[HN Gopher] Medical aid in dying, my health, and so on
___________________________________________________________________
Medical aid in dying, my health, and so on
Author : homebrewer
Score : 132 points
Date : 2025-06-11 16:33 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.the-brannons.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.the-brannons.com)
| daedrdev wrote:
| > Another slim possibility is a heart transplant. I am not
| interested. I've explained my reasons more fully to people who
| are close to me, but they basically boil down to the fact that an
| organ transplant requires a full commitment to the process, and
| I'm not willing to make that commitment.
|
| Seems a little strange to not want to try to commit to the
| requirements for transplant and instead just die.
|
| Perhaps they (arguably justifiably) fear the trauma that further
| interventions will bring.
| jrvarela56 wrote:
| I always ask not to be snarky but because our culture seems
| fixated on living forever: what's so bad about dying?
| ian-g wrote:
| I can't speak for anyone else, but it feels like there's more
| to do. More to learn, to see, to visit, etc...
|
| When you're ready, you're ready, but people should have the
| option of continuing if they want.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| If you're a big fan of doing nothing forever, I'm sure it's
| fine.
| jf22 wrote:
| Better than getting shocked all day or feeling shitty after
| a transplant because of the drugs you have to be on
| forever.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| For some people yes, for others no.
| the_af wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but continued existence has to be
| balanced against the quality of said existence. If it's
| agony, pain or extreme disability that prevents enjoyment
| of life, life seems less compelling.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Same as before you were born. How traumatic was that?
| wat10000 wrote:
| Doesn't matter, it's not like there's a choice.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I would be horribly sad about missing my kiddos' milestones.
| It's an absolute joy watching them grow up.
|
| But if my health made me feel like I was going to miss them
| (or worse: derail them), then I would be forced to admit it
| wasn't for the best for me to keep going as is. If I was sure
| that was the case, it would be easy.
|
| Conversely, it's easy to examine "from the outside" someone
| else's situation and say they should keep on going. I'm not
| so sure I could endure what TFA describes either, especially
| since it's probably hopeless, and especially after watching
| my own father sit dying for days in a hospital after his
| heart attack while the doctors poked him to make him move to
| show my mom he was still alive. It was gruesome and he died
| anyway.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Nothing is bad about dying, its a part of life, but his
| insistence on giving up despite a major medical option
| remaining feels illogical even though they may have good
| reason to not want it.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| The decision may be more logical once you experience the
| same situation
| the_af wrote:
| My take from reading the blog post is that this person is
| understandably disappointed, scared and traumatized by past
| treatment failures. He described being scared to even try
| sleeping, always fearing the next shock or heart attack. Also
| some of the treatments seem to have been exploratory or "just
| in case", and then failed. That leaves a psychological scar.
|
| It's very difficult for someone who hasn't experienced this
| (like me and, I guess, you) to put themselves in the other
| person's shoes. I think I can understand the decision he's
| making, and it doesn't seem to me to have been taken lightly.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Well said, I think you put up a reasonable answer. And at
| some level their situation will not change, they still will
| have heart problems while waiting and may go through all that
| to not even get a transplant
| weatherlite wrote:
| I get it but can't a transplant actually work well for him ?
| I've just read the statistics and they seem really decent.
| Perhaps he "needs" anti depressants and go for a transplant.
| It's not clear to me he is in a completely lucid state of
| mind - he is saying himself he thinks he has PTSD, plus he
| has a bunch of stuff to live for it's not like he hates life
| - he just hates this shitty medical mess he is in. However,
| it looks like his family is on board with him going through
| with this so what can I say.
| gusmally wrote:
| When reading the rest of his posts, I think you are right
| to ponder how his mental health is negatively impacting his
| outlook. He seems to be more ready to accept death than I'd
| expect, given how young he is. I wish him and his family
| the best; an unimaginable situation.
| finaard wrote:
| A transplant always is a life altering change. You'll be on
| immunosuppressants for the rest of your life which has a
| massive impact on your quality of life - and that's _if_
| you get a transplant before you die.
|
| I have no idea how I'd react in that situation - but I can
| understand people who'd rather not. Especially considering
| that you might not want to take one of the few organs from
| a person who might be willing to fully commit to that.
| the_af wrote:
| I do think he has some (understandable) PTSD, indeed.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| This is at least the second time I've heard someone say that
| the defibrillator implant shocks are so bad, they would rather
| be dead.
| the_af wrote:
| I never thought about the uncertainty of it all. If the
| shocks are very painful and can come at any moment, without
| notice, they must be terrifying. The author of the article
| describes being fearful of even trying to sleep...
| Modified3019 wrote:
| It's literally like those experiments that test the effect
| of electric shocks in rats for avoidance of something, and
| there's a control group of rats that are just shocked
| randomly. The randomly shocked rats become highly stressed
| and neurotic.
| nneonneo wrote:
| If the defibrillator has any kind of warmup period before it
| fires, I wonder if that interval could be used to send a
| signal to the patient, e.g. to their phone.
|
| The most "usable" form of this would be to allow the patient
| to agree or disagree to the shock (maybe defaulting to agree
| if no response is given in time); this would place the agency
| in the hands of the patient and allow them to be mentally
| prepared. Missing that, at least a couple seconds of warning
| would be better than nothing.
