Father tries to block daughter's euthanasia in landmark Spanish case | Hacker News Reader

Father tries to block daughter's euthanasia in landmark Spanish case

bbc.com

52 pointsimpish9208155 comments

I feel for the dad but it really seems like a case he shouldn't even have standing to bring. The daughter is a full blown 23 year old adult, unless she's been adjudicated as incompetent to make her own decisions and he has a guardianship of some sort she should be fully autonomous.

She tried to kill herself three years ago so it seems she’s not fit to make such decisions.

Other side of the coin; she's wanted to kill herself for a long time but failed and is now unable to do it herself due to the damage of the previous attempt.

Suicide attempt does not equal losing all your rights to self determination.

I know by law a 23 year old is considered an adult, but full blown seems to be hyperbolic.

Being old enough to go to war means being old enough to make life altering decisions by herself.

Adults are just children with more money.

Everyone needs guidance. There are plenty of stories of interrupted suicides that ultimately changed the fate of an individual. They were saved and they were glad they were saved. This happens at all ages.

The fact that you can say that being old enough to go to war means that someone is old enough to make life altering decisions as if just this arbitrary numeric number means something because it was encoded into law shows that you’re not ready to say who has the right to go to war, go to war yourself, nor say anything about who has the right to go suicide.

Think before you follow some arbitrary rule and make that rule the axiom for your logic.

It is pretty well accepted that the human brain does not fully mature until mid-20s. So a full blown adult is different than legally considered adult.

> So a full blown adult is different than legally considered adult.

We have to create a line somewhere and currently that line is the age of majority. Some people mature faster than others, and even you didn’t provide a specific age. How are we supposed to make decisions about what constitutes an adult without a firm cutoff?

I think it's reasonable to have different lines for different decisions. Driving at 16 is fine, voting at 18 feels young (subjectively, but more young people should vote), drinking at 21 feels responsibile, can consent to suicide at the age of the 95th percentile where brains have stopped growing/maturing feels reasonable? I think I heard your brain is growing until the age of 25, and IIRC The odds of being diagnosed with schizophrenia goes up until the age of 26, so maybe 26 is the age which you're considered adult enough to consent to suicide?

Where do you think the age of being allowed to enlist in the army should be?

Oooh, that's an interesting question. So, normally I'd reject the hypothetical here, and say war is bad, so "should" doesn't apply. But instead, if I can assume it's required for existence, society should define the minimum age as high as possible to ensure victory. Fighting in a war is actively harmful to feeling safe. Feeling safe is required for individuals to grow at the maximum rate. Growing as a child has the same effects as compounding interest, so the absolute best growth possible should be the target for everyone, as early as possible.

If you're talking about joining a standing army without consideration for combat. I don't think there's any minimum age. I used to teach a "combat sport" to children as young as 4. Then, for the US army, which I know about, I think 18 is perfectly reasonable, where many people could gain very useful skills/education from the training that joining the US military entails.

> most people could gain very useful skills/education from the training that joining the US military entails

And also can get very dead from the numerous conflicts in which the US keeps getting involved in.

Even during peaceful years like the 90s or in non direct combat roles being in the military is very hard on the body though infantry get the brunt of it.

that study actually has a lot of noted flaws. they didn't include patients over 25, I think, so you can't really say that you're fully mature at 25. maybe the brain never stops maturing.

Amd then it starts to regress right after. So, you get 5 min of full maturity in your life - by that logic.

I believe that within a decade this perspective will be ridiculed.

Any scientific source on that "well accepted fact"?

Maybe but why should their Dad still have a say in this?

> pretty well accepted

[citation needed]

It's certainly the case that suicide and reckless death are more common in young people and teenagers, but I'm not convinced by all this mature brain argument as it tends to be deployed selectively to infantilize people.

Napoleon Bonaparte was lieutenant-colonel of a battalion at 23.

Had he not been lieutenant-colonel at that age maybe he could have had a quiet happy life instead of ruining and ending the one of thousands of his contemporaries and having his own life end so badly.

I guess that's true, but we're straying from the point of discussion I think.

Founding fathers age on July 4, 1776:

James Monroe, 18

Aaron Burr, 20

Alexander Hamilton, 21

James Madison, 25

Which shows pretty well how things have changed. People grew up earlier, before. Now, so many people at 30 years old are still children.

How old is 'full blown' in your view then? 30? 40? 50?

As a society, through laws, we've decided there's an age where a person is mature enough to be granted autonomy separate from their parents. If we start trying to decide when they're mature by brain development we'll probably find the brain never really stops growing and changing and even if there is a general age it'll be different for every person as everyone develops differently. That's an untenable standard.

The lawyer team of the father, "Abogados Cristianos", have a bad reputation here in Spain for suing everything they can that it's "not-conservative": from women trying to abort to comedians due to some joke. Most of their lawsuits are rejected, but when a judge accepts it they get some notority in the media.

This doesn’t seem like it’s surprising considering the case or an issue at all without further information.

“Abogados Cristianos” (conservative association) has the same reputation for the left-leaning than “El jueves” (far-left comedy publication) has for the right-leaning.

Let’s be a bit objetive with our opinions.

Edit: downvotes for telling the truth.

While I understand the dad's pain, the amount of egoism required to put your wishes in front of your suffering daughter is unreal. If she is rationally able to make decisions and after talking with her family/loved ones and medical professionals she still wants to die, that decision should be respected.

And the christians that think that their beliefs gives them any right to prolong the torture that other human beings are subject to... It's impolite to say what I would do to them.

>If she is rationally able to make decisions

That is what the father is contesting.

That's incredibly shortsighted if the court accepts the argument that she changed her mind a number of times. This only encourages people, who might change the minds and opt not to die, to stand by their decision even if uncertain or the court will rip away their choice.

In Canada we call this MAID - medical assistance in dying.

If you're undecided about this - ask a doctor or nurse about how they want to go. After watching my mom die of cancer, I'm glad that we have the option to go out on our own terms now.

