The case for a right to State-assisted suicide
This thread presents the case for a right to State-assisted suicide.
I know that for some of you, such a proposal seems bizarre, but I want to keep emotion outside of this thread and keep it purely focused on the merits. I want to keep this a purely hypothetical topic. I know it is an emotional one, but I think we should be free to discuss these ideas. I do not recommend that anyone commit suicide, and none of what I say is medical advice. I am not a medical professional and I have no medical training. To avoid confusion, I will set out my points individually so you can address them in your replies.
By "State-assisted suicide", I mean that the State should provide the means for an individual who is of sound mind to commit suicide through reasonably quick, painless, efficient and humane means. This could mean, for example, setting up facilities where trained medical professionals can administer drugs to people who choose to undertake the procedure.
By "sound mind", I mean that the person has the ability to think, and reason for oneself. I understand there may be pragmatic problems in ascertaining who is of sound mind, and ensuring that people who are NOT of sound mind mind do not undertake the procedure. However, as I mentioned earlier I want to keep this topic purely hypothetical and theoretical -- so assuming that we could identify who is and is not of sound mind, would you support the proposal?
Here is my case, succinctly put, in favour of a case for a right to State-assisted suicide as defined above.
1. People do not choose to be born.
2. Some people are born into favourable circumstances, whereas others are not.
3. For example, and for illustrative purposes only, someone might be born into a wealthy family, and find it easier to progress through education and enjoy a successful career (this is a hypothetical example only, and it is not to say that all wealthy people are like this).
4. For example, and for illustrative purposes only, another person might be born into a poor family, and might struggle in school and live a miserable life (this is a hypothetical example only, and it is not to say that all poor people are like this).
5. The vast majority of normal people have an instinct to survive, and the idea of suicide goes against that instinct.
6. If a person of sound mind wishes to commit suicide, they should have the means by which to do so given that they did not choose to be born, and the State should provide those means (as described above).
In addition to those 6 points, I note that there are many people who would support euthanasia for people with extreme or intolerable conditions. If people are of sound mind, I do not see the problem with allowing them to undergo the same process, regardless of whether they have extreme or intolerable conditions.
***WARNING: Nothing in this thread, and nothing I have ever said on this forum, is medical advice. I am not a medical professional. I have no medical training. I strongly discourage suicide, and if you have suicidal tendencies please consult a medical professional.***
I know that for some of you, such a proposal seems bizarre, but I want to keep emotion outside of this thread and keep it purely focused on the merits. I want to keep this a purely hypothetical topic. I know it is an emotional one, but I think we should be free to discuss these ideas. I do not recommend that anyone commit suicide, and none of what I say is medical advice. I am not a medical professional and I have no medical training. To avoid confusion, I will set out my points individually so you can address them in your replies.
By "State-assisted suicide", I mean that the State should provide the means for an individual who is of sound mind to commit suicide through reasonably quick, painless, efficient and humane means. This could mean, for example, setting up facilities where trained medical professionals can administer drugs to people who choose to undertake the procedure.
By "sound mind", I mean that the person has the ability to think, and reason for oneself. I understand there may be pragmatic problems in ascertaining who is of sound mind, and ensuring that people who are NOT of sound mind mind do not undertake the procedure. However, as I mentioned earlier I want to keep this topic purely hypothetical and theoretical -- so assuming that we could identify who is and is not of sound mind, would you support the proposal?
Here is my case, succinctly put, in favour of a case for a right to State-assisted suicide as defined above.
1. People do not choose to be born.
2. Some people are born into favourable circumstances, whereas others are not.
3. For example, and for illustrative purposes only, someone might be born into a wealthy family, and find it easier to progress through education and enjoy a successful career (this is a hypothetical example only, and it is not to say that all wealthy people are like this).
4. For example, and for illustrative purposes only, another person might be born into a poor family, and might struggle in school and live a miserable life (this is a hypothetical example only, and it is not to say that all poor people are like this).
5. The vast majority of normal people have an instinct to survive, and the idea of suicide goes against that instinct.
6. If a person of sound mind wishes to commit suicide, they should have the means by which to do so given that they did not choose to be born, and the State should provide those means (as described above).
In addition to those 6 points, I note that there are many people who would support euthanasia for people with extreme or intolerable conditions. If people are of sound mind, I do not see the problem with allowing them to undergo the same process, regardless of whether they have extreme or intolerable conditions.
***WARNING: Nothing in this thread, and nothing I have ever said on this forum, is medical advice. I am not a medical professional. I have no medical training. I strongly discourage suicide, and if you have suicidal tendencies please consult a medical professional.***
Comments (98)
As it should be. It honestly baffles me how assisted euthanasia hasn't been 1.) legalized broadly and 2.) socially acceptable. The age of dying-while-shitting-your-pants-and-moaning-in-constant-pain should have ended a long time ago. I want to die with dignity, and if the state won't provide the means then I'll take the manner into my own hands when I deem the time is right.
I don't think this is an entirely serious proposal, but for a provocative post it's reasonably well thought out.