|
| (Disclaimer: I don't know much about these devices or the
| latency requirements between detection of an abnormal
| condition and treatment; these suggestions only work if the
| heart can tolerate a few seconds of delay. It seems plausible
| since the detection itself is based on monitoring of heart
| rhythms over some period of time, but I am not an expert.)
| alwa wrote:
| I can only speak for myself, but, assuming it's feasible to
| implement as you describe, that sounds awful. In full auto
| mode, unpleasant experiences happen, but at least without
| specific anticipatory distress. I don't see that you
| alleviate the overall existential state (of the possibility
| of shocks constantly looming over you forever) by offering
| individual instances of temptation to choose comfort over
| lifesaving intervention.
|
| Now the unpleasant experiences become something that I'm
| doing to myself, and that my animal brain in the moment has
| the power to prevent. Every intervention becomes a test of
| my willpower: I know that I need this, I know I don't want
| to do it in the moment... What's the harm in rolling the
| dice this one time, in exchange for avoiding just this one
| painful episode? The parallel that immediately comes to
| mind is "well, just this _one_ cigarette won 't kill me..."
|
| I'd much, _much_ rather pre-commit than have to face that
| aversive decision time after time and day after day.
| Knowing that my life is on the line if I 'm caught in a
| moment of weakness. That calculus is much too important to
| me to leave to the whims of my reactive brain.
| nneonneo wrote:
| Maybe that works for you, but in the case of the article,
| the random shocks were bad enough to make him literally
| choose death over the shocks...
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >Seems a little strange to not want to try to commit to the
| requirements for transplant and instead just die.
|
| You just have different values than the OP. I have values
| different from yours as well that would have me turn down a
| transplant... and it's not that I wouldn't want to live longer.
| There are just some measures I'm unwilling to take.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| This is not a matter of values. It's more like you can only
| be sure what you would do in a situation when you are
| actually in it. There are plenty of people who claim "if I
| was in situation X I for sure would do Y" but will reevaluate
| this when they are actually in it.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| They'll do _what_ when they 're actually in the situation?
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| They will take another look at the available options and
| pick what they think is the best option. This may be
| different from the one they proclaimed they would take.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Np, I actually have values. It's difficult to believe, most
| of the people around you apparently have none. First off,
| my own organs are spare parts for those in my family who
| are younger than I am... children, nieces, nephews, etc.
| They're never to donate to anyone in a generation older
| than them (lateral's sometimes ok). And I wouldn't accept
| donor organs from someone not in my family. I've got other
| people to think about than myself, so staying alive at any
| cost (financial or moral) isn't a consideration at all. Not
| saying I wouldn't hesitate if facing the end, but I've
| thought about this alot over the years and I've already
| made the choice.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| Yeah, my thought on reading this line was that dying also
| requires a pretty irrevocable commitment. I can't make this
| decision for this person and its ultimately going to be the
| kind of decision that defies so-called rational analysis but I
| was caught by the inconsistency in this particular piece of
| reasoning.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| Slight oversimplification, but dying is a one-time
| commitment, and the transplant requires continual commitment
| (or re-commitment) over a very extended period of time (the
| rest of his life).
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| again, and this may really just be sophistry but it
| deserves acknowledgment, I wanna zoom in on the phrase "the
| rest of his life"
|
| Let me be clear: I understand the difference and I agree
| with you. The reality is that a transplant would probably
| be a lot of work and suffering and I can definitely
| understand opting out of it. All three of the grandparents
| I actually got to meet ended up doing this same math and
| getting the same result: sometimes life-extending care
| isn't worth what you have to go through to get the
| extension of life. I guess what I'm interested in playing
| with here is the language we use to abstract the reality,
| and how it doesn't really hold up once death is accepted.
| Treatment is a commitment. So is dying. Treatment will go
| on for the rest of his life. Without treatment, dying will
| go on for the rest of his life. A lot of the things we do
| and ways we look at things assume that dying is
|
| 1) very far off 2) to be avoided at all costs
|
| If either of these things becomes untrue the calculus we do
| to determine reasonable courses of action goes flying out
| the window. Neither of these things is true for this
| person, but it's true for all (for a given value of all) of
| us trying to talk about it and I see throughout the thread
| this interesting disconnect that basically boils down to
| people saying "You can't kill yourself! You'll die!"
| wat10000 wrote:
| The dying happens with either course of action. The
| transplant is in addition to it, not an alternative.
| leoxiong wrote:
| I think this view is needlessly reductive and lacks compassion
| and understanding for their suffering. Not every problem should
| be approached with an engineering mindset.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Everybody dies. It's not something to fear, if you have come to
| terms with it.
| roxolotl wrote:
| I agree with the other comments but one thing that's also
| missed is that by accepting a heart transplant you're likely
| also taking a heart transplant from someone else. It is
| incredibly altruistic to be honest enough with yourself about
| what you're willing to live with.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| People aren't a science experiment. At some point they have had
| enough and it's something we should respect.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| I just want to chime in here.
|
| Getting a heart transplant doesn't necessarily mean buying
| yourself 40 more years. Could be 5, 10, 15. If I recall
| correctly, the average is around 10-15 years.
|
| You also have to be on immunosuppressants for the rest of your
| life, with all the added risks that come with that (infections,
| cancer, organ damage, etc.).
| hypeatei wrote:
| I wasn't aware that Oregon had a "death with dignity" program for
| terminally ill people. It was enacted in 1997! Do other states
| have similar ones?
