anyone else here not pro life for the sake of being pro life?

[Mystical]

Walking Void, we are alive. We are alive and our life's meaning is to live. Our bodies are rigged to fail sooner or later, and life itself can take you out at any time. The fact that you are alive is valuable. Don't believe me? Go ask a 5yr old Leukemia patient how much it's worth to have made it to adulthood. I live life minute by minute literally dealing with a faulty body that creates pain and/or decreases my ability to function. That actually makes me value my life more.
I do respect your right to believe whatever you please. But if you decide to kill yourself because you feel your life is worthless, I have qualms with paying for that. I'd rather ask the doctors to switch your consciousness with the dying five year old than pay that doctor to shut down your perfectly viable body.
As for dimentia: what if there was a drug released a year from when you committed suicide that cured it completely? Your friends and family would have a hard time coming to grips with that. Were you alive to witness that event I'm sure you would have a hard time coming to grips, too.

Also, do you know what its like for the families and friends of suicide? I can't even finish that sentence with the word 'victims'. Its just, I can't.
Once a year my father gets manic and depressive because he has to face the anniversary of his parents deaths. I have to deal with his suicidal tendencies and I did think he was dead for four days once and mourned him. I always wonder if I 'have what they have'. I regularly consider why me and my brother who were 5 and 3yrs old, were not a reason good enough for them to keep on living. Everytime I look at my cousin who was born years after their death, I see a mirror image of my grandma. My heart breaks not for her, but for them, because they'll never get to know such a precious human being as she. Not a single school play or Christmas or birthday or graduation I attend of hers has not been marred by the heartbreaking realization of my grandparents loss. Their loss of precious experiences. Whenever I smell or see purple wildflowers I flashback to the day of their funeral, in the mountains. I hear my aunts voice wail moaning in that memory. Whenever I see my brother or hear about him or think about him my heart breaks because I know he does have what my grandpa had. His will to die is flared by my dads' 'I'm just gonna take a walk in the desert' episodes. Now my grandma, well she just got talked into doing it by grandpa. They were in their 50s and had spent the better of ten years gambling their life's worth away after moving to Las Vegas. When my mom finally left my dad after sticking through 22 years of volatile marriage, she cited the biggest reason being that she was afraid one day my dad would kill her, just like his dad had done to his own wife.
For 22 years I carried with me across. several state lines, a trunk full of notes and keepsakes that my grandma had prepared for me before her death. It was fifty pounds metal and I would open it once in awhile and be morose for an afternoon. My dad had it worse--he actually had to retrieve it from their apartment when they died. It was the only thing they actually didn't owe money on. I don't know how or why but my dad didn't have enough money to afford a cleaner. So he cleaned up their blood himself, and returned his sister their ashes with a box of the caliber pistol bullets, short only two pieces. My dad was never the same again, and is to this day fixated on dying.

Am I angered? Yep. Do I think what they did was selfish? Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. I don't even care whatever their reasons were for doing it (most likely debt and not wanting to go to nursing homes).
They might not have valued their own lives, but the repurcussions felt afterwards by so many people are enough reason for them to have lived, in my opinion.
Killing yourself doesn't solve anything. Your problems remain, in a wake of agony and pain.

Just to be clear I don't view euthanasia as suicide. They're two very different beasts.

[Ben Davis]

In America it's religion that keeps assisted suicide from being available. Is it that way where you live or is it legal? Is it legal anywhere?

Personally, I wouldn't want tax money going to pay for No-reason suicides. But that's just me. I won't stop payin taxes if the law decided it was right.

Euthanasia's illegal in the UK however there's a lot of public support for legalisation. The majority of the opposition comes from religious groups who argue from the perspective of ancient, superstitious presuppositions regarding the nature of life & afterlife. The rational opposition comes from those who think that it's impossible to properly legislate against the potential abuses. They say 'keep the door shut' but it's already wide open: people who are capable & willing take their own lives for a variety of reasons. Now what we need to decide, as a society, is how to manage that through legislation; that is to say consider:

1. if people should be prosecuted for helping either in assisting the decision or the action (there's already legislation and precedent regarding 'life support' patients and 'do-not-resuscitate' orders).

2. to what extent does the social infrastructure have a role to play in helping individuals reach a decision whether to live or die.

3. the difference between euthanasia & suicide and how the previous 2 questions apply in those circumstances.

For me, the first, core component would have to be Informed Legal Consent (e.g. a Living Will) without which only doctors could take action. Secondly, I think that no-one should have the right to argue "...but they asked me to turn off the machines!" as that would be the main method of abuse, IMO. The legislation would have to be very strict in terms of who can set up a living will, how abuses might be identified & judged and how the rights of those choosing to die might be protected.

I have no doubt that a decent, robust set of laws could be created, if the relevant professions put their heads together and sorted it out. This would need to be combined with a sincere effort from government to invest in mechanisms which remove many of the causes of suicide/attempted suicide.

And there's data out there! We can look at countries which have legalised euthanasia and done it well: the Netherlands, Belgium & Luxembourg (known as 'the Benelux model'). This model provides balance which protects both the individual's rights to decide when they should die (given certain extraordinary circumstances) and their rights not to be arbitrarily killed or murdered. Additionally, by protecting the rights of those who need assistance, their societies have a sympathetic attitude to the situation, seeing it as an 'unfortunately necessary' process rather than developing a callous attitude to ending life and seeing it as a way to 'control populations' (e.g. 'bump 'em off when they're 65!!').

