I agree that, especially in the US (possibly in other first-world countries too though I don't want to overgeneralize), we tend to emphasize preservation of life over quality of life.
But this doesn't merely manifest in keeping terminally ill patients alive for a few weeks too long. It also manifests in undertreatment of pain and mood disorders.
And I think any discussion of physician-assisted suicide has to take that into account, or else we are (to borrow Ender's phrasing), "unintentionally opening the door for suicidal depression to takereduce the quality of lives that could've been savedimproved with just some relatively cheap pills."
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Well, kinda. The obvious solution is to provide free counseling and pharmacological support to help treat it, but if we took a hypothetical person whose depression never responds to any treatment of any kind, wouldn't they be better off not having to suffer through it?
We could also offer counseling and pharmacological support first to people voicing a desire for death during terminal illness, and allow physician-assisted suicide only after those fail, or in cases where they're not possible (say, due to drug interactions).
That's the sort of bureaucratic hurdle I think is actually a good thing.
I'm not sure convincing people that they shouldn't get physician assisted suicide when they are already terminal is a positive intervention. If it means spending more pain free, cogent time with their family, or finishing their memoirs, or seeing their first grandchild born, etc, etc. that's fine, but if we're talking about people who have maxed out pain killers without hitting respiratory distress and still have intense, horrible pain, who have extreme difficulty communicating, or the like, I'm not sure drugging them to make them think that's okay is giving them clarity vs. clouding their correct thinking that it sucks to have a horrible, incurable disease.
To give a terrible real world example,
the reason ISIS sex slaves commit suicide or attempt often isn't because they need drugs, it's because it is a positive improvement over their current situation. Fixing the situation and then giving drugs to help alleviate long term issues is fine, but in the hypothetical that you can only slip them a dose of cyanide or a 30 day dose of antidepressants, but they have no chance of escaping, well, I'd argue the choice is obvious.
Posts
how many mario games can you actually name
and how many of them were sterling
you are conflating the fame/influence of a brand with a library of games, I think
If it was... easier and more acceptable and painless, I'd probably have killed myself. That would sort of have been a bad thing.
I guess I'm sort of OK making it difficult for depressed people to kill themselves. But... there's folks who maybe basically don't get better.
My man-farmer wants to make a life with that foreign violinist dude, damn it
But this doesn't merely manifest in keeping terminally ill patients alive for a few weeks too long. It also manifests in undertreatment of pain and mood disorders.
And I think any discussion of physician-assisted suicide has to take that into account, or else we are (to borrow Ender's phrasing), "unintentionally opening the door for suicidal depression to take reduce the quality of lives that could've been saved improved with just some relatively cheap pills."
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Can't you play as a lady farmer and seduce all the violinists you want?
I'm not sure convincing people that they shouldn't get physician assisted suicide when they are already terminal is a positive intervention. If it means spending more pain free, cogent time with their family, or finishing their memoirs, or seeing their first grandchild born, etc, etc. that's fine, but if we're talking about people who have maxed out pain killers without hitting respiratory distress and still have intense, horrible pain, who have extreme difficulty communicating, or the like, I'm not sure drugging them to make them think that's okay is giving them clarity vs. clouding their correct thinking that it sucks to have a horrible, incurable disease.
To give a terrible real world example,
On average, this thread was careening by at warp 4.6
@AManFromEarth will create the new thread
@Cambiata is backup