Legalization.

[Dystopia]

I go back to our differing opinions on seatbelts and freedom. Why is it your business why they want to die? Why should they have to ask permission to end their own lives. Do we need a serious improvement on mental health resources, absolutely. Do we need to change how most view mental health issues (there is a serious taboo in most places), absolutely. Do we as a society need to do everything in our power to help those who can be helped, absolutely.
Once a person has decided then they have a right to die. How should the laws be on it...I'm not sure.

I agree with that. However that is not the problem. The thing is, why do all causes need to be legitimate? Like I said, if I'm healthy and physically capable, why should I ask a doctor to terminate my life?

The case of the mother of two children, shouldn't we try to intervene first to avoid a tragic ending?

I'm not putting my nose in anybody's life, I'm just trying to find an equilibrium for society. For instance, should I be able to ask for assisted suicide without warning my relatives or talking to a psychologist first? Yes or no? And why? People sometimes can make impulsive decisions. I think in belgium you need to see a psychologist or psychiatrist first.

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Again, it depends on the pain and complications.

Precisely. It is an individual decision and should not be left to legislators...or even worse, clergymen.

If it is not left to legislators it would be illegal. It needs to be legislated to be allowed. Clergymen are clearly not an option, but to legalize something you need legislators to act. The law should say what is allowed and what is not, which situations are different, the specificity of procedures to take in each case, etc. The law regulates something with specialty to prevent people using such procedure or act as an excuse to obtain something else, preventing abuses are important.

Court decisions can be useful when we do not know if someone would have consented or not. The comma example.

[Losty]

I agree with that. However that is not the problem. The thing is, why do all causes need to be legitimate? Like I said, if I'm healthy and physically capable, why should I ask a doctor to terminate my life?

Here in the US in states that allow "assisted suicide" they just give you the pills and instructions. They don't end your life for you. You have to do it yourself and you cannot do it at the hospital. I watched a documentary about a woman who did it once. It actually shows her taking the pills and fading away(I know the fading can't remember if you actually see her die) it was insanely emotional. I was overwhelmed with mixed emotions. Anywho...

The case of the mother of two children, shouldn't we try to intervene first to avoid a tragic ending?

The ultimate choice should be hers. Doesn't mean there should be no attempt to save her from making what may or may not be a mistake for her. Maybe she's making a rash decision or maybe she knows exactly what she wants. Help her yes. But in the end, don't force her.

I'm not putting my nose in anybody's life, I'm just trying to find an equilibrium for society. For instance, should I be able to ask for assisted suicide without warning my relatives or talking to a psychologist first? Yes or no? And why? People sometimes can make impulsive decisions. I think in belgium you need to see a psychologist or psychiatrist first.

Relatives I would say recommended but not required. Psychiatrist for sure, but I think the final decider should be the owner of the life and not the psychiatrist.

---

Precisely. It is an individual decision and should not be left to legislators...or even worse, clergymen.

If it is not left to legislators it would be illegal. It needs to be legislated to be allowed.

Incorrect. Everything is legal until it is made to be illegal, not the other way around.

[Dystopia]

I agree with that. However that is not the problem. The thing is, why do all causes need to be legitimate? Like I said, if I'm healthy and physically capable, why should I ask a doctor to terminate my life?

Here in the US in states that allow "assisted suicide" they just give you the pills and instructions. They don't end your life for you. You have to do it yourself and you cannot do it at the hospital. I watched a documentary about a woman who did it once. It actually shows her taking the pills and fading away(I know the fading can't remember if you actually see her die) it was insanely emotional. I was overwhelmed with mixed emotions. Anywho...

The case of the mother of two children, shouldn't we try to intervene first to avoid a tragic ending?

The ultimate choice should be hers. Doesn't mean there should be no attempt to save her from making what may or may not be a mistake for her. Maybe she's making a rash decision or maybe she knows exactly what she wants. Help her yes. But in the end, don't force her.

I'm not putting my nose in anybody's life, I'm just trying to find an equilibrium for society. For instance, should I be able to ask for assisted suicide without warning my relatives or talking to a psychologist first? Yes or no? And why? People sometimes can make impulsive decisions. I think in belgium you need to see a psychologist or psychiatrist first.

Relatives I would say recommended but not required. Psychiatrist for sure, but I think the final decider should be the owner of the life and not the psychiatrist.

Despite you having more liberal views than me I for the first time agreed with everything you said, except for the relative part, I think at least you should warn a close person if there is one, sometimes people are emotionally unstable and talking with your wife/brother/son etc can change the odds. It's still a decision, just a precaution to be taken.

I'll keep my opinion that if you are able to execute suicide you shouldn't search for assisted suicide, depending on the case.

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Incorrect. Everything is legal until it is made to be illegal, not the other way around.