"If you're undecided about this"

As with many things, it's a very slippery slope and it is far more nuanced and not easily "decided".

MAiD for someone in the final stages of a terminal illness is a far cry from government workers suggesting MAiD to a healthy paralympian veteran asking for a wheelchair ramp (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted...). And of course we have expanded MAID to people suffering from mental illnesses, and it's something people are pursuing now because they can't afford rent. Oh and the government is recommending that MAiD be expanded to minors.

And FWIW, we've long had MAiD - people with terminal illnesses usually got ever escalating doses of painkillers until their body gives up. It's more formalized now, but as with almost everything people with "good intentions" push it to the point where something simple becomes hugely contentious.

> MAiD for someone in the final stages of a terminal illness is a far cry from government workers suggesting MAiD to a healthy paralympian veteran asking for a wheelchair ramp

Yeah, this has pushed me from being roughly in favor of allowing it to considerable caution. It may or may not be OK for people to make the decision for themselves, but it absolutely is wrong to push people to it.

Don't overweight rare examples. This is basically the only one that I ever see brought up too because it was a fuck up. Plus it's not like there's any force to offering it.

I fairly frequently encounter wildly incorrect statements made by public-facing roles. While this is the famous human-euthanasia-related headline example of "WTAF were they thinking?", I've got a few more of that ilk in various cases:

• Doctors refusing abortions and the mother dying as a result, even though the law allowed abortion in such cases

• The entire public discourse (shouting match) over the various covid vaccines, and of course the lockdowns — as HN has a broad audience, I should note that regardless of which group any reader of this message thinks was "right", both sides were very loudly convinced the other was risking lives, and that necessarily means that a lot of people were very loudly, very forcefully, wrong

• The UK's DWP telling loads of people they were considered "fit for work" when they were gravely ill and died shortly after

Outside of fatal cases, but still medical:

• I've also noticed that almost every discussion where women share experiences of doctors, regardless of group size, there's women who report doctors ignoring evidence and these women having to solve their medical issues on their own

• I've personally had a GP tell me something was impossible when it had actually happened — In my case, food ending up in nasal cavity, which was very easy for me to know had happened as the food exited about an hour later via a nostril, but the GP thought it was impossible

• Unnecessary surgeries (and I don't mean purely cosmetic surgery) are a thing

• Retained surgical instruments are a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retained_surgical_instruments

Between unfeeling bureaucracies and emotional but flawed humans, there's a lot of room for people to end up pressured into unwanted euthanasia.

Figuring out how to minimise suffering given all that? Well, even without that it would be beyond me. But it does make it harder.

My main point is that the MAID vs wheel chair ramp is basically the only example of that happening I've ever seen where someone with a minor ask was 'pushed' towards MAID instead. There's rare but recurring then there's 'we have one extreme example' in the case of the vet wheel chair ramp.

> Doctors refusing abortions and the mother dying as a result, even though the law allowed abortion in such cases

Depends on what law you're talking about in the US some have quite unclear provisions and doctors and hospitals are wary of stepping into unclear water and having to litigate exactly how in danger the life of the mother was at that exact moment.

> Depends on what law you're talking about

Multiple. Ireland was a case I knew had happened, precipitating liberalisation of the law. In the US stories, I couldn't immediately recall if the discussions I have seen were actual cases or hypotheticals.

There have been several cases in the US where the mother wasn't given miscarriage care due to their anti-abortion law not having a clear enough exception. Even where there are if the criteria are too tough the wait can damage the woman's future chances of successfully having a kid too.

One example there's several more out there. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/30/texas-woman-...

Which is why MAID requires two independent doctors and a cooling off period, and a bunch of red tape. There's a lot of red tape for a reason. It takes a lot more for it to happen than a single degenerate case manager who has since been fired.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/woman-with-chemical-se...

In that case a woman with chemical sensitivities was killed by the state.

Again, the premise is good. But as always it gets expanded and cases like this become normalized. And soon there is talk about more cases. Rinse and repeat. It's how good ideas become destroyed and hugely contentious.

Basically no one has a problem with MAiD for the final stages of a terminal illness. But people just can't stop themselves.

> killed by the state

Really loaded phrasing there especially given she wasn't even living in government housing but in housing provided by Salvation Army of Canada. Not sure about Canada but in the US most housing assistance is in the form of vouchers so there's not much control the government would have over the exact conditions in any place they might have found for her, she essentially needed a house of her own with no shared public spaces to be able to avoid all smoke or cleaners that might trigger her MCS. That kind of public housing is pretty rare to nonexistant anywhere.

The biggest thing is that there's no coercion going on in these cases it's simply an option she chose to take and without MAID there's a high chance she takes on her own.

>Really loaded phrasing

The government provided MAiD to this person, facilitating their death, and the phrasing was correct. The circumstances don't rise to the level where the government should be assisting a suicide, at least not in the way that the vast majority of the Canadian public sees it. And per your other comment, there have been a number of extremely dubious cases.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/17/canada-nonterm...

They currently estimate that 2% of cases don't meet the criteria, which is 100s per year. I support MAiD for its original intention (grievous and irremediable medical condition in an advanced state of decline that cannot be reversed), but any discussion about this topic without noting the Overton window is myopic.

>there's a high chance she takes on her own

While this is speculative[1], let's pretend and say...okay? That is something every person has available to them. Having the state provide the tools, with intention, is not the same.

In multiple comments you have talked about force or coercion, yet not only are we often talking about compromised people, when your government and healthcare workers and social workers are saying "You know what...you should kill yourself", if you don't find that unbelievably dangerous grounds that is a form of coercion, I think you really need to rethink things. There is an implication that is there that is just beyond consideration.

And yes, if this government was willing to end this woman's life, they should have been willing to find appropriate housing.

[1] - It is notable that many people who want MAiD go to long-lived (irony) extraordinary efforts to get MAiD. It would have been so much easier to take many, many other options to end their time among us, but the battle for MAiD basically gave a reason for living.

