Suicide Clinics

[Scouse Hibee]

Thoughts?

Making the choice to end your own life in an organised manner to prevent long term suffering and the burden on your loved ones is fine with me.

[Onceinawhile]

Thoughts?

Making the choice to end your own life in an organised manner to prevent long term suffering and the burden on your loved ones is fine with me.

Moral minefield. I'm absolutely OK with the concept, but I'm unsure as to how it should be done e.g. to ensure that it's been thoroughly thought through and isn't a direct result of things such as family pressure. There surely also has to be safeguards regarding the use of them e.g. you couldn't just turn up if you were in debt to the mob and wanted out (I'm not saying this is what you're suggesting btw).

Sadly I don't think it'll happen in the next 20-30 years as people still seem to think that life is "sacred".

[(((Fergus)))]

People only want to commit suicide because, in their own minds, they no longer have a reason for living. Suffering can be endured if there is a reason for it. Better to invest in restoring that reason.

[Scouse Hibee]

Terminal illness and the suffering that goes with it is a fair reason in my mind.

[Pretty Boy]

People only want to commit suicide because, in their own minds, they no longer have a reason for living. Suffering can be endured if there is a reason for it. Better to invest in restoring that reason.

There isn't always a reason.

My Gran died of breast cancer at the relatively young age of 70. After having a mastectomy she was informed her cancer had returned in the other breast and had spread to lymph nodes and the spine and was inoperable and terminal. After several rounds on chemotherapy she made an informed choice to stop treatment. 16 months later she was admitted to hospital and told myself and my Dad she was ready to die and to pray she didn't wake up the next morning. Instead she spent 6 further weeks wasting away in a hospital bed with little dignity, in constant pain, delirious, agitated and in clear distress. You wouldn't allow a dog to live like that but we allow a human who has already made a conscious decision to refuse treatment to lengthen their life (albeit a life that would have been of little quality) to live like that for 6 agonising weeks. Seems a strange set of affairs to me and I'd be interested to know the reason for that suffering.

[Hibrandenburg]

It's your life and your decision what you do with it.

[Sir David Gray]

It's your life and your decision what you do with it.

Are we talking about suicide in the correct sense of the word, i.e. someone doing something to themselves which is going to end their own life, or are we talking about something entirely different, which would be along the lines of doctors etc being involved in administering some sort of drug into someone, which will bring about an end to that person's life?

If it's the former then I don't have any issue with that at all. As you have already suggested, if someone wishes to take their own life, that's their own decision and there's nothing that anyone else can do to stop that. I think people who are feeling suicidal should be offered every possible help that is available but if they are insistent on taking their own life then that's a decision for them.

However, if it's the latter then that's a completely different issue for me and not something I would support.

[Scouse Hibee]

Are we talking about suicide in the correct sense of the word, i.e. someone doing something to themselves which is going to end their own life, or are we talking about something entirely different, which would be along the lines of doctors etc being involved in administering some sort of drug into someone, which will bring about an end to that person's life?

If it's the former then I don't have any issue with that at all. As you have already suggested, if someone wishes to take their own life, that's their own decision and there's nothing that anyone else can do to stop that. I think people who are feeling suicidal should be offered every possible help that is available but if they are insistent on taking their own life then that's a decision for them.

However, if it's the latter then that's a completely different issue for me and not something I would support.

The most recent case of the guy who went to Switzerland and I believe administered his own poison following terminal diagnosis is what I was relating to.

[--------]

An old GP friend used to quote a wee rhyme to me from time to time - "Thou shalt not kill, but need not strive/Officiously to keep alive ..."

The Hospice movement and the MacMillan Nurses have made huge strides in pain management in the last 20 years but there are still situations that place us all on the horns of a dreadful dilemma to which there is no right or easy answer.

This guys says it better than I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4la8Izrwea8

Boston Legal is very largely about Alzheimer's and the moral questions attending that illness. I recommend it 100%.

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

An old GP friend used to quote a wee rhyme to me from time to time - "Thou shalt not kill, but need not strive/Officiously to keep alive ..."