|
| I'm a huge proponent for assisted suicide in general, even if
| you're not terminally ill. Regardless, these types of laws are a
| step in the right direction.
| altairprime wrote:
| Between the timber wars and assisted death, it was a hell of a
| decade. They introduced statewide vote by mail I believe around
| then as well.
| bufordtwain wrote:
| Yes, other states have it you can Google for a list.
| hypeatei wrote:
| Hah, yeah, I could. I guess it was more of an invitation for
| people to discuss specific state programs and their
| experience with them (e.g. if they had relatives who used it)
| gadders wrote:
| I don't know why people are so for it. The process is "cruel
| and unusual" when it's done to criminals but the same process
| is fine when you request it.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| The question of choice/agency is probably at the heart of the
| difference. One, the state is taking someone's life against
| their will. The other is allowing someone to exercise their
| own agency to end their own life.
| aradox66 wrote:
| It's a different chemical cocktail, but more importantly
| consenting to it makes a bit of a difference in terms of how
| it registers morally.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > The process is "cruel and unusual" when it's done to
| criminals but the same process is fine when you request it.
|
| Because consent matters.
|
| Many things work this way, they're wonderful or useful or
| helpful _when you request /consent to it_, but are despicably
| evil when done _against your will_.
| noworriesnate wrote:
| Children are incapable of consent. In the same way, people
| who are having big mental burdens are not capable of
| consenting to this. It's a system as ripe for abuse as
| allowing children to consent to sex.
|
| I've had my dark moments, but I learned to deal and I'm
| sooo glad I didn't end it.
|
| You know, you always hear about people who survive a
| suicide attempt often find out after they've jumped that
| they really didn't want to die! It's an irreversible
| choice, and something about realizing that changes people.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _You know, you always hear about people who survive a
| suicide attempt often find out after they've jumped that
| they really didn't want to die_
|
| You don't just walk into a building and say "I would like
| to die please" and then get assistance on the spot.
|
| The two people I know who chose assisted death both had
| to go through various evaluations (over a period of
| several months) to determine that they thoroughly
| understood the decision they were making and that they
| had the mental capacity to make the decision.
|
| The comparison to a child 'consenting' to sex is
| completely nonsensical.
| noworriesnate wrote:
| Of course that's not how it works. People will doctor
| shop. If one doctor rejects them, they go to the next and
| learn the right things to say to get the doctor to say
| yes. It's just ripe for abuse.
|
| What they really need is help, not death.
| qualeed wrote:
| Someone who is determined enough to go through several
| years of doctor shopping to kill themselves will find a
| way to kill themselves whether there are assisted death
| programs or not.
|
| I agree that those (hypothetical) people need help.
| Though, to be honest, I'm not really convinced this is a
| real issue. Some of these programs have been around for
| multiple decades, and I've not seen _any_ evidence that
| there is a pattern of abuse. Let alone the programs being
| apparently "ripe for abuse".
|
| Disallowing assisted death programs is not help, though.
| It is a punishment to people who deserve a death of
| dignity instead of months or years of unbearable
| suffering.
|
| If abuse of the medical system is a concern of yours, I
| feel like a much more prominent cause ( _millions_ more
| preventable deaths) worth fighting is over-prescription
| of opiates. That 's just my opinion, though. (And, for
| all I know, you're already fighting that fight too. If
| so, godspeed)
| threemux wrote:
| You are sharing an important perspective. 1 in 20 people
| die from assisted suicide in Canada today. You can't tell
| me the process is sound every time. That's a huge number.
|
| It's false dignity, and false compassion. Dignity does
| not come from control over one's life, and it does not
| come from the absence of suffering. Dignity comes from
| being made in the image and likeness of God. If anyone
| reading does not agree, well, that's fine, but I feel
| compelled to say it that someone might read it.
|
| How many people will we lose to despair that could have
| been helped? I say this both as a Catholic and someone
| that has suffered and recovered from mental illness.
| qualeed wrote:
| I had a lot to say to this comment. I think your comment
| is gross. But it will just end up in a debate about god,
| so I'm editing it out.
|
| However:
|
| > _How many people will we lose to despair that could
| have been helped?_
|
| Assisted death is not something reserved for mental
| illness, and it's dishonest to frame your comment like it
| is. Terminal, painful diseases are the leading reason for
| assisted death. In fact, many assisted death programs do
| not consider mental illness alone to meet the criteria of
| acceptance.
|
| The whole point of these programs is that there is no
| other help possible. Except, maybe, enough drugs to make
| the person basically dead anyways. Which, in my opinion,
| is not "help".
| threemux wrote:
| This is an age-old question. All I can do is share the
| Catholic perspective on this which you may or may not
| like or agree with.
|
| God allows suffering to bring about a greater good, His
| plan. He endows us also with free will, which sometimes
| means we make choices that cause suffering for ourselves
| or others. Free will doesn't mean all or even most
| suffering in a given life is because of our choices.
| Sometimes it is though.
|
| Satan's playbook is all about denying these things,
| denying the cross, denying redemption. Satan is the one
| whispering that life isn't worth it, that it would be
| easier to end it, come down from the cross.
|
| For a even better discussion of these things, I always
| recommend Life is Worth Living which is an old program
| hosted by Bishop Fulton Sheen. It is as relevant today as
| it was when he recorded it. Many of the episodes are on
| YouTube.