I have two objections right away:
First, the grounds on which you consider suicide permissible are extremely broad. The gate is "wide open." There are cases where suicide may be appropriate, but I would prefer to limit it to cases of painful and/or severely debilitating illness, coupled with some counseling, and requiring more than one physician's approval (and maybe an ethicist's approval too).
Is there a screening process at the door of the suicide facilities, or is it first come first served? If there is a screening process, on how many grounds can a potential suicide be rejected (or accepted)? Are staff going to be in a position to argue with, cajole, encourage, discourage... suicide cases on the grounds that they think the person should or should not keep living?
IF the grounds for suicide are too inclusive ("life is a drag, I think I'll kill myself), the screening is minimal or suicide affirmative, then "state assisted suicide" gets closer to "state encouraged suicide". State encouraged suicide is a step towards state-sponsored murder.
There is a slippery slope. I don't think a tightly controlled program greases the skids to mass murder, but a very liberal approach might.
In your example, you seem to be giving and edge in favor of poor people committing suicide. Maybe if something were done about their poverty, they would feel less like killing themselves.
True enough, nobody asked to be born, and the circumstances into which one was born may be unwholesome and unpleasant in myriad ways. I am against antinatalism, nihilism, and (to add another one) a generously defined right to state assisted suicide.
I am not against abortion, I am not against the earliest possible abortion of a child with severe biologica/mental defects, I am not altogether in favor of heroic efforts to save very premature babies, and I am not against assisted suicide -- though I prefer the state be NOT involved. Indeed, I don't know that there need to be facilities and lots of staff. It seems to me that there are sedatives, poisons, paralytics, and so forth that can be taken by the individual at home (or somewhere else) and bring about their death. On the other hand, of course some people would need help.
Just joking.
BTW, it has been found in states where assisted suicide is legal, that terminal patients who are approved for suicide assistance experience an easier unassisted death. That is, the relief knowing that they could end their suffering at any time makes the suffering much more bearable. That doesn't mean that no one goes forward with the assisted death, of course.
Point 1) People do not chose to be born.
The desire to live and choosing to be born does not have a definite connection. It is a mindset which one has been trained to believe in many cases. One has "reasoned" that it would be better to have not been born, but should the premises of that reasoning prove false, then the entire theory collapses.
Point 2) Some have favorable circumstances and others don't.
Again, it is only a mindset that determines if one's circumstances are miserable or not. There will always be people worse off than another in some sense. If one bases "reasoning" on this, it ceases to be reasoning and becomes a decision based on emotions.
Point 6) If a person of sound mind wishes to commit suicide, they should have the means by which to do so given that they did not choose to be born, and the State should provide those means (as described above).
You have to define a "sound mind" better than merely being capable of "reasoning". Depression is like a sickness, so by even considering suicide, that proves one is not in a very sound mind nor is the reasoning actually reasoning. There are always reasons to live if one looks for them.
Therefore, the State should not offer assistance in committing suicide.
I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away.
Emil Cioran, All Gall is Divided
A nice paradox.
Ripped from today's headlines. A couple of gamers got into a dispute. One of them "swatted" the other, meaning called up the cops and caused the cops to dispatch a SWAT team. Only the gamer gave a fake address ... the address of some perfectly innocent and totally uninvolved guy. When the cops showed up at the guy's house, he simply answered the door, unarmed. The cops blew him away. Father of two. Ages 2 and 7.
What is it with you Statists? Don't you read the papers? Why the hell do you place so much trust in the homicidal and amoral State? Why do you place ANY trust in the State? The State is not your friend. The State may well be a necessary evil. But definitely evil. It doesn't take much encouragement for the State to show up at your house and kill you. Don't give them any more excuses than they already have. "Oh sorry, it was the guy next door who wanted to suicide. Honest mistake. Our officers followed departmental procedures."
http://www.newsweek.com/call-duty-swatting-prank-police-kill-man-gamers-say-765329
https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/news/newspaper-man-killed-in-call-of-duty-swatting-incident-w514820
Could you please assume it is a serious proposal. I can assure you in all sincerity that I am serious about the proposal, or at least wish to test its merits.
Why, then, should there not be at least a right to suicide? I would go further and argue for State-assisted suicide. Many people who advocate euthanasia need only open their minds a little to realise that there are some people without terminal illnesses, who are perfectly healthy, who perhaps do not wish to live.
Who needs the right when anyone can bring about their own death?
Quoting RepThatMerch22
I'm not sure that someone who wants to kill themselves because they didn't ask to be born, or weren't consulted about life first really is of sound mind, but...
What's stopping this person from killing themselves? You say "he cannot think of any means by which to commit suicide efficiently, painlessly, quickly, and """humanely""" whatever that means.
I would guess he just isn't trying very hard.
Men generally shoot themselves. It's efficient, quick, painless when done properly, and as humane as any other method, whatever that means. If you can't get ahold of a gun, there are other possibilities. Women often use less effective methods. Sometimes "less effective" is much worse than nothing at all. One might wake up quite damaged, on top of everything else. Are there no bridges to jump off of? Are there no bridge abutments to drive into? Has all the rope been confiscated? Are there no poisons left? Are there no opiates to OD on? Come on -- there are a variety of unsafe and effective methods of ending a life. You would think people who are so dissatisfied with life would be better at coming up with methods for getting the hell out.