The Hospice movement and the MacMillan Nurses have made huge strides in pain management in the last 20 years but there are still situations that place us all on the horns of a dreadful dilemma to which there is no right or easy answer.

This guys says it better than I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4la8Izrwea8

Boston Legal is very largely about Alzheimer's and the moral questions attending that illness. I recommend it 100%.

Bit of a tangent but, I loved that programme, James Spader's/Alan Shore's closing speech in the episode re the big US tobacco companies was a fantastic piece of telly.

Alan Shore was a fantastic tv character.

[RyeSloan]

There isn't always a reason. My Gran died of breast cancer at the relatively young age of 70. After having a mastectomy she was informed her cancer had returned in the other breast and had spread to lymph nodes and the spine and was inoperable and terminal. After several rounds on chemotherapy she made an informed choice to stop treatment. 16 months later she was admitted to hospital and told myself and my Dad she was ready to die and to pray she didn't wake up the next morning. Instead she spent 6 further weeks wasting away in a hospital bed with little dignity, in constant pain, delirious, agitated and in clear distress. You wouldn't allow a dog to live like that but we allow a human who has already made a conscious decision to refuse treatment to lengthen their life (albeit a life that would have been of little quality) to live like that for 6 agonising weeks. Seems a strange set of affairs to me and I'd be interested to know the reason for that suffering.

That is exactly the type of situation where I believe this type of 'assistance' should be available.

Absolutely agree with the poster who said it is a moral minefield but that doesn't mean people like Pretty Boys poor old gran should effectively be made to suffer. I would say that approach is morally wrong and the quicker we accept that and try to do something about it the better.

That said I for one would not be volunteering to write the rules on such things, it would seem impossible to put any sort of framework in place that protects all parties but is flexible enough not to make the ordeal of approval a trial in itself.

[Speedy]

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg5hylhdW31qe811q.jpg

On a serious note, I'd say only for terminal illness.

[Mikey09]

My wife worked for years with patients at end of life and is a huge advocate of assisted suicide. Some of the stories she told me were heart breaking, brutal and down right cruel. Pretty Boys post is, scarily, very very common. My wife has seen hundreds of cases where the elderly are begging just to "go" as they put it as they have absolutely no quality of life and are in extreme pain and tormented with dementia. What kind of world do we live in when we can let our loved ones suffer instead of letting them "go" with peace and dignity. Hearing these stories from her first hand I will never understand this...

[Bishop Hibee]

I'm against assisted suicide. There are a lot of good points made here http://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/events-reports/holyrood-debate-highlights by MSPs as to why they voted against the recent Bill before the Scottish Parliament.

My own dad died of a brain tumour. The care that the nurses who came into the family house to look after him, the care the doctors gave him and the love and care from my mum 24/7 were amazing and will stay with me forever. Yes death is often a messy business but so is a lot of living. Interesting take on the subject from a few years ago by David Mitchell http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/14/assisted-suicide-television-dignitas?

[TRC]

Having lived through my step dads long drawn out death i can safely say im in the for camp. However if like my step dad who at the end was incoherent and unable to make his own choices, and it hadn't been discussed beforehand. Who could or indeed want to make that decision. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

[Hibernia&Alba]

For those with a terminal illness who are judged to be of sound mind, I think it should be a human right to take the decision to end ones suffering. As the old saying goes, "we don't allow animals to suffer like that". Other posters have their personal stories of watching loved ones suffer; in my case my grandad, with prostate cancer which spread into his bones. In the end even he morphine couldn't stop the pain. I don't whether he ever reached the point of just wanting the pain to end forever, but if I ever end up in that terrible situation, I think I would jut want to go at a moment of my own choosing with family around me.

Of course the policy would have to be meticulously thought through and be regulated accordingly, but it strikes me as a compassionate principle which recognizes the human worth of the individual.

[Pretty Boy]

I'm against assisted suicide. There are a lot of good points made here http://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/events-reports/holyrood-debate-highlights by MSPs as to why they voted against the recent Bill before the Scottish Parliament.