|
| EDIT: many seem to be taking this as an anti-painkiller
| stance which it is not. Reducing pain until natural death
| is a great kindness.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| I think that's an entirely reasonable stance to take if I
| can reframe my anguish as in the case where I've been
| dumped and am feeling sad. But if my heart is dying and
| my life can only be prolonged through great and endless
| suffering, I think choosing death is entirely reasonable,
| and demanding that someone live a few more miserable
| weeks is cruel. And I don't think those parables about
| Satan considered the difference between those two
| situations. What lesson is there to absorb to become a
| better person?
|
| If tomorrow I invented a machine that could keep us all
| alive indefinitely but also required us to be immobile
| and in great pain, who would choose that outcome?
| threemux wrote:
| Not against reducing pain for terminal patients - I made
| an edit above because it seems I was unclear on this
| point.
| threemux wrote:
| I'm leaving my other comment despite your edits, as I
| believe it represents an answer to an important question.
|
| Nothing in my comments is dependent on assisted suicide
| being available or not for any purpose or another. I am
| arguing against it in all cases to be clear.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _I am arguing against it in all cases to be clear._
|
| Yes, reading your other comment, I now understand that
| you truly believe that suffering is a good thing and
| that, if you had it your way, my father would have had to
| be bedridden, in extreme agony, for several more months
| than he had already suffered. A cruelty beyond
| imagination.
|
| We will never, ever agree on this, so I wish you a good
| day.
| threemux wrote:
| I am not against painkillers. I am against suicide.
| footy wrote:
| MAiD is not available for people whose only condition is
| a mental illness [1]. I'm saying this not for you but for
| anyone who may read this, particularly non-Canadians.
| It's not about "despair".
|
| [1] https://www.camh.ca/en/camh-news-and-stories/maid-
| and-mental...
| threemux wrote:
| Yes that is the official stance. I do not believe that is
| being followed on the ground and is in any case a
| temporary condition. In 2027 it will be officially
| available with only a mental health issue.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| > The process is "cruel and unusual" when it's done to
| criminals but the same process is fine when you request it.
|
| You seem to be saying that as this is inconsistent. I'm
| curious why do you think that is? Whether someone agrees to
| have something done to them or not is a crucial factor in
| whether doing said thing is OK.
| hypeatei wrote:
| Well, the death penalty is certainly a different discussion
| since the government is deciding to take your life. I don't
| support it, personally.
|
| Assisted suicide, in my view, is more like an escape hatch
| for people who don't want to participate any longer
| regardless of how much "potential" they may have. Making it
| available for terminally ill patients is good, but it misses
| the mark for people who struggle with more "invisible"
| illnesses like ones in their own mind or lifelong ones like a
| physical deformity.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| My understanding is that the death penalty process is kind of
| a hack job and can't be done properly because no medical
| personnel will participate in it due to the Hippocratic oath.
| This is not a concern in consensual euthanasia.
|
| There's also an issue with the death penalty process
| seemingly _requiring_ suffering, as evidenced by the lack of
| use of inert gas which appears to be painless considering
| accidents with poorly-ventilated spaces where people
| unknowingly pass out (and sadly those who go help them suffer
| the same fate). Even in states where the "gas chamber" is a
| thing, cyanide is used instead of just inert gas despite it
| making the post-execution cleanup process _safer_ (so would
| make sense even if you did not care one bit about the
| suffering of the condemned).
| baseballdork wrote:
| Even if the death penalty was perfectly humane, there are
| so many other considerations that this comparison is
| clearly in bad faith. The GP doesn't understand why the
| state murdering people is a different consideration
| entirely from doctor assisted suicide?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Absolutely, I'm not defending the death penalty in any
| way. But even if you _do_ support it, my response tries
| to bring up how bad and _intentionally_ cruel the current
| implementation is.
| noworriesnate wrote:
| I think it should be an option for the terminally ill but
| nobody else.
|
| There are people who are suicidal who don't feel they deserve
| help and feel that assisted suicide is an option for them. We
| should not give them that option. Instead, we should spend
| that effort as a society helping them deal / get better.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _The process is "cruel and unusual" when it's done to
| criminals but the same process is fine when you request it._
|
| Yes, of course. This is a concept called "consent", and it
| drastically changes the context and morality of various
| situations.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Is it unreasonable for you to imagine any of the following
| scenarios?
|
| * A person believes that choosing to die is different than
| having that forced upon you
|
| * A person disapproves of assisted suicide _and_ capital
| punishment?
|
| * A person approves of assisted suicide _and_ capital
| punishment?
|
| * The process is quite different for criminals vs voluntary
| medical participants?
|
| etc etc?
|
| Seems to me you're twisting things pretty hard to find a
| false equivalence.
| os2warpman wrote:
| Because I am practically alone in having avoided addiction,
| felonies, poverty, becoming handicapped, and/or morbid
| disabling obesity over the course of my life I have become
| the "responsible adult" in my family.
|
| Over the last six years it has been my responsibility to
| oversee the end-of-life care for three people: my paternal
| grandfather and grandmother, and maternal grandmother.
|
| My grandfather died at home of congestive heart failure. He
| spent a week on hospice in a medical bed in the living room
| staring at the ceiling, barely conscious due to the morphine
| and pain, pissing and shitting himself, as he slowly
| suffocated to death.