When you establish your constitution with fundamental rights and separation of powers you become a Constitutional State. By doing this, you are already putting in the constitution certain principles that compromise your future laws.

Practically speaking, if it is illegal currently we need a legislator to make it legal. And worse yet, we need a constitutional justification (or that euthanasia doesn't go against the constitution)

[Losty]

Oh I cannot quote you lol. It takes too long!

"Despite you having more liberal views than me I for the first time agreed with everything you said, except for the relative part, I think at least you should warn a close person if there is one, sometimes people are emotionally unstable and talking with your wife/brother/son etc can change the odds. It's still a decision, just a precaution to be taken."
I will agree with you that a person should warn a close relative. I will not agree that they should be legally required to.

Again, I don't know how your country's constitution works. My country's constitution establishes rights for citizens and limitations for government not the other way around.
You never have to decide whether someone being allowed to do something goes against the constitution. You never have to have a constitutional justification to not restrict a freedom. Nothing has always been illegal. Everything starts out being legal. So if something is made to be illegal, you would then have to decide if that restriction of freedom is constitutionally justifiable. If it is not then you strike the law from your books. You don't have to create legislation to allow it again you just have to remove the legislation that banned it. As I said, everything is legal until it is made to be illegal.

[ignoramus]

I think that most things should be legalised if they prove to not be detrimental to society.
I also believe that the brain needs time to grow to be able to make a more informed decision based on the persons life experience. 18? 24?

Society should not push it's beliefs onto others.
No religious exposure till adulthood! Tell me why that is any different to selling drugs to minors.
A young person can be addicted to a belief just as they can be physically addicted to drugs.
We have zero fucking chance of that happening because we would be killing their golden goose.
Namely "indoctrination at a young vulnerable age"

[Dystopia]

Oh I cannot quote you lol. It takes too long!

"Despite you having more liberal views than me I for the first time agreed with everything you said, except for the relative part, I think at least you should warn a close person if there is one, sometimes people are emotionally unstable and talking with your wife/brother/son etc can change the odds. It's still a decision, just a precaution to be taken."
I will agree with you that a person should warn a close relative. I will not agree that they should be legally required to.

Again, I don't know how your country's constitution works. My country's constitution establishes rights for citizens and limitations for government not the other way around.
You never have to decide whether someone being allowed to do something goes against the constitution. You never have to have a constitutional justification to not restrict a freedom. Nothing has always been illegal. Everything starts out being legal. So if something is made to be illegal, you would then have to decide if that restriction of freedom is constitutionally justifiable. If it is not then you strike the law from your books. You don't have to create legislation to allow it again you just have to remove the legislation that banned it. As I said, everything is legal until it is made to be illegal.

I disagree with the relative/friend part, I think it should be a legal obligation, it's just a precaution and it doesn't compromise your decision, you have the final saying. But let's put that aside. As for the constitution, everything may be legal until it is made illegal, if something is not regulated it is not illegal. However you can't make everything legal if it goes against the constitution. The example of murder, it can't be made legal. I don't know what the american constitution says about euthanasia, directly or indirectly, mine says nothing, so to make it legal it would have to be trough the human dignity principle and interpreting it in a favorable way to allow euthanasia.

On the other hand, by making the constitution you are already establishing parameters of what can be legal or not in the future. So from the beginning there are already certain things that can't be made legal, they are intrinsically illegal.

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I think that most things should be legalised if they prove to not be detrimental to society.
I also believe that the brain needs time to grow to be able to make a more informed decision based on the persons life experience. 18? 24?

Society should not push it's beliefs onto others.
No religious exposure till adulthood! Tell me why that is any different to selling drugs to minors.
A young person can be addicted to a belief just as they can be physically addicted to drugs.
We have zero fucking chance of that happening because we would be killing their golden goose.
Namely "indoctrination at a young vulnerable age"

Not that I disagree with your proposal, but b sides the high difficulty of implementing that measure (forbidding religious teachings to youngsters and children) and controlling it, it would be against human rights... Not to mention the slippery slope argument, what would come next? It is valid to teach religion just like it is valid to teach your morals, ethics, principles, political ideologies, the list goes now. We may think it is idiotic to indoctrinate from a very young age, but making it illegal would be against the principles of secularism and separation of the church and State.

[Losty]

Makes sense. I would say banning assisted suicide could be found to be unconstitutional under the right to privacy.

[Ravenshire]

Drinking or smoking will kill you with time, but having a car accident can kill you instantly. Just because we don't forbid A, it doesn't mean we can't forbid B.

Actually, drinking and smoking can kill you instantly as well. Nicotine is a poison with an LD50 right around 90mg. My older daughter came a couple of shots of vodka away from alcohol poisoning on prom night. A couple more drinks or a little less vomiting and she would have finished the night in the hospital, maybe the morgue. Still we allow people to drink and smoke, as we should. Seat belts are no different.

