disagree. It’s as simple as that.

@NaturalMineralWater, are you afraid to die?

@PandoraBoxx My mother supposedly had Alzheimer’s too. For the last year of her life she was….vegetative, more or less. Well, she hardly ever opened her eyes, couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, she could only make random noises, but…I’ll always wonder how much she really understood. All she could “eat” (being hand fed) was that ensure stuff. Finally, one day she refused to open her mouth for them to pour the stuff in. She clamped her jaw down so tight they were afraid she was going to break it….she made the decision right there, to die. Which…I wonder how cognizant she was. The people caring for her freaked out, of course. They were ready to literally force-feed her. The hospice counselor said, “No. She has made her decision.” They figured it was only a matter of a couple of days, but she hung on for an entire week before she died.

@NaturalMineralWater I understand your feelings totally. These are things younger people can’t imagine ever having to face…but let’s say you had a decision to make on behalf of my mom. What would your decision be?

@PandoraBoxx On the contrary. I just want to live here first.

@Val123 That’s a decision for you and your mom. I, too, have had relatives slip into dementia, live through pain and suffering, and they lived on despite that suffering..

I should mention that what I’m talking about isn’t a vegetable.. incapable of experiencing anything.. nothing more than a pulse.. there is a point where enough is enough… I suppose I answered like I did because not all of Kavorkians victims were in such a terrible state. They were still plenty coherent enough to decide to commit suicide.

My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all committed suicide because of health reasons. My father shot himself when the emphysema and the Crohn’s Disease became too debilitating (1992), my grandfather drowned himself because of cancer (1960) , and my great-grandfather hung himself, also because of cancer (1940’s).

@NaturalMineralWater Are you saying that if a person wants to die, they shouldn’t be allowed to make that decision?

@PandoraBoxx OMG! Gives your use rname a whole new meaning!! That is really tragic.

@PandoraBoxx Wow, that’s terrible!

@Val123 People want to die all the time. Should they all commit suicide? I don’t think suicide prevention is such a bad thing.

@NaturalMineralWater OK.

Suicide prevention when people are physically healthy with emotional darkness is very different that people who have chronic debilitating illnesses and are ready to die, and are going to anyways. My dad was 58 when he died, and he’d been seriously ill for 10 years. My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers young. I’m 52 years old. The world looks very different than it did at age 30.

@PandoraBoxx Got that right.

@Val123 and @PandoraBoxx I’m well aware of the difference. We just have differing opinions on the issue. I’m cool with that. I wish the best for you and your mom either way. I’m sorry to hear that you have to make such a difficult choice.

@NaturalMineralWater You’ll be facing them sometime in the future too…..it’s really weird, coming face to face with your own mortality….

@NaturalMineralWater – it wouldn’t be forced on someone though. If you wanted to appreciate every breathe and experience while you are dying slowly and painfully, that would be your choice.

What I don’t agree with is not allowing others to make their own choices to die. Who’s right is it of others to tell me I can’t have assistance when I am suffering on my death bed in pain.

Holy smokes. 23 new responses? You guys are chatterboxes. xD

@troubleinharlem Yeah, we got it goin’ on! WITHOUT you!

@Val123 ; WHY?! You hate meeeee. D; rofl

@troubleinharlem No! We just…carried on without you, awaiting your return!! We just kept the question alive in memory of you!