LogFAQs > #978874580

In todays topic, lots of people clearly dont understand just how many hoops people generally have to go through in order to actually have this happen. Colorado passed a Medical Aid In Dying bill in 2016, bill text can be read here:

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb16-1054

Our law is definitely more restrictive than the Netherlands one, in that we only allow it for individuals with terminal illnesses with a prognosis of 6 months or less to live. The person had to be certified to be mentally competent to make their own informed decisions, is making the decison voluntarily and is not under duress, and this has to be confirmed by two medical professionals in their care team before a physician can perscribe the medication.

The goal is to allow a person to pass in a more peaceful and significantly less painful way than their illness will allow, or to do so before their mental condition deteriorates to the point that they are no longer functional. Many natural deaths are incredibly unpleasant physically and mentally, to say the least, and it is unconsciable to force them to endure prolonged suffering when the end result will be the same regardless of how they get there.

SpiritSephiroth posted...

No of course not, this is entirely my opinion. I don't have the answers to it all and I could very well be wrong. Which is why I started my post with "I think". The people who decide when someone should be euthanized should obviously be the ones that are medical professors or experts.

Well good news! Thats what laws like the one cited above in my state do. No one is handing these MAID perscriptions out willy-nilly, and the use cases are very narrow. I personally think they should be expanded somewhat, but this was a start.

Sure, when the body dies by itself.

As stated by a few people, bodies usually dont just go *click* and die. Its usually the result of multiple failures through the entire body accumulating until it cant deal with it anymore. Even relatively benign deaths like heart failure usually have a lead-up where the body is struggling painfully to keep itself going because thats what its designed to do. As a species humans are actually remarkably resilient, our systems keep us going through tremendous pain and deterioration that would be crippling for a lot of other species, but it comes with the downside of our waning years being pretty damn rough.

Your only chance of a natural death that wont be dragged out and (probably) not incredibly painful is a sudden anyeruism. A stroke, fatal heart attack, those are relatively quick compared to organ failure from cancer or disease, but still painful and could leave a person lingering for a small period before thry actually die.

Yes, of course. But we have burdens at every stage of our lives. Backpains, migraines, outright depression, limb dismemberment ect ect.

Not everyone handles their burdens the same. Some people can live fulfilling lives with the same burdens and pain that drive another to feeling suicidal. Its not our place to judge what a persons limits in living with terminal conditions should be. Every person should be able to decide when the pains of their life are too much to bear as long as they can do so in a mentally competent condition unaffected by outside forces or internal mental health problems like depression. Emphasis on that last point because depression specifically renders a decision to end ones life questionable in the mentally capable context.

When I say burden, I mean no chance in living a normal life at all. Not being able to walk or breathe normally. Being in extreme pain at every second of your life.

You could equate that to being old, I'm sure. But I'm also sure that not every old person is in pain to the point of them wishing to be dead.

The entire point is to avoid letting people get to that level of pain or non-function in the first place. To allow a person to go in a more peaceful manner before their body deteriorates past the point if having any reasonable quality of life so that their last experiences are not of being stuck in a bed riddled with pain and an inability to do more than sit and wait for the end. A person shouldnt have to be in agony for us to feel morally justified in letting them die, and making them wait to get to that point is frankly cruel.