You can only help people so far.
They are far and few.
Actually that's an argument that there is not a 'slippery slope', as that term is used in arguments.
The slippery slope argument - beloved of religious zealots that don't want to admit that their true reason for opposing right to die laws is that they think it would annoy God - is that even a tightly controlled program will inevitably lead to mass murder - no matter how tight the controls.
Personally, I don't think God minds. If She's there, She just wants us to be happy.
This gem is by Stella Young, who was a disability rights activist and journalist. She sparkled.
Disability - a fate worse than death
Strange. I had completely the opposite reaction to the Stella Young article.
Suicide is not a decision or act that any state can be trusted to assist.
The best we can hope for is that the state refuses to intervene should an individual wish to make that decision for his or herself
Stella said she would not mind living incapacitated and dependent. I wonder what her basis is for that claim since, based on what I know of her disability, and what she wrote in the article, she was neither of those things. If that's correct then she's just guessing how she would feel. Guessing how one would feel in a situation one has not experienced, and then assuming that everybody else would or should feel the same is not a good basis on which to make public policy.
That's quite an extraordinary statement.
But here's the guts of it:
I'm left to make such inferences, since you said so little.
Stella Young summed up with:
This is a complete non sequitur.
What was your "opposite reaction" to my being compelled by reading the article?
Were you bored? Was it a perspective not worth considering?
Who would know better about living with a disability, what the mind and body go through when someone like you, says something like that, than Stella?
She didn't just write about some abstract idea that has never been encountered by loved ones before her. Stella wrote from her perspective and it was likely something that had often been whispered behind her back and others who might not look like you or ,I or anyone that has been blessed with good health and genes. It is hard to phantom a 'thinker', who by simple omission of another persons 'free will' to live, has the audacity to look down upon or patronize someone who has overcome more than most of us will in our lifetime.
As with @andrewk's reply, I find that extraordinary.
One thread through the article is that loss of autonomy and independence - loss of dignity - is one motivation for seeking death. It's in her response to Jack, her discussion of her own situation and of Barbara Harling and Liz Carr's interviews.
Hence,
So, what do you mean by "non sequitur"?
But that must be wrong - in a thread that seriously advocates solving problems of inequity by helping the poor to suicide.
I assume by "compelled" you meant that you found the arguments presented persuasive. I didn't.
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
She is undoubtedly the foremost expert on what it means to live with adversity for Stella Young. This gives her absolutely no authority to speak for others.
I gather you never met her. She took her role as a disability advocate very seriously, and is very highly regarded in disability circles. So yes, she could and did speak for others.
Isn't it a bit perverse to deny her a voice in a discussion of public policy?
What were you thinking? Will you speak for the disabled?
I mean
Does not follow from
.
The greatest indignity most of us will ever encounter in our lives is found in those days/months/years approaching our death.
Give me one name that has more authority to speak for others with disabilities
Yes but some people believe that their lives, regardless of your sense of dignity, are worth living regardless of your standards that you defined. Not all people are fortunate enough to only deal with the topic of living with dignity, in the 11th hour of their lives, for some it is something they live with their entire lives.
Who here has argued that those people's beliefs/wishes should ever be ignored?
Ah, Chris.
Maybe it's not just about not ignoring folk, but actually listening and thinking about what they have to say. I urge you to have another red of the article and give it a bit more consideration. It's not a philosophical paper, so you might have to put some effort into seeing the argument. I assure you it is there and at the least worthy of consideration.
Quoting ChrisH
Just to be clear I didn't use the word "ignore" you did. I simply asked you to provide me with one name, of someone more qualified to speak about the perspective of the importance of living life with dignity than Stella and you failed to provide one.
In my view no one is qualified to speak on behalf of anyone else on this particular subject.
I trust you, whoever is reading this, find that idea repugnant.
Those who live with disabilities are obliged to fight for their dignity perpetually. Is it so hard to see why they object to having the option of a "dignified death" forced on them by the able?
If the argument in the OP is repugnant, then so is any argument for allowing folk with disabilities to die with dignity while withholding from them the means to live with dignity.
Very convenient. You will not have to listen to the voiceless.
Who is making the argument that anyone (or any group of people) should not be listened to?
Are you familiar with the poem written by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). It is about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group after group. There are many versions of this poem but best I can tell this is the original and will answer the question
"Who is making the argument that anyone (or any group of people) should not be listened to?"
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
It isn't about being listened to or not but rather the collective voice we could all have if we had the wisdom of going through something we might never have to. In other words, let us listen to the perspective of someone in Stella's position and make life with dignity something to strive for, regardless of it's direct impact on us as individuals.
Like Banno I am an advocate for Euthanasia.
You gave that impression with your ill-considered reply to my post about Stella.
It struck a nerve with me, obviously. I am a white, middle-aged, middle-class male who came to realise that I wasn't listening.
Privilege is invisible to the privileged.
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
I'm finding your arguments confusing.
I say again, who has suggested that Stella Young should not be listened to?
You suggested that no one can speak for another on this issue and I ask you, if not Stella than who?
I've reread everything I posted in this thread and am at a complete loss as to how you could leap to such an uncharitable interpretation.
