Allowing someone to die of dehydration (a process that takes many hours and involves gradual shut down of organ function) might be marginally more kind than letting someone die more slowly, but is only fractionally so.
Fortunately most doctors have more empathy and ethics.
The difficulty comes with conditions that aren't immanently terminal. Campaigner Debbie Purdy took eighteen months to starve herself to death after she reached the point where she did not want to continue with her progressive MS. That's just insane and barbaric, but fewer doctors will step in at that point.
We need better laws, as a matter of civil rights. If I have the right to life, I should have the right to relinquish it.
> Allowing someone to die of dehydration (a process that takes many hours...
Many hours is an understatement - or at least I'd suggest measuring in hours is going to give people who don't know the wrong impression.
I've just done "hospice at home" with a friends mum. Nevermind hours, Janet managed over 12 days nil by mouth and without fluids. 3 years ago (though as an inpatient) my grandfather managed just over 4 weeks unconscious and without fluids - just after we were told he wouldn't make it through the weekend..
Whilst (outdoor) survival guides suggest 3 days without water is your max, when the person is sedated and on pain relief the human body can go on substantially longer.
> If I have the right to life, I should have the right to relinquish it.
That statement needs better justification than sounding good. For assisted suicide, It is necessary but not sufficient that the person wishes suicide. Just because someone wants to die doesn't mean that we should let them die. And even if someone wants to die, it doesn't imply that that person have a right to demand someone else to kill them - you do not even have the right to demand that someone else kills you by looking the other way when you kill yourself.
The criteria for when someone should be allowed to help someone else to die is complex and requires a lot of safeguards.
> Just because someone wants to die doesn't mean that we should let them die.
I think it does mean we should let them. In most places it isn't illegal to commit or attempt suicide.
By having a process to end your life we've a much better chance of having professionals encounter people at an earlier time. For people who want to end their life because of other addressable needs, we've a better chance of helping them through it.
Forcing someone to live indefinitely when they desire to die is cruel and draconian and ultimately fruitless. People will find ways to end their life, and often in ways that traumatise or damage others.
> it doesn't imply that that person have a right to demand someone else to kill them
Straw man. Nobody is suggesting people have the right to demand any particular person kill them. Assisting with dying is optional for patient and assistor in jurisdictions that allow it.
> The criteria for when someone should be allowed to help someone else to die is complex and requires a lot of safeguards.
The criteria supporting any human right is complex and requires legal safeguards. Your point seems artificially argumentative.
> By having a process to end your life we've a much better chance of having professionals encounter people at an earlier time.
Indeed, it is not like it is going to work like the suicide booth in Futurama, probably you will need to see some therapist and you will have the opportunity to explore different resolution to your problems. The "call for help" suicide for example will most likely been caught with no risk of death.
Isn't that what happened with abortion ? Because parent argument is very similar to those against abortion.
"You probably don't want an abortion, talk to this psychologist and wait a minimum of X days before you can do this" =? "You probably don't want to end your life, talk to this psychologist and wait a minimum of X days before you can do this"
In the case of abortion you weigh the mother's wishes vs the child's potential existence, in the case of suicide you weigh the individual vs their friends and family. I suppose whether or not they're similar depends on how you weigh these factors.
I suppose the only saving grace of this "natural" death by thirst, which is not an uncommon occurrence, is that it is done while the person is heavily sedated. Otherwise it would be incredibly painful, I imagine.
That's how my grandfather went, at the end of years of steadily worsening Alzheimer's. We kept suggesting to my parents that they suggest to the staff that he was "in pain", but they wouldn't. It took him over 2 weeks to die. It was a terrible thing to watch, and seemed completely pointless- you've already decided that he's going to die, why prolong it? Somehow doing something to "help him along" is killing him, but withholding food and water is not. :(
>Somehow doing something to "help him along" is killing him, but withholding food and water is not. :(
I am also confused by this. If a person is unable to feed themselves, and you are responsible for caring for them, it is murder to not give them food and water. Imagine if doctors did this on purpose to a patient who was not terminal.
I don't see the difference between starving someone to death and giving them a morphine overdose except that one is very nasty and one is not.