|
| My paternal grandmother lingered for two weeks in the
| hospital due to an embolism after falling and breaking her
| hip. Again, two weeks bedridden staring at the ceiling barely
| conscious due to the morphine and pain, with a machine
| breathing for her, until diffusion/perfusion stopped enough
| that no mechanical or pharmaceutical intervention could
| oxygenate her blood enough and she died.
|
| My maternal grandmother was the worst. Having fought off COPD
| for the last 20 years it finally became too much. After a
| year of coughing fits that led to torn muscles and spine/rib
| fractures leading to her being in a near-constant state of
| opioid-induced stupor the oxygen and albuterol stopped
| working and she very slowly and painfully drowned to death.
| She had been aware of her impending death for about two years
| and constantly expressed her desire to die on her own terms,
| but she had made the mistake of moving into an assisted
| living facility. So she spent the last few years of her life
| in a recliner hooked up to oxygen as the albuterol treatments
| got more and more frequent until the point that she would
| have to wake up every couple of hours 24 hours a day to do
| them, with coughing fits between them to the point that she
| would paralyze herself due to neck or back pain and spend six
| weeks on pain killers, unable to urinate or defecate or dress
| or eat without assistance, as it became harder and harder to
| breathe until she mercifully slipped into unconsciousness and
| died.
|
| We already have medical aid in dying, it's called "giving a
| little more morphine every time the patient starts gurgling
| in order to 'soothe their pain'".
|
| In a just world the patient has the choice to accelerate the
| process.
|
| All men must die.
|
| I will not die suffocating to death as I stare at a blank
| ceiling, blasted out of my brains on drugs, while a TV blares
| in the background to cover up the sobs of my family.
|
| In my late sixties I am going to start going to the doctor
| complaining of back pain, stockpile enough Percocet to kill
| me, and when the time comes (with good fortune many many
| decades later) I am going to settle my accounts, write a note
| with some directions, have a party, and say goodbye.
|
| That's why I'm "for" MAID.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Me borrowing your car is also very different, morally
| speaking, depending on whether you agreed to it or not.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| It's had it ever since the Kevorkian blowup 35 years ago, I
| think.
|
| >Regardless, these types of laws are a step in the right
| direction.
|
| What direction would that be?
| hypeatei wrote:
| > What direction would that be?
|
| Providing people with options on how/when they leave this
| world and making suicide less taboo. You could say most
| technically have this option already but I think it's more
| humane if we provide reliable methods to do so via medical
| professionals. Leaving it up to individuals can be messy and
| violent.
|
| On the cultural side, I guess I'd like to see less
| sanctioning of suicide so that we don't make people's lives
| more complicated for merely expressing their desire to do so
| (e.g. getting the police called and being held for days)
|
| All of that to say that death is sad regardless of what time
| you leave and I'm not advocating for people to do it. Just
| that we should have the option like any other healthcare
| service with guardrails of course.
| wat10000 wrote:
| The status quo is that the people who are most able to
| avail themselves of non-medical means tend to be the ones
| least in need of it. A healthy, able-bodied person can
| pretty easily off themselves in all sorts of ways. A person
| no longer able to care for themselves will find it
| impossible unless they can somehow secure the cooperation
| of a helper.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Non able bodied people can commit suicide via dehydration
| within a couple days (longer if they are healthy),
| provided they can avoid getting treated for it.
| gusmally wrote:
| The NYT recently did an interesting review of Canada's program:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/magazine/maid-medical-ass...
| dralley wrote:
| I read that article a few weeks back - it was a great read.
| Incredibly complex topic both legally and ethically, but I
| thought they did a good job with it.
| alexpotato wrote:
| > Wonnacott had met Paula once before, and he found her to be
| a fairly accurate narrator of her own medical history.
|
| This line reminded me of a lecture from my Psych 101 class
| back in college:
|
| There are three "views" of ourselves
|
| 1. Reality
|
| 2. What we wish we were
|
| 3. Where we think we are
|
| If 2 and 3 match but are far from 1: we are happy but
| "delusional"
|
| If 1 and 3 match but we are far from 2: this is VERY often
| found in people who have depression.
|
| And, ideally for long term happiness, 1 and 3 are close
| together and 2 is a "reasonable" distance away or close to 1
| and 3.
| fnord77 wrote:
| it's terrifying to me all the medical cases that cannot be
| adequately treated with the current state of medicine.
| morkalork wrote:
| The body is a complex system and sometimes you're dealing with
| the hand you've been dealt.
| hondo77 wrote:
| There is no treatment for death.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| I'm incredibly grateful that medical aid in dying is an option
| and that one can have agency not only in how they live but also
| in how they die.
|
| I had someone close to me opt for it. They were greatly suffering
| and had no chance of their condition getting better. Having a
| planned final date allowed us to say farewell and thank each
| other for all the great moment we shared without feeling ominous.
| The last phone call I had with them will stay with me forever.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| I've been grateful that a couple of loved ones were able to
| choose to end their suffering. Both times, it was a sad, but
| very rational decision. I do wish there was a lot less stigma
| about it. People said some genuinely awful things to my aunt
| about her choice before she passed especially.
| gusmally wrote:
| It must be hard to say one last permanent goodbye.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| It beats seeing them suffer over years.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| on the bright side, at least you don't need to worry about "i
| wish i told them __ before they died." It's a good way to
| have closure i suppose.
| antisthenes wrote:
| It's a mercy we allow our pets.
|
| No reason we shouldn't allow it to ourselves.
| koolba wrote:
| Pets are legally property. You may love your pet, but it's
| not human.