Your question makes no sense.
To which I ask: How you could leap to such an uncharitable interpretation of Stella's writing?
Quoting ChrisH
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/138421
Was it I who was uncharitable?
One thing people can do to insure a swifter death and avoid the need for assisted or unassisted sucice is to stop obsessive health-oriented practices. If you want to die quickly, then
smoke heavily, and if you live in your own house alone, smoke in bed
drink as much as you can
use lots of recreational drugs
eat as much of whatever you like
don't exercise
don't see a doctor about the odd lump, sore, numbness, malfunction, etc.
don't use seat belts
disable the airbags in your car
text, talk, and game while driving at excessively fast speeds
encourage any suicidal thoughts you might have
engage all dangers that you find
pretend that you are Superman whom nothing can harm
With any luck, you will be in such bad shape that when you do get sick (much sooner rather than later) you will be a corpse in no time at all.
Basically you're right.
Certainly, if someone has a disability (old or new, resulting from injury, disease, old-age, or any other cause) that that person feels unacceptably reduces hir (his/her) quality of life, then s/he should have state-supported medical assistance for humane "suicide". (...but, under those conditions, I don't call it "suicide". I call it medically-justified auto-euthanasia.)
Where I disagree with you is when you require the applicant to be of sound mind. If someone has any disability (as outlined above) that anyone could call unacceptable, then the applicant shouldn't have to be of sound mind. Anyway, a serious injury or disease or other condition that spoils your quality of life could very likely also affect your soundness of mind...physically or emotionally. How sound of mind would you be if something really bad happened to you?
As for people without a disability, that's more difficult.
Ideally, they don't need auto-euthanasia. Yes, they didn't choose this life. Didn't even choose life...or did they? I claim that we're in a life because we're someone, prior-ly a hypothetical person, who is predisposed for life, wants or needs life, or is involved with it in some way.
In any case, you're certainly involved in life now. You're not done till you're done. Some suggest, and i agree, that life-completion can require many lives.
Therefore, you're here for a reason. The fact that you're here indicates that you aren't done.
Ideally, there would be counseling and all kinds of help for people who think they don't want to live.
But we don't live in an ideally-run world--not even close.
And, in a world such as this one, I claim that anyone less fortunate has a right to assisted suicide upon demand, even without any disability, just because of their disadvantaged station in this world.
You can't treat people the way that they're sometimes treated in this world, and simultaneously tell them that they don't have a right to assisted auto-euthanasia.
So, in our world, anyone, without exception, should be able to get assistance for auto-euthanasia.
That's just an obvious moral fact.
But, I still emphasize that, unless there's an intolerable disability (and only the person hirself should be the judge of that intolerability), auto-euthanasia would be a big mistake, even in our world. ...for the reasons i expressed earlier in this post. ...because we're in a life for a reason, and we're obviously not done.
It's just that it's necessary to emphasize a distinction between the rightness and advisability of auto-euthanasia, and the moral right (under our societal conditions) to it, even if it's a big mistake. The moral right is there, even when auto-euthanasia is highly inadvisable.
No one should do auto-euthanasia without an intolerable disability, even in our monstrous world.
Without the justification of an unacceptable disability, auto-euthanasia is suicide, and suicide is a big mistake.
Stella Young certainly has the right to make her own choices and preferences. ...as does each person, each disabled person in particular, even if they don't agree with her,and if their wishes aren't the same as hers. Therefore I don't think one person has a right to decide what options should be available to someone else.
In my previous post here, I certainly didn't mean to imply that auto-euthanasia would be the right choice for disabled people. That's their choice, their decision. All I meant was that, if someone feels and insists that their disability is intolerable, or even unacceptable, for them, in their opinion, and if they request assistance for auto-euthanasia, then they have a right to it.
And I'm not primarily saying that for other people. I'm saying it because making one's own decisions is a basic right, and everyone, including me, should have that right. ...in all individual matters, including the matter of if and when to choose assisted auto-euthanasia.
.
Which is just saying that we can never talk about it, because that's a utopian goal that can never be achieved. It reminds me of Bob Hawke's 'No child will be living in poverty' statement back in the eighties. Hawke did some great things and, arguably, poverty receded significantly under his govt, but the goal was certainly not achieved. If we followed Stella's request, the issue would be permanently barred from discussion. Of course we can, and should, deal with both issues at the same time.
In any case, it's a request, not an argument.
So far as I can see, nobody has responded to my point that Stella lived with autonomy and so is not in a position to speak about those that have permanently lost their autonomy. She is an excellent position to speak for the disabled, and she did a marvellous job of that. But that gives her no special role to speak for those with permanent loss of autonomy, as she was not one of them.
I find her conflation of disability with loss of autonomy misguided and unhelpful.
Annie Gabrielides
What many terminally ill people want, apparently (and quite reasonably) is assurance that they will be given relief from pain (opiates et al), sensitive and responsive care, whether they are at home, in a hospital, or in a hospice, and regular contact with their friends and families.