My own dad died of a brain tumour. The care that the nurses who came into the family house to look after him, the care the doctors gave him and the love and care from my mum 24/7 were amazing and will stay with me forever. Yes death is often a messy business but so is a lot of living. Interesting take on the subject from a few years ago by David Mitchell http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/14/assisted-suicide-television-dignitas?

I can't help but think Mitchell, a very clever, witty guy, has spectacularly missed the point. Ending one's life is not on a to do list or something that has to be done. However there are many people with a terminal illness who can accept death is near and come to terms with that emotionally, perhaps that something those of us who have yet to have to really face our own mortality struggle to understand. As I said above my Gran had reached a point where she was aware she was going to die, had accepted it and wanted to do so as quickly and painlessly as possible. Perhaps her faith that she was going somewhere better afterwards helped her reach that thought process.

It's a tricky subject and one that polarises opinion but it's a discussion worth returning to imo. As medicine continues to advance at a phenomenal rate we are going to continue to see increasing numbers of people living 'artificially' long lives and the various problems as well as benefits that come with that. I always find it interesting that some of the strongest voices in favour of assisted dying are those coping with long term and life shortening illnesses themselves, I dare say the same can be said of many on the opposite side as well.

[Scouse Hibee]

My thoughts on it are very simplistic with regard to terminal illness, why should people be made to suffer longer than they have to if they are of sound mind to make a decision? The answer is they shouldn't be.

[weecounty hibby]

I have a friend who has Huntington's and has steadily been getting worse for years. She is of sound mind but her body is giving up on her. She is doubly incontinent, needs carers help to do pretty much everything. She isn't just a prisoner in her own house but in her body as well. She knows what is happening to her and how her life will be as she was a staff nurse who had years of experience of nursing people with these types of illness.
She does not want to live like this and has in the past asked my wife and myself to help her to die. She has asked a few times and it is now at the stage where we rarely visit as it is hard to see her like that and to be asked to help her to die. It is very upsetting to be asked by a friend to help them and know you can't. She should be allowed to die with dignity, in the way she wants, when she wants. She shouldn't have to have the indignity of having her nappy changed and being fed by carers. She should legally and safely be helped out of her horrible situation

[Hibbyradge]

My wife's gran,at 94, was mentally sound but unable to do much for herself. She was in a home and needed help to do everything. She was lonely and miserable.

Once, when we visited her and asked how she was, she replied "disappointed when I woke this morning and I was still alive"! So, although there was no pain, you get a sense of her state of mind.

Anyway, she became I'll and was admitted to hospital. She had something which could have been operated on, but she refused surgery. The doctors did not try to persuade her otherwise and she died a few days later.

I think that's a brilliant situation to be in. Ready, even happy, to face the inevitable.

That dignity should be afforded to everyone who wants it.

[Hibrandenburg]

My wife's gran,at 94, was mentally sound but unable to do much for herself. She was in a home and needed help to do everything. She was lonely and miserable.

Once, when we visited her and asked how she was, she replied "disappointed when I woke this morning and I was still alive"! So, although there was no pain, you get a sense of her state of mind.

Anyway, she became I'll and was admitted to hospital. She had something which could have been operated on, but she refused surgery. The doctors did not try to persuade her otherwise and she died a few days later.

I think that's a brilliant situation to be in. Ready, even happy, to face the inevitable.

That dignity should be afforded to everyone who wants it.

Pretty much describes my mother's situation right now. My great grandmother was basically put to sleep in the end and everybody thought it was for the best as she was only hours/days away from death and in excruciating pain. That was back in the late 60's and from listening to my family was nothing out of the ordinary. Why is it that nowadays this option is no longer available to those who want it? It sounds crazy but it's true, my mother seems to be more afraid of breaking the law than dying. Absolutely crazy situation to be in.

[Mikey09]

My wife's gran,at 94, was mentally sound but unable to do much for herself. She was in a home and needed help to do everything. She was lonely and miserable.

Once, when we visited her and asked how she was, she replied "disappointed when I woke this morning and I was still alive"! So, although there was no pain, you get a sense of her state of mind.

Anyway, she became I'll and was admitted to hospital. She had something which could have been operated on, but she refused surgery. The doctors did not try to persuade her otherwise and she died a few days later.

