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Comment by defenestration | Hacker News Reader

There is a social issue around death that is quite complex. A wish for a sudden peaceful death at a certain old age is not an easy one. Family, doctors, society and laws should be aligned on this. Right now the norm (at least in the Netherlands) is too keep a person alive as long as reasonably possible.

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Not sure why you are getting downvoted, maybe due to wording, anybody old enough knew/knows some people around him who are stuck in this and suffer. My wife is a doctor here in Switzerland, and yes the idea of having nice easy retirement health wise is mostly a pipe dream. But its oftne families themselves, ie here its typical that Italian families will always ask for prolonging life of a patient as much as possible even if its clear there is no way back and its just constant coma decline. Subtle evils of religions in the real world.

Its rather a constant management of ever increasing problems ranging from small to massive ones, and eventually losing either gradually or suddenly. Absolutely no dignity from the system.

Switzerland at least has enough sanity to allow assisted suicide so all world rich and powerful come here to die. As rather strict christian country that's what showing actual respect looks like.

I don’t know about the role of religion here. Not taking a position here in either direction, but given how suicide has a social contagion component to it, it’s not surprising that societies develop social norms against allowing any form of it. Sure, it’s dehumanizing and potentially cruel to the individual, but it can have a protective effect at societal scale. Then you need to evaluate the benefits to the individual against the benefits to society and that’s always hard because the latter is amorphous and even harder to quantify. Any religious component could be more of a post hoc rationalization to make it more acceptable / enforce the resolve of the members of society when they come face to face with this situation.

My mother is going through a kind of hell created by laws that prevent her from ending her life as she wishes. I hope dignity around death for the elderly becomes more of a public issue.

My grandmother starved herself to death at 97 because any other approach was then illegal (for anyone else to facilitate). All her friends were dead and she didn’t really like old people. As her vision and hearing started to deteriorate she figured it was not worth waiting for a letter from the Queen.

Dad died in 2021 at age 78 he was sick for a long time and at lest he had the option of MAID (Medical assistance in dying). He went to palliative care and I think really that is what happened. He never said, the staff never said but they were constantly injecting him and he died in his sleep unaware.

My Mom is 79 and often says she doesn't know anyone when she goes out. Her eyesight and hearing are both poor but not to the point of not seeing or hearing at all. But she said in stores, church, anywhere she goes there is nobody she recognizes even older people. So if you make it to old age and are in good health not stuck in a home and are mobile and can converse with people it can be very lonely if you are not good at making friends at that stage of life.

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