Myself? I probably would not opt for suicide, as long as there was good pain control, good care, and I wasn't forgotten. But, it might happen that when I die, my friends and family will have also died, and there will be few visits. Isolation alone would make suicide a much more attractive option. Lots of care facilities do not provide that one thing they are there to do -- provide sensitive and responsive care. And even pain relief isn't always adequate. Those last two deficiencies would also make an assisted death more attractive.
I have heard that a carefully phrased request (at the right time and in the right place) may prompt one's doctor to prescribe drugs for a terminal condition which IF TAKEN ABOVE THE PRESCRIBED DOSE will result in a quite speedy death.
I haven't made any interpretation. I've simply said that I find her arguments unpersuasive (not compelling).
All I've done is say that I found the Stella Young article totally unpersuasive.
LikeTiff you seem to take the position that any disagreement with Stella Young is uncharitable.
I think you'll find many disabled people who don't agree with her.
Her voice should be heard but it should not be taken as the voice of all disabled people.
Andrew, in my opinion, Annie G absolutely has the ability to speak about assisted suicide and her reasons are as compelling as I have ever read. Just like Stella, I hope Annie's wishes are respected. Stella made a difference in the way people think about living with a disability, rather than what others considered a fair option of assisted suicide.
Stella wrote a letter to 80 yr old Stella which explains why having the dignity of living with a disability is so important, more important than dying with dignity. Maybe this will explain my perspective better.
"Dear eighty-year-old me,
Eighty, hey? Eighty.
Eighty is a long way from where I write to you now. Fifty years, in fact.
To be honest, I've never thought a great deal about you, eighty-year-old Stell. I tend not to think about living to some grand old age. Then again, I don't think about dying either. I suppose you do; you're eighty. You've done a lot of things. Seen a lot of things. You almost certainly have a hover-chair by now. When I was seven and watched an episode of Beyond 2000 that featured a floating armchair, I thought we'd definitely have one of those by fifteen, at the latest. As we both now know, the twenty-first century has been nothing if not a tremendous lie.
I suppose I can't really write this letter to you without talking about the assumption, the expectation, that people like us die young.
One of my most beloved crip heroes, Harriet McBryde Johnson, wrote in her memoir about her realization at four years old, while watching a Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, that she was a little girl who was going to die young. The telethon was famous for its host, Jerry Lewis, trotting out adorable disabled children and telling us all that they were going to die. Most disability charity hinges on that notion – that you need to send your money in quick before all these poor, pitiful people die. Peddling pity brings in the bucks, yo.
When it comes time for Harriet to start kindergarten and she isn't dead yet, she says to herself, 'Well, I might as well die a kindergartener.' When she starts high school and she isn't dead yet, she thinks, 'Well, I might as well die educated.' When she graduates from law school and she still isn't dead yet, at twenty-seven, she decides, 'Well, I might as well die a lawyer.' Harriet is thirty before she realises that it is, in fact, too late to die young. And so she spends the rest of her life protesting against that awful Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. Not just because it handed her a false death sentence, but because pity gets in the way of our rights. There's been much talk of Lewis bringing his telethon to Australia, but don't worry, eighty-year-old Stell, you totally kicked that one in the dick.
I fall into this trap of talking about Harriet as though she was a friend. She was, in a way. Hers was one of your 'coming out' books. Remember those days back before you came out as a disabled woman? You used to spend a lot of energy on 'passing'. Pretending you were just like everyone else, that you didn't need any 'special treatment', that your life experience didn't mean anything in particular. It certainly didn't make you different from other people. Difference, as you knew it then, was a terrible thing. I used to think of myself in terms of who I'd be if I didn't have this pesky old disability.
Then, at seventeen, something shifted. To borrow from Janis Ian, I learned the truth at seventeen.
That I was not wrong for the world I live in. The world I live in was not yet right for me.
I started learning about the social model of disability. Reading all the disability studies resources I could lay my hands on. I devoured the memoirs of other disabled people. And I completely changed the way I thought about myself.
I stopped unconsciously apologizing for taking up space. I'm sure you can scarcely imagine that now; a world where disabled people, women in particular, are made to feel like we're not really entitled to inhabit public spaces.
I started changing my language. To jog your memory, back when you're still thirty there are all kinds of fights about whether we are allowed to say 'disabled people' at all. It's 'people with disabilities' that's all the rage. 'Cause we're, like, people first, you know? And if we don't say that we're people, folks might get confused. But I've never had to say that I'm a person who's a woman, or a person who is Australian, or a person who knits. Somehow, we're supposed to buy this notion that if we use the term disabled too much, it might strip us of our personhood. But that shame that has become attached to the notion of disability, it's not your shame. It took a while to learn that, so I hope that you've never forgotten.
I started calling myself a disabled woman, and a crip. A good thirteen years after seventeen-year-old me started saying crip, it still horrifies people. I do it because it's a word that makes me feel strong and powerful. It's a word other activists have used before me, and I use it to honor them.
Unlike Harriet, I've never thought I was going to die young. But I'm aware, sometimes painfully so, that there are people who do. At thirty, there are already people quick to tell me I've had a good innings. Most recently, an anesthetic nurse who was about to knock me out before a very minor procedure on my right elbow asked me how old I was. I told her, and she looked down at me in my funny little hairnet in a bed you could have laid three of me end-to-end on, and she said, 'Oh, well, you're doing very well then, aren't you.'
