Shouldn't the right to die be a human right?

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

But as a general principle, "It's my body, so I'll die if I want to!" is too irresponsible to be allowed as a general human right.

I disagree completely. We don't get to decide who is or isn't responsible and who does of doesn't deserve their rights.

Furthermore Bodily integrity is a human right.

“There is a concept called body autonomy. It's generally considered a human right. Bodily autonomy means a person has control over whom or what uses their body, for what, and for how long. It's why you can't be forced to donate blood, tissue, or organs."

You can derive the right to die from just that. The only reason we don't actually have suicide clinics is because we're slaves of the government. Think about it this way, many years back when a hunter came back injured the whole tribe would be catering to him - was it because of their love towards him or his ability to hunt? The same way, no matter how useless, someone somewhere is always making the government money. So their life is important to them - not them - their life - is important to them.

Which is bullshit. We're not slaves to anybody.

[bennyboy]

But as a general principle, "It's my body, so I'll die if I want to!" is too irresponsible to be allowed as a general human right.

I disagree completely. We don't get to decide who is or isn't responsible and who does of doesn't deserve their rights.

1.  Yes, we can.  We can totally decide who is or isn't responsible.  The law does it all the time.
2.  We CAN decide who does or doesn't deserve their rights.  The law does it all the time.
3.  The right to commit suicide isn't a right, and preventing people from killing themselves therefore isn't taking away their right.

Furthermore Bodily integrity is a human right.

“There is a concept called body autonomy. It's generally considered a human right. Bodily autonomy means a person has control over whom or what uses their body, for what, and for how long. It's why you can't be forced to donate blood, tissue, or organs."

You can derive the right to die from just that.[

No, you can't.  You can't, for example, enter into a contract to be beaten to death for someone else's pleasure.  That's because it's illegal.

The only reason we don't actually have suicide clinics is because we're slaves of the government. Think about it this way, many years back when a hunter came back injured the whole tribe would be catering to him - was it because of their love towards him or his ability to hunt? The same way, no matter how useless, someone somewhere is always making the government money. So their life is important to them - not them - their life - is important to them.

Which is bullshit. We're not slaves to anybody.

What's this "slaves" stuff?  Not entitling people to kill themselves isn't enslaving them.  Everyone knows that except for the very ill, anyone can kill himself whenever he wants.  It really is a moot point, since I'm not arguing against assisted suicide with the very ill, but against suicide as a general freedom.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Seems to me that a government which can deny citizens legal suicide for its own purposes could perhaps argue that the corollary obtains as well: that it can put citizens to death for its own, nonjudicial, reasons.

[bennyboy]

Pool, let me ask you this. If your mother or sister or best friend is depressed and announces, "Okay, enough of this. I'm going to kill myself." What do you do? Do you support their "human right" to commit suicide? Do you help mama pull the trigger? What if it's a friend with insomnia? What if it's someone who just broke up with their "soulmate" and can't handle the pain?

No, it's generally considered highly abnormal for someone to choose to die, and so we prevent people from killing themselves. We believe that depression, especially due to specific circumstances, may eventually be relieved or better coped with, and that the person still has the chance to live a productive life.

That's the thing-- normally, simply the act of wanting to die can be taken as mental infirmity. There's something WRONG with a person who wants to die, and we must help them to overcome the underlying issues, rather than simply to escape their current negative feelings by ended all their future prospects with a bullet or a vial of hemlock.

[Thumpalumpacus]

You're confusing personal emotions and social responsibilities. Simply because we would not want, ourselves, to have a loved one kill themselves, it doesn't automatically follow that the government should be charged with enforcing this desire. Can you lay out your reasoning a little more clearly?

[bennyboy]

You're confusing personal emotions and social responsibilities. Simply because we would not want, ourselves, to have a loved one kill themselves, it doesn't automatically follow that the government should be charged with enforcing this desire. Can you lay out your reasoning a little more clearly?

There no such thing as morality without emotion.  If nobody loved or feared or felt pain, there would be very little interest in any concept of goodness or right.  Cosmically speaking, what is intrinsically wrong with raping and killing a small child, for example?  Nothing.  It is our extreme adverse emotional reaction to even the vaguest thought of such a thing that entrenches it in our moral systems-- it is that which simply must not be done, and quite precisely because of our universal abhorrence of the act.

