Suicide

[Graham Kennedy]

If Doctors followed the "do no harm" thing to the letter, they'd never do surgery. Half of medicine involves doing harm to the patient for a greater good.

[Captain Seafort]

It's exactly the same thing, it's either suicide or murder, take your pick. Either way doctor assisted death is kinda against the first premise of being a doctor. They take an oath to do no harm and this flies in directly in the face of that oath.

It's a matter of intent as far as I'm concerned. If the intent is pain relief, which ends up killing the patient, then I have no objection to it, especially given that the alternative is to leave the patient in relieveable pain. Likewise, if someone is clearly dying, and it's a matter of when, not if, they go, then I have no issue with DNRs or similar, so long as the choice is made specifically by the patient, while compos mentis.

It's when direct action is taken with the intent of killing that I object to it.

[Mark]

Here's a few examples of people I know that either HAVE or TRIED to kill themselves.....

In a different thread, I talked about the girl who tried to burn herself to death. She had an emotional disorder which caused her to HATE herself, and felt she deserved pain and suffering. She chose the most painful way she could think of to die. Her dad found her after she'd poured gas over her head and struck the match, after she'd been on fire for several seconds. She was so badly burned that her parents sold the ranch and all the horses on ranch to pay for her reconstructive surgery, and to get her help.

I have another friend who's wife left him for another man (all for money), and tried to kill himself. Should they have called the ambulance to save him, or let him die?

One guy I work with in treatment has a fixation with hanging as a means of suicide. He's a VERY fat fellow (which is odd because meth USUALLY takes the weight right off), and was picked on mercilessly his whole life. Every time he's tried to hang himself though, he's been high, and because of his weight (at least he says) the rope breaks. He's in constant emotional pain because as he sees it, he can't even kill himself correctly. Should we let him go?

A guy I went to rehab with chose to eat a bullet rather than face a 25 year prison sentence for manufacturing and distribution. He was only in his late twenties, so likely would have lived to get out and have SOME kind of life after, but he didn't want to face losing the prime of his life incarcerated. Understandable?

And last, a similar story. A guy I used to use with killed somebody in a deal gone bad. His friend gave him up and they found the gun with his prints, and he had a record of assault already. The police were closing in and he knew he'd likely get arrested that very day. He filled a syringe to capacity and gave himself a MASSIVE overdose. Was death a better choice than life in prison with no hope of ever getting out?

[Tyyr]

I have a problem with suicide. To me the possibility that things will get better almost always exists, killing yourself pretty much terminates any chance of things getting better. Also, most people who kill themselves seem to be at serious emotional low points and not thinking rationally.

That being said in cases where someone is in extreme pain with no chance of recovery, like a terminally ill patient with a disease lacking a cure and a few months to live, I'm not about to hop forward and declare them wrong if they take their life. If your options are die today relatively comfortably or die in six months in extreme agony I can understand why you might choose suicide. I don't condone it, but neither will I leap forward and decry it.

[IanKennedy]

It's exactly the same thing, it's either suicide or murder, take your pick. Either way doctor assisted death is kinda against the first premise of being a doctor. They take an oath to do no harm and this flies in directly in the face of that oath.

It's a matter of intent as far as I'm concerned. If the intent is pain relief, which ends up killing the patient, then I have no objection to it, especially given that the alternative is to leave the patient in relieveable pain. Likewise, if someone is clearly dying, and it's a matter of when, not if, they go, then I have no issue with DNRs or similar, so long as the choice is made specifically by the patient, while compos mentis.

It's when direct action is taken with the intent of killing that I object to it.

How do you intend to distinguish between someone who enjoys killing doing it and dressing it up as pain relief and real pain relief that doesn't work out.

[Graham Kennedy]

How do you intend to distinguish between someone who enjoys killing doing it and dressing it up as pain relief and real pain relief that doesn't work out.

As I understand it, you pretty much don't. I'm given to understand that a LOT of people die because their doctor knows perfectly well that all they have left is a few days of constant agony, so they just turn the morphine drip up to the point where the patient will die. And a blind eye is turned by all.

[IanKennedy]

So what you're saying is that Shipman should have specialised in pain relief. He'd have never been caught. Plus the 1999 one, Dr David Moor, who admitted to killing hundreds also. They could have got away with it forever if they only worked elsewhere.

[Sonic Glitch]

To throw my 2 cents in, last year one of our High School Debate circuit topics was whether or not the state of PA (or maybe the US as a whole) should implement a physician-assisted suicide option. I had to argue against it (and did so effectively I believe) but am personally for it. The issues is whether or not the patient chooses death. If the patient has stated either to the doctor or in writing, or in a living will/binding legal document/what-have-you that "when these conditions are met, I want to be aided in suicide" I have no problem with it. If the patient has made no such statements, then it is murder. (see Charles Cullen. A nice PA/NJ case which my dad covered when he {cullen} was finally arrested)

[IanKennedy]

So in your case we can't be saved from our incurable disease without first signing up to it. What happens if you are not able to do that at the time it's required and didn't like the idea of giving a blanket permission to let yourself be killed before it was needed?

[Sonic Glitch]

So in your case we can't be saved from our incurable disease without first signing up to it. What happens if you are not able to do that at the time it's required and didn't like the idea of giving a blanket permission to let yourself be killed before it was needed?

And now you've hit upon one of the arguments we used against it. This is going to be an imperfect reply but right now without research and going through debate speeches all over again: wouldn't such decisions, in that case, be left to the next of kin? Or would you prefer the doctor turn up the morphine drip?

[Mikey]

How would it be different if I asked a guy on the street to shoot me? Helping me commit suicide is helping me commit suicide, whether or not my assistant is a doctor.

[Mark]

Well, your street-shooter wouldn't nessessarily be qualified to determine if you were terminal, and were facing a slow and painful end. And in this case MOTIVES are quite important. Is the person acting in a spirit of mercy, or because you offered him $10 bucks to pull the trigger?

The oath of "Do no harm" is sort of gray here IMO. What would be the GREATER harm? Ending a persons suffering by aiding them in dying, or or doing nothing and letting them live a short while longer in horrible pain?

[Laughing Man]

This one is interesting, because there is no real right and wrong with it, every argument has an equally compelling counter argument. i believe in the freedom to choose, but that gives people who may be influenced by circumstance or biochemical imbalances or depression the power to make a choice which in a more stable state, or from a more objective viewpoint, they might not have made.

Saying that though makes me think that there might not be any real and sane time to decide to commit suicide, or to agree and go along with someone else's wish to commit suicide

[Mark]

Well, as of yet I have yet to meet a perfectly healthy (physically, mentally, AND emotionally) person who sat down, did some hard thinking, and decided "I'd rather be dead.".

[Graham Kennedy]

So what you're saying is that Shipman should have specialised in pain relief. He'd have never been caught. Plus the 1999 one, Dr David Moor, who admitted to killing hundreds also. They could have got away with it forever if they only worked elsewhere.

In most cases everyone is aware that the person is onthe road to death, relatives included. Shipman aroused suspicions because he was offing people who still had a lot of life in them. And bear in mind that even then, he still managed to off something like 250 people before anybody really realised bad stuff was happening... and that was mostly realised because the death rate amongst his patients was far above normal.

Had he gone into treating only last stage terminal patients then yes, he would very likely still be doing his thing today.