pShould doctor-assisted suicide be legal?

#7

Fuchsia

v Yes
Yes, for the most part. It is your body. If a woman can kill her unborn child and it be considered her right, then why not the right to kill yourself in the most humane way? What gives the government the right to tell us what to do with or to our own bodies? The only misgiving I have here is that there will need to be safeguards in place to make sure people are not too hasty with this decision and that they are not being forced into it.
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  • #18
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    So your point is... Since it's ok to kill an unborn child, it's ok for a doctor, who took the Hippocratic Oath, to help someone kill themselves?
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    Aside from your rationale being based on such a morbid premise, my question to you is... where does it stop? What other types of killing does the right for a woman to kill her unborn child rationalize?
  • #23
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    No, my point is that it is your own body and you should have the right to do what you want to it. Mentioning abortion only shows precedent. Just like a woman has a legal right to get an abortion on the grounds that it is "her own body," then we should have the right to use drugs since it is our own body, and the right to self-terminate on the basis of it being our body.

    You mention the Hippocratic Oath. Nobody really follows it anymore, and it has been rewritten so many times. It not only banned assisted suicide and abortion, but also assisting in capital punishment. In addition, it required experienced doctors to train other doctors and not to charge excessive fees for their services. So of all those, assisted suicide is the only one that doctors heed. Should "first do no harm" apply to patients whose sole intent is to do themselves harm? Doctors have enough problem with apotemnophiliacs (those with an amputation fetish). These patients will cut off healthy limbs, with or without a doctor's assistance, because the "pain" of having them is too great, just like the suicidal person has pain so great they want to die.

    I never said killing the unborn rationalized killing anyone else. The premise there is that it is your own body. Whether it means getting a fetus out of your body, putting drugs in your body, putting holes in your body, placing marks in your skin, deciding you don't want healthy limbs, or making the ultimate decision about your body. So the law should be consistent, either allow ALL procedures on the basis of it being your body, or ban ALL unnecessary procedures to your body. Abortion is generally unnecessary because generally, the woman had the right to say no to the particular encounter which caused the pregnancy.
  • #24
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    Ok. I accept your premise, and I agree with it to a large extent. So my question is, is that somewhere you want our society to go? I'm talking about lifting the absolute prohibition on doctors doing no harm. Assisted suicide and doctor assisted suicide are two different things. A doctor is not necessary for someone to kill themselves, even if they need help. Don't forget that under Obamacare, it would not be long before oncologists would be required to inform their patients of the availability of doctor-assisted suicide.
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    Too Brave New World for me. This is a great place to draw a line that our society refuses to cross. I include cloning, sentient computers, and human genetic engineering in my list of cans best left unopened.
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    Some would say, myself included that, absent unforeseen tidal shifts in society we are going there whether we like it or not. That doesn't mean we shouldn't stall as long as possible.
  • #32
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    Bob, I certainly agree with your last reply. The biggest problem I have with this is the sliding slope thing. Really, it isn't so much that I'd like to see assisted suicide legal as I would like to see suicide decriminalized. I disagree with the places that give attempted murder charges to survivors of unsuccessful suicides. I agree with you that maybe we should keep doctors from getting involved in this debate. Why not make it legal for someone to see their bartender and ask for a little something extra in their drink? Adding doctors to the mix only adds to the potential for political abuse. But popularizing and decriminalizing assisted suicide outside of a medical context certainly makes the job more difficult for police, since anyone can claim murder was really assisted suicide.

    I would still like to see parity on these types of decisions without politics entering the rationale. If cancer doctors would then have to inform their patients of all their options, like assisted suicide, then why not require abortion doctors to explain and encourage alternatives? Why not require doctors of gay clients to suggest reparative therapy? I mean, equal standards for all areas of medicine, regardless of area or popular sentiments.