Just to lay it all out, I believe that medically assisted suicide should be legal and available to anyone (in contrast, say, to the way that abortion is legal but unavailable to poor women in the Midwest), and that the medical profession should implement guidelines as a check against coercion or depression.
But I do not believe that being in the final stage of a terminal illness should be the requirement. I think that someone in a lucid phase of a degenerative dementia-causing condition should be allowed as well, and heck I think that an Olympic skier who loses her legs in a car accident should be allowed to ask (although I would be sad if the counseling didn't change her mind). To fully lay out the depth of my feelings, I think that a guy going through a midlife crisis should be allowed to ask, on the grounds that the methods that laymen choose to take their lives is often more socially disadvantageous than a medical procedure would be. That's dangerous in the sense that people in my society might make choices that I or someone else might disagree with. But, you know, that puts it in line with the right to an abortion or gender transitioning or plenty of other things where I think that conservatives need to STFU about how someone else making personal choices is somehow harshing their squee. It isn't -- the world sees a free society and the people whose opinions matter thank you for preserving it.
Also, I'm sure I don't need to mention that the Hippocratic Oath forbids doctors from performing abortions (to say nothing of surgery), except that it doesn't any more. It's an evolving document, and I think that we should discuss whether it needs to evolve again on this issue. I don't want to force my doctor to give me a suicide pill upon the diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimers (which is a condition that is totally abhorrent to me), but if Doctor K down the street is comfortable with making that diagnosis, I don't think that the medical complex should prevent a doctor and a patient from reaching a mutually acceptable benevolent medical outcome just because it hastens death. It overcomes an unpleasant disease with no cure, and that should be enough.
To answer your question (which probably goes far beyond the scope of your sermon), I believe fundamentally that it is foolish to deny that anyone has the capacity to follow through on the choice to end their life. Suicide itself has been decriminalized throughout the United States, and I welcome those decisions. Of course, attempted suicide remains a crime, and I generally approve of that as well. If someone chooses to end their life in a way that makes a public nuisance of themselves (by standing on a bridge snarling rush hour traffic or tying up a 911 line in an effort to be talked down), I think that the state has a right to end that nuisance, and further that they have the obligations to prevent the death of anyone in their custody and also to perform psychiatric evaluations of anyone accused of a crime. I once had a roommate who went through this process, and I am glad that it exists because it was the first step in that person coming to wellness.
However, I think it would be better yet if suicide were not a dirty little secret that only comes up in crisis situations. If my roommate had the option of candidly pursuing a medically assisted suicide only on the basis that life was mentally unbearable, then my roommate's wellness would have come sooner and without the involuntary institutionalization that was a burden on my roommate, the state, and everyone else. Again, I would suggest a comparison to the liberalization of abortion access and how that ended the horrors of self-induced abortion and medically unlicensed procedures in exchange for safe medical procedures even if they were abhorrent to a portion of society. I would suggest that we would see similar increases in the social outcomes of suicide if we had a more pragmatic and healthy outlook on its access.
no subject
But I do not believe that being in the final stage of a terminal illness should be the requirement. I think that someone in a lucid phase of a degenerative dementia-causing condition should be allowed as well, and heck I think that an Olympic skier who loses her legs in a car accident should be allowed to ask (although I would be sad if the counseling didn't change her mind). To fully lay out the depth of my feelings, I think that a guy going through a midlife crisis should be allowed to ask, on the grounds that the methods that laymen choose to take their lives is often more socially disadvantageous than a medical procedure would be. That's dangerous in the sense that people in my society might make choices that I or someone else might disagree with. But, you know, that puts it in line with the right to an abortion or gender transitioning or plenty of other things where I think that conservatives need to STFU about how someone else making personal choices is somehow harshing their squee. It isn't -- the world sees a free society and the people whose opinions matter thank you for preserving it.
Also, I'm sure I don't need to mention that the Hippocratic Oath forbids doctors from performing abortions (to say nothing of surgery), except that it doesn't any more. It's an evolving document, and I think that we should discuss whether it needs to evolve again on this issue. I don't want to force my doctor to give me a suicide pill upon the diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimers (which is a condition that is totally abhorrent to me), but if Doctor K down the street is comfortable with making that diagnosis, I don't think that the medical complex should prevent a doctor and a patient from reaching a mutually acceptable benevolent medical outcome just because it hastens death. It overcomes an unpleasant disease with no cure, and that should be enough.
To answer your question (which probably goes far beyond the scope of your sermon), I believe fundamentally that it is foolish to deny that anyone has the capacity to follow through on the choice to end their life. Suicide itself has been decriminalized throughout the United States, and I welcome those decisions. Of course, attempted suicide remains a crime, and I generally approve of that as well. If someone chooses to end their life in a way that makes a public nuisance of themselves (by standing on a bridge snarling rush hour traffic or tying up a 911 line in an effort to be talked down), I think that the state has a right to end that nuisance, and further that they have the obligations to prevent the death of anyone in their custody and also to perform psychiatric evaluations of anyone accused of a crime. I once had a roommate who went through this process, and I am glad that it exists because it was the first step in that person coming to wellness.
However, I think it would be better yet if suicide were not a dirty little secret that only comes up in crisis situations. If my roommate had the option of candidly pursuing a medically assisted suicide only on the basis that life was mentally unbearable, then my roommate's wellness would have come sooner and without the involuntary institutionalization that was a burden on my roommate, the state, and everyone else. Again, I would suggest a comparison to the liberalization of abortion access and how that ended the horrors of self-induced abortion and medically unlicensed procedures in exchange for safe medical procedures even if they were abhorrent to a portion of society. I would suggest that we would see similar increases in the social outcomes of suicide if we had a more pragmatic and healthy outlook on its access.