'Am I? AM I?' I wanted to ask, but I was already drifting off to sleep. Some people are such c---s.
Still, what she'd said did alarm me a little, so I asked a doctor. Two, in fact. Apparently, people with this dicky bone thing usually have small lungs and so we're a wee bit more prone to nasty colds turning really nasty. But that's about the extent of it. At this point, there aren't a lot of old people with this thing around, but it's hardly surprising. From where I sit, it wasn't so long ago we stopped institutionalizing disabled people, locking them away in places that killed their souls and then their bodies. To think of how far we've come in my first thirty years makes me pretty bloody excited about the next fifty.
So you know what you're going to do? You're going to rug up in winter, eat your vegies, slap on some Vicks VapoRub and get the f--- on with it.
I will do everything I can to meet you, eighty-year-old Stell.
By the time I get to you, I will have loved with every tiny little bit of my heart and soul. Right now at thirty, there's a significant love in your life. He's lovely. He makes his old Lego into jewellery for you. He makes you a coffee every single morning, and he doesn't expect you to be civil before you've consumed it. If he accidentally buys the biggest carton of milk that's too heavy for you to lift, he pours it into smaller bottles so you can manage. Whether there's one great love or many, you will have loved and been loved, obscenely well.
By the time I get to you, you won't be a grandmother. Kids are cute, but f--- they're hard work. You decided many years ago, despite every man and his dog sending you those articles from New Idea and Woman's Day about 'The World's Smallest Mother' or 'My Miracle Pregnancy' that, in fact, you don't want your own kids. Even though we both know how much you like to do the opposite of what people expect of you, and the personal is political and all that, kids are too important for that. You're not very committed to the parenting bit, and you hear that's a pretty big part of the deal.
By the time I get to you, I will have lost people I love. At thirty, you've never lost someone dear to you to death. There was great-nana Stella, but she was very old and you were still so little. There was Ruby, the dog you didn't even know you actually loved until she was gone. You've come very close to losing your best friend, but she stayed and you get to keep loving her and texting during TV shows that wouldn't be the same without her. Losing someone is the thing that terrifies you more than anything. You will have been through that terror, and survived.
By the time I get to you, I'll probably have lost Mum and Dad. Dear Mum and Dad, who never wanted me to be anything other than what I am. Who never expressed a scrap of disappointment that I wasn't quite what they were told to expect. Who, despite being told not to have any more children because of the risk they'd have my condition, went on to have my two beautiful sisters. I think that's the thing I love them for the most; that they didn't see disaster, when those around them could speak of little else.
By the time I get to you, I'll have written things that change the way people think about disability. I'll have been part of a strong, beautiful, proud movement of disabled people in Australia. I'll have said and written things that pissed people off, disabled and non-disabled people. You will never, ever stop challenging the things you think are unfair.
You will write some fiction, in which the central character is a disabled teenage girl. Because f--- knows that wasn't around when you were growing up and desperately searching for characters you could truly relate to. Somebody might, at some point, call you the crip incarnation of Judy Blume. Who knows?
By the time I get to you, I'll be so proud. The late Laura Hershey once wrote about disability pride, and how hard it is to achieve in a world that teaches us shame. She said, 'You get proud by practicing'. Thanks to my family, my friends, my crip comrades and my community, I'm already really proud. But I promise to keep practicing, every day.
Listen, Stell. I can't tell you for certain that you and I will ever meet. Perhaps that thing I always say flippantly, usually with a third glass of wine in my hand – that I'm here for a good time not a long time – perhaps that's true.
But on my path to reach you, I promise to grab every opportunity with both hands, to say yes as often as I can, to take risks, to scare myself stupid, and to have a shitload of fun.
See you in our hover-chair, lady.
Love, Stell x
Just because she wants to live doesn't meant others do too.
I think the best case is freedom.
You should have the freedom to commit suicide if you want to.
The reason why a proposal for State-assisted suicide is frowned upon is, in part, because people find the idea naturally repulsive and/or have religious or values-based objections. That is the same reason why people were against gay marriage, until there was enough social advocacy that it became a popular idea, at least in Australia and the United States.
And really, you do have the freedom to commit suicide if you so wish. Get a gun, learn how suicide by gun is best carried out, and then pull the trigger. Or get a rope, or use some other method.
A very large problem arises when one wishes to commit suicide but is no longer mobile enough to carry out certain steps--like obtaining a gun. As far as I know, Amazon doesn't sell guns and ammunition by express delivery. A friend of mine maintained for decades that she would commit suicide rather than suffer debilitating disease. Well, when debilitating disease finally happened and it became very difficult for her to move about, her options were slowly lost. Had she still been mobile, she could have arranged to jump out of her 18th floor window, but once she became immobile, that was no longer possible. (We discussed other means, but in the end she decided to let a cancer run its course without treatment, which was a slower but effective method.)
This thread is about state-assisted suicide, which is another kettle of fish altogether. Once one wishes to invoke state permission, assistance (or connivance) the issue of freedom is down the drain.
Is your counter here that we can never achieve an ideal therefore we can never talk about making things better?
