I think you should be allowed to, and I’ve been vocally pro right to die for a long time, but I think this is bad. Medically assisted suicide isn’t meant to be done like this because doctors are better at it, but because they’re the ones with access to lethal drugs whom the terminally ill who are unable to end their life by their own hand will interact with that have the least to gain from their death.
Medically assisted suicide needs to emphasize assisted over suicide. Drug addicts have the capacity to obtain and administer a lethal dose of a drug. I might be ok with them being allowed a safe place where a DNR order that they set up for that experience will be respected so they can OD.
But the general rule in medically assisted suicide is the patient should have to prove that they are terminally ill with no hope of recovering and a sufficiently painful decline and then once approved they should have to do every part of the act that they are physically capable of. Furthermore the final “go” signal should require the patient to explicitly trigger. The physician should be as hands off as possible.
It needs to be treated with this weight. It needs to require a person dying of cancer to fight for it. Otherwise able people might begin dispensing “mercy” where it is less than enthusiastically wanted.
Why should that be the line? Why should a patient have to be terminally ill in order to have the right to die? Why should irremediable suffering not also be considered as a standard?
The article states “irremediable physical and/or psychological suffering” as another standard that’s being used for consideration here, not just whether a person’s condition is terminal.
I think you should be allowed to, and I’ve been vocally pro right to die for a long time, but I think this is bad. Medically assisted suicide isn’t meant to be done like this because doctors are better at it, but because they’re the ones with access to lethal drugs whom the terminally ill who are unable to end their life by their own hand will interact with that have the least to gain from their death.
Medically assisted suicide needs to emphasize assisted over suicide. Drug addicts have the capacity to obtain and administer a lethal dose of a drug. I might be ok with them being allowed a safe place where a DNR order that they set up for that experience will be respected so they can OD.
But the general rule in medically assisted suicide is the patient should have to prove that they are terminally ill with no hope of recovering and a sufficiently painful decline and then once approved they should have to do every part of the act that they are physically capable of. Furthermore the final “go” signal should require the patient to explicitly trigger. The physician should be as hands off as possible.
It needs to be treated with this weight. It needs to require a person dying of cancer to fight for it. Otherwise able people might begin dispensing “mercy” where it is less than enthusiastically wanted.
Why should that be the line? Why should a patient have to be terminally ill in order to have the right to die? Why should irremediable suffering not also be considered as a standard?
I think that is the standard if I’m not mistaken. I haven’t looked too closely though, I could be wrong.
The article states “irremediable physical and/or psychological suffering” as another standard that’s being used for consideration here, not just whether a person’s condition is terminal.