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Pros and cons of assisted suicide
THE ARGUMENTS FOR:
Choosing how we die is a basic human freedom. If an individual's quality of life is terrible, they should have the right to stop suffering.
As the recent case of disabled rugby player Daniel James showed, hundreds of British people have travelled abroad for an assisted suicide, and the Crown Prosecution Service can't prosecute the people who help them. So our euthanasia laws are, in their present state, unworkable.
Since 1961, suicide has been legal. Helping somebody who wants to die in a peaceful, painless way should also be legal.
The majority of British people are in favour of legalising euthanasia. A recent YouGov survey revealed that 86 per cent supported it.
The safeguards work. Euthanasia clinics are professionally run centres that ensure their patients are making a considered and correct decision.
THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST:
In Oregon, a recent study of people who took their lives with assisted suicide revealed that one in every six were suffering from depression. This should not be allowed to be a factor in a human's choice to die.
Life is sacred. Helping to end it is morally unacceptable.
Advances in medicine will mean that we can cure diseases and disabilities that were once considered untreatable. So a terminally ill patient may, in the future, have a bearable quality of life.
Terminally ill people are vulnerable members of society. Some might feel under psychological pressure to ease the burden on their families.
Although assisted suicide is understandable in cases like that of the multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy, legalising it risks turning it into a lifestyle choice. ·
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Comments
There is no right to life, life is an accident, and human life is no more 'precious' or 'sacred' than every other life, no matter what the species. Too many humans have the attitude that human life is sacred, while slaughtering other species for a variety of reasons from food to profit to fun. Since human life is now overwhelming the ecosystem, and modern medicine is keeping people alive who would otherwise be dead, suicide is a creative and [other] life affirming act. Depression is just as valid a reason to stop living as any other. But it's all a bit macabre going to a clinic especially to die. Far better to end your life in your own time, at home, calmly and quietly and with no pain. The institutionalisation of death isn't for me, I'll do it my way.
My father chose assisted suicide here in California more than 20 years ago. It wasn't strictly legal but it was clearly the most humane thing to do - much more humane than the life he was living thanks to the technological advances of modern medicine. In the hour that he lived after the respirator was disconnected we saw the father that we had known all our lives re-emerge. He had, with that final and irreversible decision, again taken control of his life and done what he had longed to do for months. He wasn't old, only 59, but he knew that his life going forward would have no quality. Bed-ridden, unable to breathe on his own, in diapers, in the hospital, hours away from us by car, he was reduced to lying in bed, dreading the next frequent and painful suctioning of his lungs, unable to eat, or speak. That was what was making him depressed. As difficult as it was for us to comply with and finally witness, my sisters and I view his decision as a gift, a final example of the objectivity and courage with which he lived his life.
I am in total agreement with TomNightingale, I fully respect the views of the Right to Life Brigade, that is their choice, palliative care is right for them, I too have a right to chooseand my choice as an 85 year old with cancer is Voluntary Euthanasia, I am under no pressure from Wife or 3 Sons, in fact they share my viewpoint- as a member of Dignity Trust New Zealand I believe in the provision of Dignity Havens where the terminally ill and incurable may opt for palliative care or assisted Euthanasia; after all the word itself is translated as A Good Death.
I believe that life is sacred, but recognise that not everybody agrees. However, it's fair to say that life is the sine qua non of any other rights that can be said to appertain to humans; without the right to live, "human rights" might be said to have been written by Spike Milligan on speed.
The choice of whether to live or die is not a lifestyle one, because lifestyle choices presuppose a life to exercise one's choices. Soon the right to die will become the duty to die because of pressures on the healthcare system. The government has to find the money from somewhere, especially now, to pay for all those LGBT outreach workers, traveller liaison officers and equal opportunities reps.
"Life is sacred". Not to an atheist. I find it morally unacceptable I should have to obey rules based on religious nonsense.
"So a terminally ill patient may, in the future, have a bearable quality of life. " So it isn't a terminal illness!! That can be dealt with by good information. Of course, people will always make mistakes. That's life. At least let people make their own mistakes.
"legalising it risks turning it into a lifestyle choice". What is wrong with free choice? My responsibilities to others do not run to what I do to myself. I'll mind my business, other people should mind their's.