This is one of the jobs of legislation-- to protect us from those boogeymen which most trouble us.  It is to keep the harsher side of reality out of the light, so that we can function as citizens without constantly fearing that our worst nightmares will be manifest at a whim.

But anyway, the right to die of a healthy person is not one that is really controlled by the government. People know how gravity works, how bullets work, how to tie knots in a rope. It is mainly for people who need others to be complicit in their deaths that we are discussing rights. But really, we are talking about the power of an individual to suspend the responsibilities of others in a specific case-- to allow them to kill without consequence-- that we are talking about. But what happens when this suspension is granted more and more easily?

That's a dangerous slope, indeed.

[Thumpalumpacus]

This is one of the jobs of legislation-- to protect us from those boogeymen which most trouble us.  It is to keep the harsher side of reality out of the light, so that we can function as citizens without constantly fearing that our worst nightmares will be manifest at a whim.

No, it is not. It is the job of legislation, in a functioning democracy, of enforcing the social contract in order to assure the smooth operation of society.

But anyway, the right to die of a healthy person is not one that is really controlled by the government.  People know how gravity works, how bullets work, how to tie knots in a rope.  It is mainly for people who need others to be complicit in their deaths that we are discussing rights.  But really, we are talking about the power of an individual to suspend the responsibilities of others in a specific case-- to allow them to kill without consequence-- that we are talking about.  But what happens when this suspension is granted more and more easily?

That's a dangerous slope, indeed.

Fallacious appeal to consequences. You've not addressed the point, which is that bodily autonomy is not something which should be subsumed to the greater good of society, which seems to be the crux of your argument. If the government can force you to remain alive for its own purposes, how is that not forced labor of a sort, when the person in question finds even living a chore?

You want to talk about dangerous precedents? Let's talk about this idea that the government has the right to treat us like pawns, and that our lives aren't our own to spend as we please. That would be quite the slope we could ski, there.

[bennyboy]

No, it is not. It is the job of legislation, in a functioning democracy, of enforcing the social contract in order to assure the smooth operation of society.

Yes, and the social contract is made by an emotional species. But it's strange to me that you'd want to introduce the idea of social contract, when your argument is that people can use death as a way of invalidating it. In debt? No problem, suicide absolves me of debt. Connected to family who've invested years and perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in my well-being? No problem, suicide absolves me of my responsibility to them.

Fallacious appeal to consequences. You've not addressed the point, which is that bodily autonomy is not something which should be subsumed to the greater good of society, which seems to be the crux of your argument. If the government can force you to remain alive for its own purposes, how is that not forced labor of a sort, when the person in question finds even living a chore?

My idea of what "human rights" are is different than yours, I think. I don't see human rights as constitutional amendments, I see them as things that we consider intrinsic to the experience of being human. So not only do I not think the government should legislate on the issue, I don't think the IDEA that suicide is a general human right should be accepted, except in very special circumstances.

You want to talk about dangerous precedents? Let's talk about this idea that the government has the right to treat us like pawns, and that our lives aren't our own to spend as we please. That would be quite the slope we could ski, there.  

I've already said that in terminal cases, suicide should be allowable. It's my position that it should not GENERALLY be considered a human right. This is because humanity is a web of family, friends, and legal obligations, and suicide is a unilateral decision that negatively affects those in the web near you-- what about THEIR rights?

[Tangra]

My idea of a right is such that if it is denied someone else then the offending party ought to remedy the issue- whether by jail or fine or such. The truth is there are very few real rights, and even those are frequently not enforced even in the western world

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One can only retain the right to suicide so long as they have the ability to commit it. It's a sad story. That's not to say I am happy about this. Quite to the contrary.

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[WisdomOfTheTrees]

I mean, c'mon, every human has a right to live, shouldn't they have a right to die too..

What do you think?

1) Is it moral to grant a human the right to die?
2) Is it moral to deny a human the right to die?

I know that in countries like Denmark they have assisted suicide programs, that have extensive evaluation for people before they get it. I personally hate the idea of helping other people die, I hate that we as a society can't fix all the problems that drive people to suicide, and instead help them commit suicide to get out of the mess we've all created. Granted some people just have a "chemical imbalance" in their brain and just can't feel happy. I'd never help someone die, I'd punch them in the face for even thinking about it.