But you’re just describing the slippery slope. It’s a real problem, and the solution is continual vigilance against sliding too far and a simultaneous pushing to the desirable point. How can we do better?

What's your conclusion on this then? That it should be completely off the table because of these edge cases? I think finding these problems and patching them out as they're discovered could work. Giving the whole thing up would be like banning all airplanes after the first plane crash. The aviation industry instead put in thorough and rigorous checks to prevent future incidents (which sadly has degraded somewhat recently, but I digress). I think the same could be applied here.

I was simply replying to the "if you're undecided consider this scenario" take. As with many conversations, the situations are often more complex and nuanced than the example case, and as with many initiatives, good intentions can get co-opted until it isn't remotely what people want it to be. People might be onboard with the government assisting someone in the late stages of a terminal illness to end their life with dignity, but find it grotesque if not criminal for the government to be assisting in ending the life of someone who isn't happy with their current apartment.

So yes, it's a good program for some cases, but it is a very ugly topic that is not something that people should be "decided" on.

I guess I just assumed that it goes without saying that most everything is nuanced.

> And FWIW, we've long had MAiD - people with terminal illnesses usually got ever escalating doses of painkillers until their body gives up. It's more formalized now, but as with almost everything people with "good intentions" push it to the point where something simple becomes hugely contentious.

With my mom's experience, the old informal system was horrible and undignified. I'm glad we have this new system in place.

> people with "good intentions"

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Just had a family member die after many years of descent into dementia. Absolutely don't want that for myself and would love the ejector seat as an option. Unfortunately the US is on an intellectual backslide, so hopefully in a few decades when I may also be susceptible something has changed and I will be allowed to do what I want with my own body and life.

Of if you you don't want to trudge out to a hospital but are happy with written things by a doctor or quoting them:

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/your-money/how-doctors-di...

https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow-decay...

This grosses me out a little, especially because the daughter is well into adulthood. Would this extend to being able to control if the daughter wants to do other things, like get medical procedures (fertility treatments? surgery to remove uterus etc)?

Editing to add: I think there's confusion in that I'm claiming fertility treatment is the same as suicide. I'm saying the logic the father is using makes no distinction that suicide is somehow special in this regard: his only justification is that she "has a personality disorder" and therefore shouldn't be allowed to make her own decisions with the medical authorities, because the father is deciding it is harmful to her. This can very easily be applied to any medical decision a woman may make.

It is challenging in the US for a woman in their 20s or 30s to have their tubes tied.

> This can very easily be applied to any medical decision a woman may make.

Would you be as concerned if the subjects were a mother and daughter or father and son? Your focus seems to be on the "man controlling woman" aspect instead of "father desperately trying to save his daughter."

I think it's wrong to control any adult's medical decisions who has been found of sound mind. If you want to argue she is not of sound mind, demand a review of the medical board, but if they confirm she is 100% doing this rationally then it is not "saving" her, it is indeed merely a man exerting control over an adult woman.

[I do not consider fatherhood special in this regard-- the notion of men being entitled to a woman's medical decisions because of a familial relationship is something that should be questioned and challenged.]

I don’t think you’re empathetic enough to see the situation from the father’s perspective. You’re just seeing from your perspective where your father is controlling you.

Do you have kids or a boyfriend or a husband? Someone you love the most. Imagine them taking a gun and putting a bullet into their own brain. That’s equivalent to what the father is trying to stop from his perspective.

What is happening here is on a whole different scale then fertility treatments.

There are many people who have tried suicide and were saved and have regretted their earlier decision to kill themselves. There is no turning back from self slaughter. And there is always potential to change their mind. Additionally the fathers claim that the suicidal tendency is from a personality disorder is not out of this world. The situation can be reversed where the disorder is dealt with and the suicidal tendencies end.

One can understand where the father is coming from without wanting to give him power over his daughter's choices. It is appropriate to give him compassion and support, not legal domination over another adult, who has her own life to live - or not! - as she sees fit.

> There are many people who have tried suicide and were saved and have regretted their earlier decision to kill themselves.

One could argue that had they been dead they wouldn't even feel regrets.

> The situation can be reversed where the disorder is dealt with and the suicidal tendencies end.

Although the suicidal tendencies could end is there a single psy disorder that people can really recover from? I understand people get treated but it is mostly about alleviating the symptoms and consequences more than healing, which often is realized through the use of some powerful meds that really make that person disappear and be more a shadow of themselves. I never heard about someone being cured from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia for example.

> One could argue that had they been dead they wouldn't even feel regrets.

Good argument. It applies to murder and mass genocide as well. All those people killed during the holocaust? They are dead so they don’t feel anything anymore. I don’t see what the problem is.

> Although the suicidal tendencies could end is there a single psy disorder that people can really recover from? I understand people get treated but it is mostly about alleviating the symptoms and consequences more than healing, which often is realized through the use of some powerful meds that really make that person disappear and be more a shadow of themselves. I never heard about someone being cured from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia for example.

Plenty of stories of people getting treated and plenty of stories of people who lost their desire to suicide.

Say your 18 year old son wanted to kill himself because he got dumped by his first girl friend? “Son I respect your right to kill yourself, here’s a rope or if you prefer a gun or sleeping pills. Would you like some privacy or do you want me to be here by your side as you go through the process?”

> Good argument. It applies to murder and mass genocide as well. All those people killed during the holocaust? They are dead so they don’t feel anything anymore. I don’t see what the problem is.

Are you comparing people who took a decision to end their life with people who never asked to be killed?

> Plenty of stories of people getting treated and plenty of stories of people who lost their desire to suicide.

Getting treated != healed.

>Are you comparing people who took a decision to end their life with people who never asked to be killed?

No I am not. I am saying your logic is invalid because it DOES apply to people who never asked to be killed. If you USE your logic to justify euthansia, then I'm saying it's invalid because that argument can justify murder as well.

>Getting treated != healed.

So you're saying people can never be healed through treatment? I think we have a bigger societal problem here. Psychologists and doctors have no reason to exist in this world because their entire job is treatment and treatment doesn't heal people. We should concentrate on solving that problem first.

