A Design for Death

Last week my grandmother had a stroke in her sleep--the most major of a series of strokes that she has endured for slightly over a year that have sent her slowly sinking into dementia. After several days in the hospital without having regained consciousness, her advance directive was enacted and her feeding tube removed. She's at home now in hospice care, surrounded by her husband and children. There's nothing left to do now but wait for death.

Of my two grandmothers, she's the lucky one. The other was T-boned while driving by a pickup blasting through a stop sign. Her body was shattered and her freedom and mobility irrevocably taken. She spent the last two years of her life sequestered away in a nursing home, her mind deteriorating, her few nearby children visiting once a week at most, her husband dead 15 years hence.

Death sucks. But the hell on Earth we force people to endure while waiting for it to arrive doesn't seem much preferable.

Have an advance directive, folks.

I can't manage to read this. At one time, I likely would have taken the euthanasia option if it had been available to me.

My life remains a living hell in some ways, but mostly for financial/social reasons. My physical suffering is substantially less.

I can't begin to express both how very much I am for the right to die and how very much I know that, given an easy out, most people won't do the hard stuff. So something like this can easily go very bad places.

There was an American, I think also nicknamed Dr. Death, who was providing euthanasia (illegally). A lot of his patients/clients were chronically ill women who didn't want to be a burden on their family.

One woman in particular seemed like she wanted to die primarily because she had a shitty, unsupportive family, not because her medical issue was really so serious that suicide seemed like a reasonable choice.

Chronically ill or disabled men are much more likely to marry someone and let her physically take care of him, especially if they were able bodied at one time and have a decent income still. It doesn't even have to be a great income.

I read an article once about a study of children in some less developed country where boys were valued more than girls. Boys were fed slightly better. Boys were taken to the doctor slightly sooner -- like in the evening versus "Oh, let's give it a few hours and see how she feels come morning."

Although this was not a case of girls being horribly abused, it was just a case of boys being a little bit pampered, the difference in outcomes could be measured in mortality.

In a world where racism, classism, sexism, etc are still rampant, a death machine has all kinds of potential for horrifying unintended consequences. And those consequences are a sort that are hard to talk about without sounding like a loon or conspiracy theory nutter because the forces at play are fairly subtle and human psychology innately tends to handwave them off as not important.

The taboo against euthanasia is mostly after the spread of abrahamic religions.

Throughout history of our world, there has always been ways to end one’s own life, their loved ones and those of enemies in battle ..and during times of famine and pestilence.

The ‘immortal soul’ that has to meet the monotheistic maker changed everything because euthanasia means banishing saved souls to hell and hence becoming unsaved.

Edited to add: perhaps after spread of xianity. The Old Testament begins with a sacrifice after all. I am not terribly familiar with details re religions..correct me if I am wrong?

The secular problem with this:

How do we make sure that people aren't forced into this?

Nitschke's other (previous, drug perfusion) death machine was on display in MONA in Hobart. its an otherwise pedestrian installation of a suitcase sized box, and a bag on a stand, next to a chaise longue. I found it very confronting. Normalized but somehow not normal.

He's a polarising figure. Saying something rational, but causing immense community disquiet when people come close to voting. (I believe he has the right of it, but successive State, Territory and Federal governments have shied away from the topic, the impact of the church on Australian polity is pretty big)

> The front-runner in the one-way journey to Switzerland is a New Zealander whom Nitschke has known for years. She’s not terminally ill, but is becoming increasingly disabled by macular degeneration – something she finds intolerable after a lifetime of reading for pleasure.

I am not so sure society is ready to embrace commercial euthanasia for non-fatal, non-painful diseases. Should someone with age related deafness be offered euthanasia because they find not being able to listen to music intolerable. Or how about a former runner with hip and knee problems?

The ends don’t justify the means. Sometimes to live and suffer a fate worse than death is better to die.

Also I hate this idea the they’re making death slick.

And the way the article is romanticizing a man who will assist you in, for many; a coward’s way out.

This worries me greatly; have we so quickly forgotten the past?

Needs to be combined with prompt cooling for cryopreservation.

I am 100% for the uber for death. People are suffering due to lack of resources and lack of innovation in medical field. Haven is better than hell on earth.

Off topic, but that double exposure feels out of place.

I think it is of note that voluntary euthanasia is becoming a more important issue at the present time. Due to various medical advancements and improved analgesia and supportive care, suffering is less now than at any other time in history.

One possibility is the particular life experiences and trajectory of the boomers is driving the phenomenon. Or maybe it is just the growing number of elderly and increasingly infirm.