|
| The risk with allowing humans to do this is that it's
| possible for someone not of sound mind to come to this
| conclusion.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| People who aren't of sound mind can come to this conclusion
| regardless of the law. Giving people who are of sound mind
| a way to control their death with dignity (and in a
| minimally burdensome way for those who they leave behind)
| is the point.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _The risk with allowing humans to do this is that it's
| possible for someone not of sound mind to come to this
| conclusion._
|
| It seems like lots of people think you can just go to your
| doctor and be prescribed a cocktail of death because you
| feel down today. That's not what assisted death programs
| are like, at all.
|
| There's waiting periods, evaluations by independent doctors
| and psychiatrists, interviews, etc. to determine your
| capacity and understanding of the decision. Someone who is
| not of sound mind is not getting approval for assisted
| death.
|
| Anyone sufficiently determined enough is going to find a
| way to die, regardless of what laws or programs are there.
| These programs don't change that, and they aren't meant to.
| koolba wrote:
| > Someone who is not of sound mind is not getting
| approval for assisted death.
|
| For many of us, this is a classic catch-22 as requesting
| such approval demonstrates the lack of a sound mind.
| ty6853 wrote:
| IMO it's purely a liability debate. The other concerns
| are philosophically interesting but on a practical basis
| mooted: anyone of sound or almost anyone of unsound mind
| and two nickels to rub together can reliably off
| themselves without asking anyone for approval.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _requesting such approval demonstrates the lack of a
| sound mind._
|
| This is wild to me.
|
| I watched my father, who had a life expectancy measured
| in months, live in unbearable pain 24 hours a day. And
| you believe that him wishing to end that nightmare
| demonstrates a lack of sound mind? The sound decision, in
| your opinion, is to suffer in pain, knowing that there is
| no treatment nor cure coming, just pain for some number
| of months until death's release?
|
| I find it particularly cruel that you (seemingly?) think
| that he should have had to continue to suffer. And, by
| extension, myself and the rest of my family, should have
| had to continue to watch him suffer.
|
| (Before we get too far into it, I will say upfront,
| there's not much in way of argument that will sway me
| from this opinion. I am certainly open to hearing your
| opinion, though.)
| avgDev wrote:
| Please remember this if you ever get diagnosed with a
| painful terminal illness.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| tell me you haven't been around old suffering people
| without telling me. I literally think your comment is
| crazy. Like batshit crazy.
|
| Go into a nursing home in the U.S. sometime and walk the
| halls. Tell me if you think the majority of those people
| are waking up with something to look forward to? Some of
| them are sitting in their own shit for hours because the
| nurses are too short staffed. I'd rather be dead than sit
| in my own shit for hours while being in chronic pain, and
| abandoned in a nursing home.
|
| There are other reasons to choose death too of course.
| But i digress. I'm not in the mood to make an exhaustive
| list.
|
| If you're old and in okay-ish health, and have
| _something_ to look forward to (hobby, seeing grandkids,
| reading, etc), then it's a different story.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| When I volunteered at a nursing home an attendant
| complained to me about a guy who wouldn't make the effort
| to go shit but expected staff to dig it out for him. Why
| bother choosing to live if you don't find it worth even
| that much effort.
| footy wrote:
| the amount of implied privilege in this mindset is mind-
| boggling.
| martinpw wrote:
| Appalling comment. You have clearly not been around
| extreme end of life suffering.
| phoe-krk wrote:
| Yes, it is indeed a risk. It is much better to only allow
| people "not of sound mind" to kill themselves the way they
| currently do - via brutal, goresome, and unexpected
| methods, which also often endanger others as well.
|
| /s
| wat10000 wrote:
| Why isn't it considered a risk that someone not of sound
| mind might decide on a course of action that causes them to
| live in agony for months with an incurable condition? Why
| is the argument always "what if a particular death is bad?"
| and never "what if a particular staying alive is bad?"
| scotty79 wrote:
| > someone not of sound mind
|
| We are already risking someone not of sound mind owning a
| gun or operating heavy machinery and ludicrous speeds in
| public places.
|
| Do we really think the benefit doesn't outweigh the risk in
| case of medically assisted death?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| No, the _actual_ risk is that there are larger bureaucratic
| barriers to _treatment_ than to the assisted dying
| programme, so it 's easier for somebody suffering to die
| than to get treatment, _when effective treatment is
| available_ and (in the absence of those daunting
| bureaucratic barriers) preferable.
|
| Assisted dying is a horrifying, but probably overall good
| idea; however, we need to reform our medical bureaucracies
| before it's something that they can ethically provide.
| MiscIdeaMaker99 wrote:
| What constitutes a sound mind?
| swat535 wrote:
| Isn't this what we have psychologists for ?
|
| Surely you don't think an 18 year old claiming to be
| endlessly suffering due to failing a math test sound
| enough to terminate his life?
| wat10000 wrote:
| A centenarian relative did this. But it's not actually legal
| where they lived. So instead of doing it properly, it was done
| by withholding food and water and they slowly faded over the
| course of a few days.
|
| It is absolutely insane the way we do this stuff.
|
| I understand why people are concerned about medically assisted
| death, but this is the sort of thing that happens without it.
| dachris wrote:
| I've also seen elderly people whose time was past (very old,
| bed-ridden, lost their partner) go into into what's basically
| hunger strike in the nursing home. They said "I'm not really
| hungry today", eating very little, getting thinner and
| thinner until the end.
|
| It's now legal here, but family, religion and tradition can
| be obstacles to assisted dying.
|
| In case you don't want to leave that way, you have to prepare
| ahead of time. There's different legal means in different
| countries, e.g. advance directive covers the case where you
| can't decide yourself anymore.
| Yeul wrote:
| I think doctors have always pumped people full of painkillers
| to the point of death long before it was legal. Who would
| know?
|
| Besides with modern technology it has become debatable what
| death is. You can plug someone to a machine and keep their
| heart going for years.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I've heard lots of stories of that being done, anyway. Oh,
| that much morphine is dangerous, but they're in a lot of
| pain....