But you would not suggest anything so obviously muddled.
Quoting andrewk
Is your argument here that if we were to take the thoughts of the disabled into account, they would scarper all discussion?
But you would not suggest anything so obviously biased.
Quoting andrewk
Is your suggestion here that she is not disabled enough for you to pay attention to?
But you would not suggest anything so disgusting.
Quoting andrewk
Loss of autonomy... a telling phrase. Those with disability suffer the removal of their autonomy as a matter of course, with such simple things as a step limiting their access to the world. The removal of autonomy is at the core of crip politics. As Stella says, this is inflicted most prominently in the attitude of medical staff.
I've spoken with folk who have woken from surgery to find someone had placed "do not resuscitate" on their bedhead without their consent.
I agree. Who would not? But again, this is fine for those for whom society works; for those who have not had their autonomy curtailed.
I read your posts as showing growth as you thought about the issue. That first "Basically you're right" meets with various constraints and checks on consideration.
Assisted suicide is no way to solve issues of equity. That suggestion in the OP is repugnant.
That's so insincere. Of course you have.
Well, at the least I would have liked to see some discussion rather than this trite dismissal.
It reeks of disdain. Chris does not have to hear the words of disabled women.
But our autonomy is already curtailed, denied, if we aren't allowed to make our own life-choices. And that denial of autonomy is causing widespread suffering and misery.
Even if we don't require a doctor to assist, it would be enough to not use the law to forbid the assistance.
If anyone is concerned that vulnerable &/or dependent people will be subtly coerced to auto-euthanasia, then the law could be written so as to prevent that. But, ultimately, if it isn't possible to ensure that a dependent, elderly or severely-disabled person hasn't received any persuasion, or hints, or subtle coercion, then we just have to accept that the fact that someone's personal choices could conceivably be influenced by someone else, but that doesn't justify taking away people's right to make those choices.
That would be like making it illegal for anyone to go outside, because they could get murdered somewhere while they're away from home. It would be like saying that elderly people shouldn't be allowed to receive a pension, because someone could swindle them out of their check. ...or that they shouldn't be allowed to have any control of their own money, because maybe someone will cheat them out of it.
If we're saying things like that, then we aren't just on a slippery slope, we're already slid to the bottom.
We could make a good, and at least almost entirely successful, effort to write and enforce laws that prevent the auto-euthanasia option from being abused.
The only limitation that I'd impose would be that, if we had a good society where people had a fair chance to live (but we don't), assistance for auto-euthanasia wouldn't be permitted for people who obviously don't have pain or disability that a fairly reasonable person could conceivably consider entirely unacceptable or intolerable. That's the only "soundness of mind" consideration that I'd require.
But even that restriction would be meaningless and inappropriate in a society of harm, predation, unnecessary misfortune, inequality, etc.
But, in any society, if someone has pain or disability that isn't obviously trivial or minor, then they should be eligible for assisted auto-euthanasia upon request, no matter whether or not they're of sound mind, whatever that means.
Who says issues of equity can be solved? Haven't people been talking about that for centuries, completelyi futile-ly?
It isn't a solution for equity issues. It's just that denial of assisted autoeuthanasia makes no sense, for anyone, in a bad societyi. It's a moral issue. I believe that suicide (unnecessary auto-euthanasia) is a really bad idea. But it can't justifiably withheld or denied in a bad society.
Michael Ossipoff
Only if that voice is heard.
And that is entirely my point.
Quoting Banno
You're just reacting to disagreement with personal insults.
I don't know if you missed it but in a response to andrewk I said:
Quoting ChrisH
Which is clearly at odds with your last comment.
Fuck that LOL.
Here I am dying of bowl cancer in great pain with defecting all over my death bed, but before I am allowed to die with some dignity I have to wait for "all people" to live with dignity. How long do I have to wait??
charleton, my heart aches for you and what you are enduring. Thank you for sharing your private thoughts for without them, many would not be heard but please know, we are listening.
I have had cancer and am over it, for the time being.
Thanks for your kind thoughts but I was talking HYPOTHETICALLY, but from some experience.
I am thrilled to hear you are beating Cancer as your experience is something that others don't always make it back from. I rejoice in knowing that you are here to speak for those who are unable to. I wish for you a Cancer free future and a long healthy life~
Equally, if you awake to find yourself a high quadriplegic, unable to move below the neck, and with a will to live your life, you should be supported in achieving the ability to live with dignity.
Now I do hope that most folk would see this as the atrocious proposition it is; that a far better approach to the devaluing caused by inequity is to improve the dignity of those devalued.
There is also the assumption that I pointed to in my first post, that folk are all in an equal position with regard to judging the values of their lives. They are not.
Hence one of the reasons for my introducing disability into the thread. Folk with disabilities live with others perpetually devaluing their lives; the best they can hope for is to be an inspiration to the able.
And the result was not something I expected to see from a philosophical oriented community. Summary dismissal and denial of Stella's right to speak.
When that was pointed out the discussion became a false juxtaposition, as if we could work for equity or introduce euthanasia, but not both.
These are the reactions of folk confronted by something they do not wish to consider.
If I've made you a bit more aware of disability issues, I will count that as a win.