I think that's a brilliant situation to be in. Ready, even happy, to face the inevitable.

That dignity should be afforded to everyone who wants it.


Pretty much sums it up mate... :agree:

[Pretty Boy]

My wife's gran,at 94, was mentally sound but unable to do much for herself. She was in a home and needed help to do everything. She was lonely and miserable.

Once, when we visited her and asked how she was, she replied "disappointed when I woke this morning and I was still alive"! So, although there was no pain, you get a sense of her state of mind.

Anyway, she became I'll and was admitted to hospital. She had something which could have been operated on, but she refused surgery. The doctors did not try to persuade her otherwise and she died a few days later.

I think that's a brilliant situation to be in. Ready, even happy, to face the inevitable.

That dignity should be afforded to everyone who wants it.

Spot on D. Excellent post.

[steakbake]

It's up to the individual. No one has a right to dictate whether you live or die by your own hand and you should be allowed to request assistance to that end from another.

At one time I considered financial ruin and humiliation ample excuse for walking in front of the 11.00 to Glasgow.

And then I realised that you are only on this earth for minutes really so you may as well get on with it. It will be over soon enough - for ever.

I'm glad you're still with us.

[IWasThere2016]

There isn't always a reason.

My Gran died of breast cancer at the relatively young age of 70. After having a mastectomy she was informed her cancer had returned in the other breast and had spread to lymph nodes and the spine and was inoperable and terminal. After several rounds on chemotherapy she made an informed choice to stop treatment. 16 months later she was admitted to hospital and told myself and my Dad she was ready to die and to pray she didn't wake up the next morning. Instead she spent 6 further weeks wasting away in a hospital bed with little dignity, in constant pain, delirious, agitated and in clear distress. You wouldn't allow a dog to live like that but we allow a human who has already made a conscious decision to refuse treatment to lengthen their life (albeit a life that would have been of little quality) to live like that for 6 agonising weeks. Seems a strange set of affairs to me and I'd be interested to know the reason for that suffering.


My wife's gran,at 94, was mentally sound but unable to do much for herself. She was in a home and needed help to do everything. She was lonely and miserable.

Once, when we visited her and asked how she was, she replied "disappointed when I woke this morning and I was still alive"! So, although there was no pain, you get a sense of her state of mind.

Anyway, she became I'll and was admitted to hospital. She had something which could have been operated on, but she refused surgery. The doctors did not try to persuade her otherwise and she died a few days later.

I think that's a brilliant situation to be in. Ready, even happy, to face the inevitable.

That dignity should be afforded to everyone who wants it.

I am with you both on this. The key is dignity.

I was denied access to my grandparents in their later days/weeks/months as dementia (both Grannies) and cancer (both Grandfathers) robbed all four of said dignity.

Let people decide for themselves but give them the option.

[Sir David Gray]

My wife's gran,at 94, was mentally sound but unable to do much for herself. She was in a home and needed help to do everything. She was lonely and miserable.

Once, when we visited her and asked how she was, she replied "disappointed when I woke this morning and I was still alive"! So, although there was no pain, you get a sense of her state of mind.

Anyway, she became I'll and was admitted to hospital. She had something which could have been operated on, but she refused surgery. The doctors did not try to persuade her otherwise and she died a few days later.

I think that's a brilliant situation to be in. Ready, even happy, to face the inevitable.

That dignity should be afforded to everyone who wants it.

That's an option which is already available within the current legal framework.

There is nothing stopping terminally ill people from refusing surgery or medication which may prolong their life. If that person does not want to be operated on or given medication then it's their decision to decide not to accept that.

The argument is about whether or not someone should be given a drug which is going to actively bring about their death.

[haagsehibby]

A friend of mine here in the Netherlands was recently euthanised. She had terminal cancer but made the decision when in full possession of her faculties. She had made this decision after discussions with the family and wanted to go on her own terms.

It was a fairly rapid process after the doctors signed her off - a week or two at most. She had kept a blog (in Dutch) during her illness and it was very poignant to read the reasons for her final decision.