To honest, you can't respond to a complex statement with a simple one liner argument that completely mischaracterizes what's going on.

You = wrong.

Are you seriously comparing non-life threatening medical procedures to assisted suicide? How are you that far off into the weeds?

I'm saying there's no real difference in being able to uniformly say a father should be able to control her daughter's body in medical decisions if it is doctor-approved suicide or doctor-approved uterus removal, if the father gets to just say "well she has a personality disorder, the government is responsible in protecting her by preventing her from medically-approved treatments".

So if my schizophrenic daughter decides to euthanize herself because of a recent hallucination I should not intervene? I’d be controlling her body even though when the hallucinations abate later she’d be thanking me for saving her?

Whether you're for or against someone deciding for themselves when to end their lives; whether you're for or against someone deciding to end their suffering; you absolutely should allow medical personnel to volunteer to assist. Botched suicides end up with way more suffering for all parties involved.

The vast majority of suicide attempts end with a live person who has no long-term effects. The vast majority of medically assisted suicide attempts end with a dead person.

Having been through my daughter's suicide attempt, I far prefer the option that ends with a live person.

I dont think this perspective is valid in the context of a fully intentional and informed medically assisted suicide.

It is valid. Euthanasia is suicide.

If the bullet travels fast enough into the skull before the brain can register pain then there is no difference in experience from assisted suicide to eating a bullet. The only difference is the risk of a botched suicide but outside of that the two things are one and the same.

I use extreme language here not to offend people but to illustrate that they are logically the same thing. If you think euthanasia is humane then so is putting a bullet in your own head. If you think putting a bullet in your own head is extreme, then so is euthanasia. Think logically.

Also I love this idea of age being a marker for maturity and the ability to make your own decisions. If my daughter turns 18 at 12:00pm sharp then at 11:59am she is not mature enough to kill herself. But then one second later when she turns 18 she is now mature enough to kill herself in the same way trump and Elon musk are mature because they are past 18. Makes sense.

I can assure you when I look at this world. Nobody is mature. The right and most mature action isn’t always apparent and people make mistakes all the time. For something like suicide I am happy that there are people who give a shit to intervene.

It seems like it's perhaps the natural progression of an extreme sense of individualism. In an age where individual choice is elevated to the highest level possible, it naturally follows that someone should have the option to end their lives whenever they want.

I think this view falls short because it seems to count the chances of someone making an uninformed mistake as an acceptable consequence of preserving individual choice. Personally, I can't agree with this view. I often state that my desire is to protect and preserve life when it comes to suicide and am met with backlash over "inserting myself into other people's lives." When the reality is I've been close to several suicides (due to my community role) where the general community consensus was that the person was dealing with a complex mental health issue and the medical system more or less failed them.

I don't propose to win anybody to my side, but I think the whole topic requires a lot of nuance and shouldn't be simplified.

You say the whole topic requires a lot of nuance and shouldn't be simplified and I say (while agreeing with you in the general case) there is no nuance when it comes to relieving a person from suffering. I get you've witnessed suicides that shouldn't have happened [1], but I had to watch a close relative of mine be in a state of excruciating pain for weeks while slowly dying from cancer. No drugs would help her. She lay there, first screaming, then begging to die, then when the agony became unbearable she'd lie there in between consciousness and unconsciousness, unable to perceive so much of it. From time to time her mind would clear up and I'd see the immense pain in her eyes. The country I'm from doesn't allow euthanasia even in such extreme cases. In that moment, I hated the doctors so much — despite knowing their hands were tied. Even more, I resented the society that would prohibit helping someone in such a state due to its idealistic views of the value of life — views that had never been exposed to the horrors I'd seen.

Perhaps you'd argue this too was a case of the medical system failing the person, but I believe that, lacking the knowledge or technology to truly help someone whose illness has progressed so far, we must help as much as we can, even if it means living with the thought of taking someone's life.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness; I don't know how to wrap this up.

[1]: I say as if there are suicides that should happen. ._\

> there is no nuance when it comes to relieving a person from suffering

What if the person is suffering from a mental health crisis that modern medicines can treat? I'm not trying to be obtuse, and I understand what you mean by suffering is akin to what you described, but my point is that written in that way, it's not clear. This is precisely why the conversation needs to have nuance, because we all have wildly different experiences with suicide, and we need to fully understand the various factors driving it before we open the gates to assisted suicide.

> Perhaps you'd argue this too was a case of the medical system failing the person

Why would I argue that? I think you misunderstood my argument. In cases where someone is attempting suicide because of a treatable mental health condition (i.e., a chemistry problem in the brain that can be relieved through modern medicine), I think we should be cautious about killing them without at least attempting to treat the underlying issue.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that, in many cases, suicide is not an individual act. A father of three with a family dependent on him who decides to commit suicide is very much impacting the lives of his family members. Again, nuance is warranted.

Ok, I think I see your point. However, I still deeply believe MAiD option is a must-have for a healthcare system to be humane.

Really well said. It is an excruciating situation to be in. Thank you for sharing your perspective.

Euthanasia is not suicide. The decision to end a life under most euthanasia or assisted suicide legislatures involve third party medical professionals and psychologists that ascertain the capability of the person to make the decision to end their life and the necessity of that fact in balance with their suffering. Suicide happens outside of society and one's immediate support group (family, friends, etc). Euthanasia is not that at all, family, friends even if possibly not at peace, at least they're forewarned and can intellectually understand there's a "why" of a person's need to die.

I think it's very reductive and naive to equate the two. To deny a person's ability to end their life with dignity is, in my opinion, very inhumane.

Its a matter of opinion where you draw the line between suicide or euthanasia. This implies that no one here has the high ground in calling the others idea of it "reductive" or "naive".

In actuality it's a matter of law, not opinion.

Which is derived from opinions using democratic processes.

Putting a bullet in your own head is simply impractical. You have to have a gun, then aom correctly.

