Thread: Serious Business Alert - Let's talk about suicide

tortured soul said I agree with you on the point that physically healthy people with psychological problems should not be legally permitted to take their lives. Where I really disagree is when you say that sick and old people should wait it out and die naturally. I don't want to derail the thread here but there are a lot of things worse than a dignified death and pissing in a diaper for a decade while chatting idly with the furniture is one of them. Modern medicine can keep the body alive for far longer than previous generations and in some cases, people's bodies continue functioning long after the mind or whatever you consider to be a person's vital essence has checked out. As someone with a degenerative and genetically inherited disease in my family, I have had to give serious thought to end of life choices and I can tell you now, 20 years in a rest home isn't on the list. I have two cats that I love dearly and have insured for vet care in the event that they become injured or ill. If and when their quality of life deteriorates to the point where it would be kinder to let them die as they would in the wild if ailing then I will pay good money to ensure they have dignified little deaths. Modern western society is one day going to have to face up to the fact that modern medicine now allows life expectancy to far exceed what most rational people consider to be a quality life with basic faculties and dignity. Apologies for my little hijack. blush As you were. Click to expand... I don't think it was too much of a hijacking, as it's still on the thoughts of suicide maybe on the lines of assisted suicide, but if we must stick to answering the questions by the poster, I don't think this thread would go far. I completely understand what you are saying, and to tell you the truth, those two situations is where I find I can't really decide myself! Think of Alzheimer and Huntington diseases, these diseases are horrible to live with, and they have no cure, so what are some thoughts on that stick it out until it gets too uncontrollable when is that? Or commit suicide now since the crazy is inevitable. My last post went to something like cancer, or liver problems something terminal or just plain oldness, sometimes we amaze the doctors who say we're going to die next week, and we find ourselves completely healthy when we reach that dreaded week, and strangely go on to live for years to come. Short story I was watching an assisted suicide documentary, I think it was some state called Oregon or something don't ask me, I suck at states! D , and they allowed assisted suicide. These people ranged from just living too long, to having some form of cancer one particular woman had some sort of tumor that made her body freeze in pain from time to time, and she had a life expectancy of three months. So she decided on the second month, she was going to order the assisted suicide kit and kill herself. Her son was opposed to it, so he constantly discouraged her from doing it she was going to do it the first time she was given her three months to live, but from his constant urging to not do it at all, he managed to get her to wait until the very last moment. She explained how horrible her illness was, and how she was taking so much medicine and so on shorting this story farther, she decided not to kill herself when that last month came she showed signs throughout the documentary of not really wanting to die, and when the third month came, her death date, she did not die. The documentary wrote that she was still living three months after her death date, and I'm pretty sure she's probably still alive as they said she was getting better, and the other episodes they didn't recap a death with her, but I don't know... Point being, she was told she was going to die, so she wanted to end it quickly, however, since she waited, she found out everything was okay in the end. Now, of course not every story is like that, but it's surprising how many stories there are that is , so just think of how many more of them there would be if people weren't killing themselves before the see what happens. I don't think I have to mention the many pull the plug on the comavegetable victim, but wait, he's alive! success stories as they are very common. But let's go to the mental deteriorating disease you mentioned, there may not be a success story for this one, as we all know there's no cure for Alzheimer, I've seen some nice rehabilitation places that seem to show significant improvement for those inflicted with it. Huntington... not so much. However, how so sure do you know these people are suffering just because they've splatter peas on their face when they're eating, or that they've forgotten what they were doing in mid step I don't want to sound harsh, or to say that it's what you're insinuating, but saying that an Alzheimer's patient should be assisted in dying is like saying all mentally retarded people should face the same fate. I agree that living a life as limited as AlzheimerHuntington inflicted people is dreadful to think about, and since I rather not think about it, I never guessed a thought at if I'd want to be killed or not, if I were to be in the position however, it's not an uncommon or bad thing to think that that's not a life one would want to live, but I have thought even if I was afflicted with the life of a vegetable that maybe my brain is in a state where I'm okay with my limited life, and I enjoy being... a vegetable, though those around me think I am suffering something horrible. I'm not trying to joke or make light of the situation, but really thinking about it, I wonder if my mind would revert to a state where I don't mind being a cooky old bat who needs constant attention. Of course, thinking of it before that path strikes me, I wouldn't want to burden my family with keeping up with me, but maybe living in a home with people who do want to keep up with me, wouldn't be so bad. Though, then you have the abusive workers... Anyways, to the other thing, you're speaking on life support, right? Are you saying that some technology can keep the body alive though their mind and, whatever it is that makes us human, is long gone that just follow into my comma theory. But I get it, if grandma's 116 wasn't 115 the oldest woman in the world was when she died? years old and she's still kick'n in a coma due to life support, I agree that it may be time to shut it off and let her leave this world. With the animals, I'm not very informed of them, and I know that euthanizing them when they're close to dying is what's humane, but I have a tickling feeling of child like sympathy that it's slightly not right. I don't want to seem cold, but animals die in the wild everyday, and how they go is very natural. I don't know too much about technology, but how can we be 100 sure they are feeling such pain? I don't know, I have a cat, and I'm sure I'll support getting him euthanized if he doesn't run away and hide, like I've heard about, but thinking of euthanization is like placing a blanket over a shot down bird and smashing it with a rock, I know euthanization is supposed to be painless, but once again... how do we know...? I remember when they used to say lobsters didn't feel pain since they don't posses the pain nerves, but then why do they scream so when put in boiling water...? sure the rock is rather painful at first, but his slow suffering death stopped quickly, right?