But it also terrifies me to wonder how we, as a society, would go about making rules about how much higher mental function someone needs to have in order for it to not be okay for someone to kill that person.
I think Alzheimer's disease is a bad example because someone who is that far gone is hardly able to make a decision to commit suicide. The discussions wind up being more about what I guess I'd call "assisted homicide" - at what point do your caregivers get to decide that there's nothing left worth keeping? That's a very, very different question.
And I say that with all kinds of respect and empathy for people who are caregivers of Alzheimer's patients, which is right up there on my personal nightmare list and is manifestly recognized by psychologists as one of the most stressful of human experiences.
(I'm sorry, this icon is manifestly inappropriate for the topic. I just couldn't resist using it in response to yours.)
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Date: 2010-06-24 11:14 am (UTC)But it also terrifies me to wonder how we, as a society, would go about making rules about how much higher mental function someone needs to have in order for it to not be okay for someone to kill that person.
I think Alzheimer's disease is a bad example because someone who is that far gone is hardly able to make a decision to commit suicide. The discussions wind up being more about what I guess I'd call "assisted homicide" - at what point do your caregivers get to decide that there's nothing left worth keeping? That's a very, very different question.
And I say that with all kinds of respect and empathy for people who are caregivers of Alzheimer's patients, which is right up there on my personal nightmare list and is manifestly recognized by psychologists as one of the most stressful of human experiences.
(I'm sorry, this icon is manifestly inappropriate for the topic. I just couldn't resist using it in response to yours.)