I would absolutely prefer to be sedated and killed medically but of I do not have this option I will jump in front of a train, or build my own azote based contraption.

I want to choose for me, th1t's it. We have the way more difficult and impacting choice of having the ability yo have children, sucide is a personal thing.

Hiring a professional costs a lot of money. Like euthanasia is only for rich people who can afford it. The ludicrous thing here is that you geniuses are actually discriminating saying only rich people should be allowed to off themselves.

> I want to choose for me, th1t's it. We have the way more difficult and impacting choice of having the ability yo have children, suicide is a personal thing.

So what if a child makes this personal choice? Should we stop it? No right? Is the reason because the child is not sane enough or mature enough to make the right decision?

What criteria makes a person sane enough to make that personal choice? Is it an arbitrary age? Say 18?

> What criteria makes a person sane enough to make that personal choice? Is it an arbitrary age? Say 18?

We collectively decided that 18 is an age when someone is fully responsible for their everyone (which is biologically incorrect). For lack of a better reference, yes 18.

> Hiring a professional costs a lot of money. Like euthanasia is only for rich people who can afford it.

I do not know where you maybe but my expectation is that everything health is free (except for some minor stuff).

A medicalized euthanasia absolutely is in scope of that.

> Think logically.

That would entail considering the other differences between a bullet and assisted suicide other than risk of botching or pain experiences, which you are clearly not doing.

It is trivial to think about the differences. It is rational and harder to think about how they are the same horrific act.

Under your world at 18 every teenager can be immediately separated from their parents and taken to a suicide room where they have an option to choose between several different suicides each administrated by a professional who will guarantee a painless death. There's gas chamber, sharp shooter, decapitation and lethal injection. Every person the minute their 18 is offered this and forcefully walled off from their parents so their parents won't influence their individual freedom.

Additionally there should be public suicide rooms where a person can walk in of their own free will and be instantly gassed to death. One on every corner because freedom.

Imagine you had a depressed teenage son/daughter. He's depressed because his girlfriend just broke up with him. In several years he won't be depressed and he'll look back at his depression and see how stupid it was. But at 18 he has freedom, so I encourage him to go get his head blown off by a professional executioner. his parents were able to stop him at 17, but the minute he turns 18 they can't do shit and Now he's dead. Is this right? Is this total worship of individual freedom the correct thing to do?

If you're not thinking rationally, which you CLEARLY aren't then you would be incapable of seeing this nuance because it is the LOGICAL consequence of what you support.

I don't think your argument here is so much logical as it is emotional. I'm not judging or criticizing for that, it's an emotional issue at its core.

I think you could have a very, very high threshold for administering euthanasia though, which would be a long cry from having public suicide booths ala Futurama.

It’s logical but the axioms are emotional. They late rationally the same if you have an emotional reaction to one and not the other then your emotions have no basis in logical consistency.

The point here is to show that there is no difference but emotions are what create the illusion of a difference.

There is a huge objective difference that has nothing to do with emotion, and you can only equate them by dismissing those differences.

Let me get this straight the only difference to you for suicide and euthanasia is the risk of a botched job.

So your saying if my 18 year old daughter wants to kill herself because of say borderline personality disorder which is treatable I cannot intervene if she asks a professional to lethally inject her but I can intervene if she wants to hang herself and the reason is only because she might mess up the hanging?

It’s like hey you’re killing yourself? Let me save you from doing it improperly here’s the number for a guy that can do it professionally.

This is your “logical” argument?

> Let me get this straight the only difference to you for suicide and euthanasia is the risk of a botched job.

Also method, motivations, acceptance by family members, doctor approval, etc.

> So your saying if my 18 year old daughter wants to kill herself because of say borderline personality disorder which is treatable I cannot intervene if she asks a professional to lethally inject her

You wouldn't need to as no responsible medical professional would authorize euthanasia in that case.

> This is your “logical” argument?

No, it's your misrepresentation of my logical argument, which has consistently been more logical than your emotional argument.

Question, are you Christian? Is that influencing your complete rejection of suicide at all?

>Also method, motivations, acceptance by family members, doctor approval, etc.

Then tell me your criteria here. Doctors aren't trained specifically in euthanasia as these are arbitrary criteria rather then expert opinions. So the criteria must be established. You can't force doctors to make up an expert opinion when one doesn't exist yet. So because you advocate for this then you must tell me what exactly your criteria is? If you don't have one then you don't really have an argument.

>You wouldn't need to as no responsible medical professional would authorize euthanasia in that case.

Again what is the criteria that the medical professional authorizes? He doesn't have anything other then his own personal opinion right now. If you want to codify euthanasia into law then you need to have SOMETHING to codify. What is it? What is the criteria?

>No, it's your misrepresentation of my logical argument, which has consistently been more logical than your emotional argument.

I never misrepresented anything. You never presented an argument. You'll note my responses to you haven't been representing anything. They've been asking questions. Questions you never answered. Now with this post I'm further focusing my questioning to get a detailed answer.

>Question, are you Christian? Is that influencing your complete rejection of suicide at all?

No I'm rational. Actual Scientific data influences my rejection of suicide. On the other hand I don't think any data is involved with your rejection of it. Which is fine, morals are never rational in the first place.

What a distasteful and ignorant comment. You do not know, at all, the circumstances surrounding GP's situation.

If you're trying to make an argument for "the person involved was not terminally ill", which you obviously don't know, you are pushing aside everybody who has had emotional and mental health issues through their lives, even you.

Depression is, by far, the leading cause behind suicide attempts. More than 90% of people who attempt to do it (or unfortunately succeed) are living with an underlying mental health condition. Choosing to ignore this is outstandingly idiotic.

I think the perspective on suicide, from third person is invalid - they arent the ones experiencing whatever it is driving one to take that route. The will and love of a parent is blinding and thats all I need to know and overwhelmingly I struggle to see how a categorically selfish want to keep a suffering person from not is helpful to anyone. To ignore that is, how you say, “outstandingly idiotic”

> Having been through my daughter's suicide attempt, I far prefer the option that ends with a live person.