The trigger is that a person makes it known to medical authorities that they want to die but can't do it themselves (i.e. that they would have already killed themselves if they could and that they would have done so rationally). This triggers lengthy rounds of physical, psychological, social & legal tests to ascertain that the person is:

1. of sound mind and consenting

2. serious about ending their life

3. physically unable to kill themselves without help

Only once all the medical, social & legal tests are fulfilled does anyone start booking any procedures. Even once booked, the applicant can change their mind at any time and are also asked if death is what they want in the final moments before administration. The aim is not to dissuade the person from being euthanised but to ensure it's truly what they want and that the only thing stopping them is a physical inability to kill themselves.

IMO, the crux of the matter is this; some may find it offensive/distasteful for someone else to end their life but the level of offense can't be allowed to impinge on the rights of anyone to choose the manner of their own passing or continued survival. Consequently, the right thing to do is to provide support to help them.

[Minimalist]

I am not rich. Can I kill myself?
I didn't get that promotion I wanted. Can I kill myself?
If you do not agree with me, love me, get me what I want, I am going to kill myself because I own my life and that is my right!

STFU and just do it already.

You're an annoying fuckhead.

[Walking Void]

We are alive and our life's meaning is to live. Our bodies are rigged to fail sooner or later, and life itself can take you out at any time. The fact that you are alive is valuable. Don't believe me? Go ask a 5yr old Leukemia patient how much it's worth to have made it to adulthood. I live life minute by minute literally dealing with a faulty body that creates pain and/or decreases my ability to function. That actually makes me value my life more.

I might understand this and suggest the meaning: because if You are given difficulty for something as orthodox as basic function like running or changing posture between standing and prone, it requires more effort from You. My own body is so far healthy so I have no reason to complain unless I get spasms. I dropped interest in myself and became more interested in the lives of others because I have difficulty acknowledging myself except by looking through mirrors. I have "out of body" experiences when I think about these things, which is not normal I will say. I respect my body as much as anyone else's, but through my eyes all it is, is a tool for my ideals.

I do respect your right to believe whatever you please. But if you decide to kill yourself because you feel your life is worthless, I have qualms with paying for that. I'd rather ask the doctors to switch your consciousness with the dying five year old than pay that doctor to shut down your perfectly viable body.

Oh no, I am not 1 of those suicidal people. I contemplated that a long time ago, and I found it fruitless, in my opinion. I there was nothing to offer for that. By the way thanks for opting to alter my brain if things ever get weird for me. I like my mind the way it is, thanks.

Also, do you know what its like for the families and friends of suicide?

No. The closest thing I could think of would be my terminally ill second sister who died of a heart abnormality. She was just a newborn but She had dilated cardiomyopathy if I remember correctly. She was purple in colour, suffocating because her heart was not supplying enough oxygen to her body. Surgery at the time offered a low success rate, so my parents chose to let her go painlessly in hospice care because the technology in hospitals was not well equipped to deal with heart transfers on such frail bodies. I attended her funeral alongside my grandma. I was 4 at the time.

---

Once a year my father gets manic and depressive because he has to face the anniversary of his parents deaths. I have to deal with his suicidal tendencies and I did think he was dead for four days once and mourned him. I always wonder if I 'have what they have'. I regularly consider why me and my brother who were 5 and 3yrs old, were not a reason good enough for them to keep on living. Everytime I look at my cousin who was born years after their death, I see a mirror image of my grandma. My heart breaks not for her, but for them, because they'll never get to know such a precious human being as she. Not a single school play or Christmas or birthday or graduation I attend of hers has not been marred by the heartbreaking realization of my grandparents loss. Their loss of precious experiences. Whenever I smell or see purple wildflowers I flashback to the day of their funeral, in the mountains. I hear my aunts voice wail moaning in that memory. Whenever I see my brother or hear about him or think about him my heart breaks because I know he does have what my grandpa had. His will to die is flared by my dads' 'I'm just gonna take a walk in the desert' episodes. Now my grandma, well she just got talked into doing it by grandpa. They were in their 50s and had spent the better of ten years gambling their life's worth away after moving to Las Vegas. When my mom finally left my dad after sticking through 22 years of volatile marriage, she cited the biggest reason being that she was afraid one day my dad would kill her, just like his dad had done to his own wife.
For 22 years I carried with me across. several state lines, a trunk full of notes and keepsakes that my grandma had prepared for me before her death. It was fifty pounds metal and I would open it once in awhile and be morose for an afternoon. My dad had it worse--he actually had to retrieve it from their apartment when they died. It was the only thing they actually didn't owe money on. I don't know how or why but my dad didn't have enough money to afford a cleaner. So he cleaned up their blood himself, and returned his sister their ashes with a box of the caliber pistol bullets, short only two pieces. My dad was never the same again, and is to this day fixated on dying.

---

That sounds terrible, but I find it difficult to relate since I was not there.

Am I angered? Yep. Do I think what they did was selfish? Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. I don't even care whatever their reasons were for doing it (most likely debt and not wanting to go to nursing homes).
They might not have valued their own lives, but the repurcussions felt afterwards by so many people are enough reason for them to have lived, in my opinion.
Killing yourself doesn't solve anything. Your problems remain, in a wake of agony and pain.

Yes, it causes agony to other people who were close to them, like your grandparents to your dad. Imagine the anomaly, people out there who go without anyone knowing. I saw a link on Reddit the other day about a WW2 veteran who lived to 89 but died without any family or friends. Maybe I can find that link. This was an interesting discussion. Morbid, but interesting.