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Unfortunately not everywhere. In France the parliament is
| passing half-assed laws to praise all kinds of religious
| authorities and call it progress.
|
| Luckily we have our neighbor countries that are way more
| civilized than we are.
| scottcha wrote:
| Maybe I'm a statistical anomaly or maybe I just don't know the
| baseline occurrence rate for this stuff but I have 3 close
| acquaintances two of which are this persons age or younger with
| similar symptoms (tachycardia, though to a lesser degree) going
| on. Is there data on the incidence rates for this stuff and has
| it been increasing since 2021?
| georgeburdell wrote:
| Not tachycardia, but I had frequent heart palpitations for a
| few months after contracting Covid the first time in late '21.
| Did not notice anything in subsequent times. Maybe it was a
| placebo effect, as I had knowledge of Covid's effects on the
| heart, maybe not.
| throwanem wrote:
| I doubt it was placebo. I had the same for about a year after
| a wild-type covid infection in early 2020.
| gadders wrote:
| I wonder if those implanted defibrillators would be more
| manageable if they gave you (say) a 15 or 30 second audible
| warning so you could prepare yourself?
| luka598 wrote:
| Perhaps they would, but I would guess that you would still get
| scared when hearing the warning instead of the shock it self.
|
| For example if you would get stabbed 15 seconds after hearing a
| beep I think you would develop pavlovian like response to the
| beep itself.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Counterpoint: a warning may not avert the fear but still be
| beneficial in cases where the person needs to prepare
| themselves to avoid a sudden fall/etc.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Could see it very useful if you're driving. Might even save
| other peoples lives in the case of a crash.
| closewith wrote:
| Depends on the jurisdiction, but in most places it is
| unlawful to drive in the 6-18 months following implant or
| a shock from an ICD.
| zirgs wrote:
| If I had a disease like that - I would not want to drive
| at all.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| What if it had the user press a button to trigger the shock?
| Would it help them prepare for it?
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| What are you going to do once you get the warning?
| layer8 wrote:
| Mentally prepare.
| jollyllama wrote:
| I'm completely ignorant on this topic, but if the defibrillator
| was shocking him so frequently, but he has survived having it
| turned off, doesn't that imply the patient was being shocked far
| too frequently? I can't imagine that has a positive effect.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| So the issue here is that overly rapid beating (Tachycardia) in
| the lower two chambers of the heart (Ventricles) can be
| harmless, but left alone it can lead to dangerous heart rhythms
| (Such as Ventricular Fibrillation aka VFib) and arrest. The
| cardioversion is there to prevent it, but it's true that the
| fast beating of the Ventricles (VTach) is most likely to
| resolve without killing you.
|
| Still in a patient like him it will eventually lead to VFib and
| then death, so you implant a device that prevents that cascade.
| There are settings for these devices about the threshold of
| when and how to shock, but ultimately it's still going to err
| on the side of caution because any sustained VTach is
| dangerous.
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| Perhaps the question is how much misery are you willing to
| tolerate to prolong your life for how long?
|
| Certain treatments take weeks to recover from while giving you
| months, years, even decades of life expectancy with good quality.
|
| Other treatments of late stage terminal cancer only give you a
| few more weeks in the hospital.
| smeeger wrote:
| my life is miserable even though im not sick. i would not
| qualify for assisted suicide. what does that mean? but if i got
| a terminal illness i would. so my life is motivated by the idea
| that i will someday achieve something that will make it worth
| it... and if i became terminally ill then i would no longer be
| able to achieve that goal... so i should end it. maybe i should
| reorganize my life so that i am not miserable. im not sure
| thats possible. i had a little early retirement before and i
| was still miserable. i am miserable dealing with people in this
| country. everyone is petty, mean and ready to stab you in the
| back
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I ran into a stat recently that gave me pause. Medical air in
| dying, what canadians call "MAID", is now a significant cause of
| death. It's roughly 1 in 20 of all canadian deaths. That is far
| higher than I would ever have expected.
|
| https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications...
|
| >>> In 2022, there were 13,241 MAID provisions reported in
| Canada, accounting for 4.1% of all deaths in Canada.
| ian-g wrote:
| i don't think it's honestly that startling. extrapolating that
| number gets you to a total of 323k deaths, probably under a
| percent of canada's complete population based on their 2021
| census population of about 37 million.
|
| in 2021 there were 305k deaths in 2023 there were 326k deaths,
| and we learned that one sixth of MAID requestors died before
| they were deemed eligible or ineligible
|
| and 70% were in pallative care
|
| a lot of people die slowly and painfully, and a lot of people
| think long and hard before making that request.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's almost certainly better for the vast majority of humans to
| die on their preferred schedule from something that wont cause
| them to suffer. The old joke goes:
|
| "I want to die like my grandfather, peacefully in his sleep
| with no pain, unlike his passengers who all died screaming and
| in agony"
|
| Most "natural" deaths are just various forms of suffering. You
| decay while still technically alive, your body stops working,
| your brain turns to pudding despite your physical fitness and
| healthy life.