Having been on the other side, I prefer otherwise. I also strongly reject the idea that my father should have a say in what I do with my body.

Sorry, this is an emotional response, and I hope that it ended well for you and your loved ones. For me it did not.

Your point of view is important, I wouldn't want it to be misinterpreted or any of that sort.

What you're saying is:

1. You tried to end your life.

2. Because of the intervention of other people, most likely your family, that didn't happen.

3. You wish that didn't happen and instead would prefer to be dead.

Right?

Not because of their intervention, and point 3 is not simple as that (otherwise I’d have done it again, I am not as unlucky as the lady in the story), but something along those lines, yes. Much unnecessary suffering.

I won’t dwell on it because this is not the place, but I felt compelled to offer my perspective, which is that it is not always better to fail.

Ben, I'm really sad to hear that happened to you and your daughter. Thanks for adding your perspective.

> Having been through my daughter's suicide attempt, I far prefer the option that ends with a live person.

You have my sympathy. But mentioning your preference and not your daughter's makes me wonder if they are the same.

They are the same at present, and she is inproving over time.

"The 23-year-old woman who wants to end her life is paraplegic due to injuries suffered when she tried to take her own life in 2022."

If her suicide was successfully stopped this wouldn’t have happened.

Now she’s trying to suicide again.

The plural of anecdote is not data. Yes, that can happen. That's not what happens most of the time.

Uncited statements isn't data either.

If you doubt the statement, you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_attempt to verify it. Or you could accept that someone who has been through this, might have done some research.

well as long you're the one who gets what they want...

I wonder, did you consider that when physicians are involved, they don't provide assistance for treatable depression? Or did you assume that physicians would help someone suffering from ephemeral depression commit suicide?

Our treatments for depression basically don't work. But that is another story.

What a wild take! I'd love to see the citation for that claim?

Then you'll enjoy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28178949/.

Oh, I knew first generation SSRIs have trouble beating placebo.

I rate your evidence 0/10: did not enjoy.

So now, what about all the other things that have shown to reduce symptoms of depression?

I'd happily advocate for placebo + therapy. Does that work?

How about exercise, does that work?

> The vast majority of suicide attempts end with a live person who has no long-term effects.

Wow, where did you come up with this? It's even in TFA refuting this, but even outside of that, the comment is utter horse shit. Maybe some types of attempts have no visible physical effects, but there are plenty of people with visible scars from their attempts. I would also be willing to guess that 100% have mental long-term effects from any attempt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_attempt quotes the figure that only one out of a dozen suicide attempts succeeds.

The most common method is pills. The most common outcome is complete physical recovery. That was the case with my daughter.

The mental effects are real, but hard to differentiate from the effects of the mental state that drove the suicide attempt.

Note, the success rate varies. Older people succeed at a higher rate. And so do men.

That wiki article cites https://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars (which I guess is now https://wisqars.cdc.gov/) and doesn't really show us how that number came about.

But let's say you look at 2022 data for Fatal/NonFatal Injury Reports.[1]

49,476 suicide deaths with 14.85/100k crude rate and 14.25 age-adjusted rate.

There is no 'suicide attempt' category that I can find for NonFatal. There's a self-harm category.[2]

544,992 self-harm non-fatal injuries with 163.52/100k crude rate and 172.91 age-adjusted rate.

Sure, we could divide those out and reach roughly 1 in 11 to 1 in 12. But if you look at the definition for self-harm intent in the coding manual[3] you'll see that it's not just suicide -- it's all forms of self-harm including mutilation.

So it's probably not an accurate number, even for a naive estimate. I would want a better source (surely someone somewhere has written a paper on this).

[1] https://wisqars.cdc.gov/reports/?o=MORT&y1=2022&y2=2022&t=0&...

[2] https://wisqars.cdc.gov/reports/?o=NFI&y1=2022&y2=2022&d=0&i...

[3] https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/January-2022-CPSC-Only-NT-N...

So we should make sure that they're dead, so that they don't have any scars or long term effects?

One of the most Shakespearean tragedies I've heard in real life is the story of someone who tried hanging themselves before MAID became available. They were found and rescued but suffered brain damage. Now they're trapped in a long term care home and wheelchair bound. They'll still tell you they want to die but because of the brain damage they've been declared inapt and thus cannot consent to to MAID.

We had some training (I'm a paramedic) about our death with dignity legislation:

What to do if someone else has taken the drug cocktail (messy but if found soon enough we can usually take care of them)...

.. what if someone has taken it and "changed their mind" or "it hasn't worked".

In the former, we typically get the professionals who were involved there - is it a case of being (understandably) scared about what will happen, versus ... ?

The other is that in some people the cocktail can take an extended time to work - 24, 48 hours. Forgive the black humor, but what does that 911 call look like? "I'm not dead and I'm meant to be, I took my cocktail of death-with-dignity meds and I'm still here."

> you absolutely should allow medical personnel to volunteer to assist

Up until they start getting paid for it, and then you'll find out they'll start recommending their services and convincing you or your loved ones to take them up on their offer.

Very wrong, if an issue is decided to be unethical, no party should take part in facilitating it.

You're also using a loaded argument.

>you absolutely should allow medical personnel to volunteer to assist

... implies you're already "for it".

Some people are against euthanasia, that does not make them wrong, even if you disagree with them. Act like an adult.

"My body, my choice" applies to more than one issue related to bodily autonomy. Others get no say in what an individual may do with their own bodies.

Yah, good one.

Unfortunately, that is not some kind of universally agreed ethical principle, so I am not sure what value it brings to this conversation.

Outside of ethical systems with heavy religious influences, what kind of society doesn't accept one's autonomy over their own body?

Were you on Planet Earth between 2020 and 2022?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic

I'm not sure I'm ready to accept the fact that having rights restricted is a body autonomy issue outside of being in solitary confinement. I commented in a different thread about "exigent conditions" which sometimes can trump personal liberties or even body autonomy when the "greater good" is concerned. If I'd entertain your statement as being on topic, I'd say that national measures in a global pandemic fit that.