Not only religious but moral or ethical. I didn't know euthanasia and assisted suicide were different therefore my answer could be twisted. Can you explain me the difference?

There are no moral, legal or ethical arguments you can make for prolonging the suffering of someone who no longer wants to live, because of their suffering.

Assisted suicide is helping someone, who has chosen to die, to die. Consent is required. Euthanasia is the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy (bold is mine, wanted to make sure I was describing it accurately so thank you Merriam-Webster). Consent is off the table with euthanasia. I am not against it, but it would require far more legal oversight.

It depends on the situation. A friend of mine highly supported assisted suicide, but once her grandfather needed it to avoid suffering, she just couldn't do it, she said it paralyzed her, it's still a hard decision even if it's the right one. I'm not saying I would always be incapable, but I'm not imagining myself doing it.

Remember, we're not talking about a situation where you would have to pull the plug or inject the drug. That is handled by the patient or qualified professionals. You don't even have to make the decision. It's already made.

Once again I don't know the difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia. Firstly comparing humans and animals arguments will make zero points. I didn't say it wasn't compassionate, but form a constitutional perspective it is not possible where I live

I made the comparison between animals and humans for a couple reasons. First, it's where euthanasia is most commonly used. Second, because suffering is suffering and compassion is compassion, no matter who or what is suffering. I did not make the comparison to "make points" and resent the implication.

I agree court decisions shouldn't always be needed, specially if the person can consent specifically. But imagine the case when someone is in a comma and the wife argues the person is against assisted suicide and the parents argue the opposite. A court decision would solve this case and similar cases pretty well.

Coma is a very bad example. People have been known to come out of comas after months, years, even decades. A coma isn't death. It isn't any form of brain death or vegetative state. But, I see your point. I hope you see mine when I say this would be euthanasia, not assisted suicide. Again, consent is off the table.

I was just making my expression the simplest possible. You may want to die for all possible reasons. If you are capable of committing suicide, why ask for help? and what method would we use? Why call in a third party if you can do it yourself without involving others? If I was capable of killing myself I would never ask anyone to have the burden of doing it for me. Sounds selfish. But I may just think differently than you

Why ask for assistance? Because, if this were the way I were to go, I would want my loved ones around me. If decide I'm done with the suffering, I acquire a lethal dose of a morphine based drug and I want my friends and family around me, they will be questioned at best, prosecuted and convicted of murder at worst. Unless I seek the aid of professional help. Selfish? Maybe. Better than the alternatives though. Far better.

Where I live it's illegal too. But pain can be controlled with medicine, the more scientists progress in terms of medications the less assisted suicide will be needed. If I had 3 months to live and could ease the pain almost to zero I wouldn't want to die but to enjoy my time.

You've obviously never suffered the kind of pain that even opiate based drugs won't even touch. I listened to my unconscious mother whimper and moan in agony for three fucking days while under the maximum non lethal doses of opiate derivative pain killers. It was fucking horrible! HORRIBLE! By the second day, and early on that day, I was hoping she'd just die and end it. I sincerely hope you never have to experience something like that, but imagine if you did.

I'm not asking you to accept assisted suicide for anything other than lethal diseases that cause suffering. Not pain. Pain can be endured, but flat out suffering. The dying person isn't the only one who suffers. There are no ethical, moral or legal justifications for forcing families to endure what mine did! None! There are no ethical, moral or legal justifications for forcing people who are dying anyway to die alone to protect their loved ones from legal hassles and/or prosecution.

If I seem a little short or angry, I've just re-lived one of the worst days of my life explaining this to you. I hope it was worth it.

[Minimalist]

A woman wants to die but is a mother of two children, they need the mother or else they have no relatives, do we allow?

Are you sure about that?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/15/us/florida...index.html

Florida community reels after mom kills son, daughter, self

If it is not left to legislators it would be illegal. It needs to be legislated to be allowed.

I think you have that backwards.

[Dystopia]

Makes sense. I would say banning assisted suicide could be found to be unconstitutional under the right to privacy.

But those would disagree could say assisted suicide violates the right to live. And the cycle of debate goes on. I'd say our constitutional court could interpret like 'Human dignity is more severely violated with pain and agony/suffering than by taking away one's life (in some situations), therefore by a matter of rationality we will allow people to make decisions regarding their life, within limitations, if suffering violates their dignity more than dying'.

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A woman wants to die but is a mother of two children, they need the mother or else they have no relatives, do we allow?

Are you sure about that?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/15/us/florida...index.html

Florida community reels after mom kills son, daughter, self

What's the relevance of this? It doesn't apply to my situation. Logically I don't support the conduct of murdering your children and then taking your own life.