|
| Why WOULDN'T more people choose to die peacefully, if they
| don't have religious or moral problems with suicide?
|
| I would expect, in an imaginary utopia, that the vast majority
| of non-accidental deaths would be by choice.
|
| The alternative is laying in an expensive bed for an
| indeterminate time while a doctor pumps you so full of opioids
| that you are barely you anymore anyway. Or like my Memere, you
| die by choking on your own vomit, alone in your home, with
| everybody coming to see you for your birthday in a few days but
| miss you, because you die first. She probably would have
| preferred to schedule it.
| raydev wrote:
| What gives you pause about the number?
| j-krieger wrote:
| > I've explained my reasons more fully to people who are close to
| me, but they basically boil down to the fact that an organ
| transplant requires a full commitment to the process, and I'm not
| willing to make that commitment.
|
| I can't imagine being that indifferent to life. I would give all
| I could to live just one more day if I were in that position.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Nobody knows what would they do in extreme circumstances until
| they end up in those circumstances.
| qualeed wrote:
| From the post: " _I want to live [...]_ "
|
| I am saying this completely honestly, with no sarcasm:
|
| I truly hope that you never have to experience (or witness a
| loved one experience) the kinds of illnesses/injuries/diseases
| that would make someone consider assisted death. It is a
| blessing that you can't imagine the situation. Because the
| situations that make you consider assisted death are _awful_.
| eptcyka wrote:
| The heart transplant will have them live in a state of
| uncertainty, most likely having to use a defibrillator until a
| suitable heart is found, if it is found. It is risky, with many
| points of failure. As such, a certain death of their own terms
| might be more valuable than a chance of a life with the
| certainty that they will have to go through the suffering that
| has already driven them to disable the defibrillator mixed in
| with some more risk and pain. It would be a rollercoaster ride
| for the hungover, except they don't know id they will get to
| step off. And the loved ones get to watch on from the side
| lines. Even with all that, it is tough to imagine not opting
| for the transplant, but this should just serve to help you
| empathise with pain they are going through.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| I think the same as you, but I recognize that those in such
| circumstances now are literally experiencing horrors beyond my
| comprehension. However bad you think it might be, it would have
| to be unspeakably worse, which for some, it evidently is.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I seriously wonder why a state (France in my case) preggers to
| have people jumping from buildings on into a train than to have
| them terminate their life peacefully.
|
| I know that when I have Alzheimer or ALS out similar stuff I will
| commit suicide, quickly. I will have to prepare early to have
| some poison or jump into a train (something I would like to avoid
| to not traumatize the driver).
|
| Why not simply helping me when this is what I want, in the name
| of who knows what.
| martinpw wrote:
| > I know that when I have Alzheimer or ALS out similar stuff I
| will commit suicide, quickly.
|
| One of the common features of dementia is that you don't know
| you have it. It is just that everyone else around you seems to
| start behaving weirdly while your own reality is unchanged. It
| is both a blessing and a curse, but it does mean you may not
| ever have that moment where you can make the choice.
|
| My mother has been bedridden for a year, completely helpless,
| on a daily drug regimen, recognizes nobody, would absolutely
| not want to continue living in this state, but is no longer
| capable of making that choice and so will stay in this
| condition for potentially several more years until she finally
| dies. It's a horrific final chapter.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I thought about that too, and was hoping for a diagnosis
| before I am incapacitated.
|
| I actually wondered about a dead man switch, where poison
| would be released into the bloodstream if I do not
| acknowledge that I am fine. This would also manzge comas and
| lock-in. Technically it is quite complicated though.
|
| I pity you, and this is exactly the reason I want to quickly
| end it so that my family does not suffer for a long time.
| blindgeek wrote:
| I am the OP. Surprised to see this at the top of HN.
| croisillon wrote:
| Good luck!
| delichon wrote:
| "All lives are the same length, Lazarus. They're all just one
| moment long. It's the moment we're in. The rest is memory or
| imagination." -- Dora, in Time Enough for Love by Robert A.
| Heinlein
| soulofmischief wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44251900 just thought I
| would leave this comment here in case it makes you reconsider.
| Don't let sunk cost fallacy make you commit to something so
| permanent just yet if it turns out this therapy is within reach
| after all. Either way... Good luck. Hug your loved ones tight.
| couchdb_ouchdb wrote:
| Best to you OP.
|
| I always think of the Five Remembrances:
|
| I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape
| growing old. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no
| way to escape having ill health. I am of the nature to die.
| There is no way to escape death. All that is dear to me and
| everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to
| escape being separated from them. My actions are my only true
| belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My
| actions are the ground upon which I stand.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| > "A few months ago, a friend sent me a link to a university
| doing clinical trials using stem cells to repair the heart. It
| seemed really promising. Unfortunately, they are in Germany, and
| they only accept German residents. So that wasn't an option."
|
| It's not _that_ tough to gain German residency. There 's even a
| "Freelancer Visa" that gives you a residence permit. If you pay
| an immigration consultant a few thousand bucks, and don't have a
| criminal history, it can be done rather quickly.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-06-11 23:01 UTC)