Good. Then you don't have "autonomy over your own body".

The other commenter on this sub-thread just gave you another example of that.

Exceptions don't invalidate rules. Jesus, it's like I'm debating with preschoolers.

>Exceptions don't invalidate rules.

Source, you?

I could argue the opposite. If your purported "exception" applies to 80%+ of the global population, a minimal dash of common sense would make me think that's the rule, not the other way around.

Your "exception"s are quite loose, pal!

What do you mean 80% of the global population?

OK, don't answer that, I did my own research[1] and from the Western democracies that have mandatory military service there are: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Greece and Estonia. They're more than I expected, and overall, including less democratic nations, there's a total of 66 (out of 194). By population it's even less, as none of the top countries except Brazil and Russia have mandatory service.

So overall that's very much less than 80%, but definitely more than I was expecting.

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...

You're not following through. I was talking about the COVID vaccine mandates.

But what you found further reinforces my point. Thanks.

Just so there isn't any doubt: I dismiss your initial theory that somehow the response to the Corona virus is a violation of anyone's bodily autonomy.

My whole thread here was about trying to understand your reasoning, and perhaps make you understand mine, but instead of helping me you refuse to engage in good faith so I'll stop here.

All of them. Is there a country without draft?

I think the draft qualifies as "exigent conditions" in which some rights and ethics get suspended in favour of the "greater good", or if you mean mandatory military service, I think most western nations stopped having that. Do you have something more mundane in mind?

[edit] To answer your question: yes, there are only 66 countries with mandatory military service. Among the Western democracies there are the Nordics, Estonia, Austria and Greece. From here: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...

I don't see how "greater good" justification is any different between my example and the topic.

The ethical system on which modern Western societies are built allows for body autonomy, while at the same time covers some corner cases: war, pandemic, etc. The fact that there are exceptions doesn't somehow invalidate the basics.

Unless you think consequentialism is immoral. If you believe that it is never acceptable to participate in suicide in any way, you absolutely should not want this.

> If you believe that it is never acceptable to participate in suicide in any way, you absolutely should not want this.

This is interesting, if you have a reason to believe this that's not some flavor of "my religion told me to", I'd love to hear your justification for why it's never acceptable?

>that's not some flavor of "my religion told me to"

You're not arguing in good faith, because that is a perfectly valid reason.

If you live in the US or any other developed country, that is even protected by the constitution.

> You're not arguing in good faith, because that is a perfectly valid reason.

I'm not arguing in bad faith :(... in fact you are arguing in bad faith more than. You're assuming something I don't mean to imply!

I prefaced my question because "my religion told me to" is boring, and I assume that I wouldn't be able to learn anything from that reasoning. If however, the reason isn't based in religion, I've never considered it, and would be very interested to learn something I've never heard before

I don't agree it's a perfectly valid reason. I believe religion as a whole, is a net negative for humanity.

But I do agree that anyone is allowed to take their morality from anywhere they'd like. I don't intend, and would reject the idea of anyone who tries to control what other people want to believe (some restrictions apply). So anyone is free to believe that ethics and morality can only come from religion, I personally think that's dumb, but they likely think my reason are dumb, so we're even.

I'm just not interested in the religious reasoning... but almost exclusively because I find it boring, and not useful to me.

It's not in good faith to constraint the discussion only to the arguments that you agree with.

You should know this by age 8, come on.

Wow, Rude! It's obvious I'm 9 years old, thankyouverymuch!

...but also, I'm not constraining the discussion, you're free to ask any question. I'm constraining *my* question to the parts that I might be interested in so I don't waste anyones time. There are answers that I might or might not agree with, but the ones based in religion are based on logic I don't find persuasive.

>It's obvious I'm 9 years old.

Then your parents have the final say.

All moral reasoning can be boiled down to "my religion told me to", assuming a comprehensive enough definition of religion. For example, an atheist humanist may argue that certain actions are immoral because they are harmful to human beings. The implicit religion behind that reasoning is that harm (and certain types of harm) is immoral. That's a religious statement, one that cannot be proved with the scientific method. It's a statement of moral axioms, and not all people share the exact same moral axioms.

lol, what?!

1) I exist and can suffer

2) I perceive others as real, other people may or may not exist but it's useful and safer to assume they do exist.

3) They appear to experience joy, and suffering the same way that I do

4) I want to avoid suffering, and they say they want to avoid suffering.

5) My actions can contribute to their suffering

6) Given we both exist, there's no external reason to preference one of us over the other, they also likely have the same internal value as I do

7) I can prevent them from suffering, the sum of the system is improved if I behave in a way to cause the least amount of suffering.

Where's the religion in that?

I would say the judgement that suffering is bad and that preventing suffering is worthwhile, which requires “worthwhile” to have any real meaning at all would be the religious part. These are completely unscientific and unprovable assertions.

> These are completely unscientific and unprovable assertions.

yeah, that's the problem with philosophy. It's impossible to escape the brain in the vat. But if you permit a jump a logical jump (the one I made in 2) The rest logically follow.

Science isn't required to prove or disprove something.

1) All men can fly

2) Socrates is a man

3) Thus; Socrates can fly

> I would say the judgement that suffering is bad and that preventing suffering is worthwhile, which requires “worthwhile” to have any real meaning at all would be the religious part.

I would go back and read my points again. The logical jump I'm making is about how, if you assume both people exist, and you believe other people have value, the ethical thing to do is improve the existence of all people.

This is a logical conclusion that anyone can choose to make or not. I choose to believe people have value. And I believe that my suffering is bad for me. And I believe their suffering is bad for them. And I believe that my actions can influence their suffering. I want to decrease my suffering, so the correct, and thus ethical way for me to treat myself, is to improve my quality of life, and decrease my suffering. Thus, the ethical way for me to treat others is the same.