There's a difference between saying that someone doesn't have a right to speak for someone else and saying that someone doesn't have a right to speak.
Quoting Banno
Where has anyone given that impression?
Quoting Banno
This false juxtaposition was of Stella's making, given that she said "Before we can talk about death with dignity, we need to ensure that all people, regardless of age or disability, can live with dignity."
Quoting Banno
Or the reactions of folk who have considered it but disagree.
Everybody copes with disability different. It is unlikely the able can accurately gauge whatever joi de vivre disabled have or not. In fact, we cannot do so for other abled people and we cannot guess how we ourselves would react. One of my worst nightmares is losing a hand because I play the piano and I cannot imagine a live without being able to play. In my more dramatic moments I'd imagine I'd prefer to die. At other times I don't. The point really is I don't know how I'd feel if it would come to pass but neither does Stella where it concerns other people. What her unique perspective does offer is that we should not be so quick to assume we, as abled persons, could not be happy living as a disabled. Most disabled do. So an abled person becoming disabled probably can as well.
But isn't that what Stella is arguing for?
Also, as a citizen of a country where euthanasia was first legalised I have to say her view on doctors having more of a say is a bit baffling to me. In 1998 already 98% of Dutch people were proponents of euthanasia.
That's not how it works and presumably won't work in other countries legalising it. In the Netherlands a doctor needs to meet the following duty of care before he can acquiesce to a request:
1. the doctor should be convinced that the patient came to his request freely and considered;
2. the doctor should be convinced that the patient is suffering unbearably and without any possibility of improvement (note, most disabled persons would fail here as lack of autonomy is not suffering!);
3. the doctor had informed the patient of his/her situation and his/her prospects;
4. together with the patient came to the conclusion that for this situation there is no reasonably alternative solution;
5. the doctor received a second opinion of another independent doctor who has seen the patient and has given his written assessment of the duty of care contained in numbers 1 through 4;
6. the actual euthanasia or assisted suicide is done appropriately based on current medical knowledge.
So if there's any "control" of the doctor here it is that he can actually tell "no" to people who want euthanasia or assisted suicide.
If you are lucky enough to live in a society that can afford to provide you dignity.
Michael, the reason given for Stella not being able to talk on the issue of euthanasia was that she was too independent.
Having once had the honour of putting a straw into her glass of red wine so that she could drink, I think that argument is obscene. It is far worse than rejecting light-skinned aboriginal voices because they are not black enough.
Notice also that it is an ad hominem. It does not address Stella's writing, but instead claims the privilege of ignoring her.
Quoting Michael
Look at the first replies, and consider how your own comment above would appear to a disabled woman.
Fair point.
Indeed. I appreciate that you recognise this. Thanks.
Evidence indicates that those who become disabled return to the level of happiness they had before their disability within about a year.
I'm not seeing it. ChrisH said that he didn't find Stella's argument compelling and both andrewk and ChrisH said that Stella can't speak for those for whom assisted suicide is a proposed option. This no more suggests that "the thoughts of a woman with a disability were not worth reading with due care" than saying that you can't speak for those for whom assisted suicide is a proposed option suggests that the thoughts of a man with a beard are not worth reading with due care.
And yet they can.
Did either or them claim that they could?
"But they are just saying that folk should be able to make their own choice", you reply. And in so doing they imply the myth of the autonomous man.
Are they?
Neither has said anything remotely like that. ChrisH certainly hasn't voiced an opinion on euthanasia, and the closest andrewk has come is suggesting that God wouldn't mind.
The repugnant argument is that state assisted suicide should be permitted for the disabled because life with disabilty is not worth living.
The reasonable argument is that state assisted suicide ought be permitted for those who have reasonably determined life isn't worth living.
The implicit argument is that people ought be reasonably informed of what life with disability is before making a decision about suicide (i.e. informed consent).
Fair?
Perhaps?
In each case the disenfranchisement is a social phenomenon that could be corrected by means other than euthanasia.
SO the state ought not suport euthanasia as an answer to social issues that have other solutions.
But this exacts a consequence on the state for the state's bad conduct, yet it's the innocent citizen who's actually punished.
Society A: You are shot dead.
Society B: You are tortured and beaten and forced to watch your loved ones tortured and beaten for the rest of your natural life.
Society C: It offers you the choice of Society A or B.
There is no other society. I'd think C is the most fair. That all Societies are bad is obvious. That all should end all oppression is obvious. To claim, however, that Society C should be forced to eliminate immediate death as an option to teach it the lesson that state assisted suicide ought not be given does nothing for the suffering citizen and it does nothing to correct Society C's behavior.
Why not?
If we live in a world that unjustly oppresses to the point where death is better than life, then death is better than life. That's just the way it is. I agree that we ought to fix that screwed up society, but in the meantime, allow the relief valve.
That doesn't follow and contradicts your earlier complaint about an unfair juxtaposition between the two, which you know argue for yourself.
You don't need to as long as it's clear that it doesn't follow that introducing state assisted suicide allows social injustice to continue.
The best justification for State-assisted suicide is that you did not choose to be born, and therefore you should be entitled to a painless, quick and humane death.