Without religion, I'll define worthwhile for me, is just what I desire. Is that controversial? Are you not allowed to define for you what's worth your time and attention?

> you believe other people have value

Call it religion, call it moral, call it principles...

> Without religion, I'll define worthwhile for me, is just what I desire. Is that controversial?

Then your religion is you, your moral compass is yourself, etc.

> Are you not allowed to define for you what's worth your time and attention?

How would you then disallow someone whose beliefs don't include the value of others, and follow what they desire, and so live by the laws of the jungle and basically use/destroy the rest for their own profit?

Would you be able to prove or show that that's intrinsically bad? Or would that be just your opinion?

Thanks for engaging with me. In your last paragraph, you got to the crux of the issue. You feel that you are "allowed" (by whom?) to define your own moral values and your own priorities. You feel that this moral axiom is self-evident and uncontroversial. I would deny that. This moral axiom, like all moral axioms, cannot be proved by science. And it is far from universally shared, beyond our relatively small cultural bubble. For many people, defining one's own moral values is the definition of immorality, or at least amorality. For many people, true morality has to be above one's own preferences and desires (that is, more authoritative). If you disagree, you are merely revealing how your religion differs from theirs. Your religion has moral axioms that cannot be proved, and so does theirs.

Don't get me wrong, I think people broadly share many moral axioms (such as: truth is generally good, love is generally good, hate is generally bad). But the idea that we get to define our own values is not one that is universally shared, it is mainly found only in highly individualistic atheistic cultures, and like all moral axioms, cannot be proven or disproven using the scientific method.

> Thanks for engaging with me.

> In your last paragraph, you got to the crux of the issue. You feel that you are "allowed" (by whom?) to define your own moral values and your own priorities.

I'm allowed by me. I reject the implication that there's another reasonable answer to "whom". For the same reason you can't escape brain in a vat. I don't have cause to add any external actor worthy of consideration. I'm interested in the argument that I should define my beliefs based on some external demand or influence providing rules that I can't verify myself? (And if I can verify them myself, what value does locking my understand to that external actor provide?)

> You feel that this moral axiom is self-evident and uncontroversial. I would deny that.

I find it to be Logical. But you're assumption is incorrect, because I also don't content that it is self-evident, and I know the source of morality to be controversial.

> This moral axiom, like all moral axioms, cannot be proved by science.

As I hinted at above, I don't find "proved by science" to be the gold standard for belief. So I also reject both implications; first that the scientific method is what I use for what I believe to be true, second that it's the only method that should be used.

> And it is far from universally shared, beyond our relatively small cultural bubble. For many people, defining one's own moral values is the definition of immorality, or at least amorality. For many people, true morality has to be above one's own preferences and desires (that is, more authoritative). If you disagree, you are merely revealing how your religion differs from theirs. Your religion has moral axioms that cannot be proved, and so does theirs.

No, if I disagree, it may be just that I disagree about how we're defining the words we're using. I try to avoid using the word morality, because I agree it's useful for when you need to include something outside the specific example, hypothetical, test case, whatever you call it. I might make that mistake, but I try to restrict myself to using ethical in lieu of moral. For the defitions that I understand, and use. Everything that's ethical, is also moral, but not everything that's moral is also ethical. It gets complicated when you use morality to influence what you consider ethical. E.g. (one I disagree with) if your higher power demands that you kill some other individual, and if you define ethics as coming from your morality. That's ethical by your definition but, I wouldn't consider that ethical, even though I could be convinced it could be called moral. Again, using moral as coming exclusively from an external agent.

I also think it's dishonest to frame that belief as a 'different religion'. You make the same differentiation for morality. Where immorality is distinct from amorality. Good, bad, and unknown, or correct, incorrect, absent, are all different ideas. Framing the lack or absence of something, as a different version of something is problematic. It's also counter to the scientific method. Where you should only accept the minimum conclusions that can represent some observation. e.g. If A + B + C + D == Some Observation; and A + B + C == Some Observation. Following the scientific method you should only accept A + B + C. And remain undecided about A + B + C + D.

> Don't get me wrong, I think people broadly share many moral axioms (such as: truth is generally good, love is generally good, hate is generally bad). But the idea that we get to define our own values is not one that is universally shared, it is mainly found only in highly individualistic atheistic cultures, and like all moral axioms, cannot be proven or disproven using the scientific method.

I think a lot of ethics are provable by the scientific method. But I still reject the assertion the only way to obtain an ethical axiom is using some scientific methodology. You can state a goal, and premise, and then make logical conclusions based on them. If you'd like to be scientific about that, you'd only include things for which you have strong evidence of. Which I do, that's part of why I reject religion as a reasonable source of ethics or morality. 1) because most of them make clearly obvious bad ethical assertions, 2) because you can achieve the same outcome without it. 3) I don't find morality (something from an external something) to be required for ethics. I'm able to define ethics, and differentiate ethical, from unethical behavior without needing to consult any religious definition of morality.

Thus as someone who values science and engineering, I prefer the simpler option.

Suffering and joy are very subjective. While interpolating from you onto others might work out most of the times, sometimes it doesn't and you'll accidentally do something you might regret later.

You do not have to participate in assisted suicide if you don't want to. That doesn't mean you're are entitled to stop others.

Ok, but OP told me what I should want, and I am refuting that.

And what of the entitlement of society keeping people alive to live out this dystopian nightmare we’ve created for ourselves? At what point does human dignity factor in to all this? Because all I see are people trying to escape a nightmare and others trying to prevent it. To what end? To what degree must I participate in this hell?

I hope that if your life ever becomes unbearable you will have the option available to you to end it with dignity at your own convenience.

Or perhaps you would prefer the opposite?

Her father is contesting the rationality of her decisions based on his very rational religious imaginary belief. What a world.

I worry that because of things like [0] we we will start seeing guilt tripping old people into ending it sooner in order to not be a burden and to help their family.

Also, if you think that being a full blown adult guarantees being able to make smart decisions, just look for who adults are voting for in many countries around the world.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213143

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