This article about the Graham Mansfield case contains interesting information about the situation with Assisted suicide in Oregon.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/campaign-groups-case-graham-mansfield-24561894

"In the US State of Oregon, which has assisted suicide, six in 10 (59 per cent) of those ending their lives in 2019 cited the fear of being a burden on their families, friends and caregivers as a reason for seeking death and a further 7.4 per cent cited financial worries. There are other problems too.

"Legalising Physician Assisted Suicide also seems to normalise suicide in the general populations. Indeed, academics who looked at this emerging trend concluded that legalising assisted suicide was associated with an increase of 6.3 per cent in the numbers of suicides in Oregon, once all other factors had been controlled. Among over 65s the figure was more than double that.

"At the same time testimony from Professor Joel Zivot, casts doubt on the myth being put forward by those who want a change in the law that patients opting for the lethal cocktail of drugs die a quick and painless death. Evidence from Tennessee, which uses the same drugs to kill people on death row as the ones used in Oregon, suggest the inmates die from drowning in their own secretions or what doctors call a pulmonary oedema. The Professor goes on to explain why in US executions, even though the person is sedated first, before the lethal cocktail of drugs is administered, the authorities have to strap down both the person's hands and even their fingers to stop them moving.

"Buts it's not just in Oregon on the continent that we see problems. In Canada, last year 1,400 people who were euthanised cited loneliness as a reason. At the same time limits on who could be killed, the so-called safeguards have been eroded or scrapped and the Government has talked about the millions of dollars introducing euthanasia has saved regional health budgets"

A federal lawsuit contains thousands of pages of documents detailing Tennessee's lethal injection protocol.
A review of those records shows how the state has not followed its own rules since resuming executions in 2018.

Seven of the 20 executions attempted this year were "visibly problematic," including one attempt at lethal injection that led to an unprecedented three-hour struggle to insert an intravenous (IV) line into an Alabama man,

Owning a handgun is associated with a dramatically elevated risk of suicide, according to new Stanford research that followed 26 million California residents over a 12-year period.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/suicide-mortality/suicide.htm Florida and Texas way out in front of Oregon, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Washington, Maine, Colorado, New Jersey, California, and Vermont. Of course, we don't, in either the high or low suicide rate states know how many of those people are natives, and how went there just to die. (Florida, quite a lot, I would imagine)

Suicide has been a hidden and unspoken action for centuries. Religious proscriptions and, later, legal penalties kept it underground and secret. ....inaccuracies and general underreporting in the tallying of suicide deaths.....A death is not classified as suicide unless there is unequivocal evidence to do so: “It is likely that suicide may be under reported due to both the social stigma associated with suicide as well as the reluctance of a medical examiner or coroner to make this classification if supporting data are uncertain

... like when the family member who find the body destroys their suicide note to avoid the stigma.

People have always opted out, when they had a choice. All we've done by legalizing it is add the ones who had not had a choice before; who were physically unable to carry it out or forcibly prevented (by confinement, usually) from obtaining the means. And brought some out of the closet that would otherwise have been reported as accidental or natural deaths.

The problem of rotten lives will not be solved by forbidding a choice to people with rotten lives. As long as society is not willing to alleviate the rottenness of people's lives, they'll keep escaping any way they can.
And? Will the anti-choice people provide relief for the families, financial help so old people don't end up on the street, palliative care hostels, medication and social services to take care of their needs?
Pretty much like the anti-choice faction takes care of all the unwanted babies.

My position on this has softened today.

I could accept assisted dying in very specific cases where someone is terminally ill or who has a chronic incurable illness that is not a mental illness.

I still think it could lead to a slippery slope easily.

My position on this has softened today.[/quot

I'm delighted to hear that. It's none of my business, but I do wonder why.
— Andrew4Handel

I still think it could lead to a slippery slope easily. — Andrew4Handel

Yes; Soylent Green any minute now. But I suspect it won't be the result of legal laxity; there isn't time for a slide down a gentle slope.
It will the product of overpopulation and migrations putting unbearable pressure on human and natural resources. There will be a great many deaths from all causes: war, famine, pandemic, and weather events. Health services everywhere are already already collapsing. So are economies. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/how-there-will-be-blood-explains-crumbling-global-economy.html and governance, both from an inability to cope with the crises they face https://www.coffeeordie.com/on-the-brink-governments and from hostile takeover https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2022/global-expansion-authoritarian-rule
Totalitarian governments are not famed for providing aid and support for unproductive populations.
All these factors are converging.
For all I know, we, too, will soon have a jackbooted, Guns and Dollars type regime, and all my cherished, hard-won civil rights will be gone overnight.

I'm delighted to hear that. It's none of my business, but I do wonder why. — Andrew4Handel

I suppose it is to do with allowing people to be released from severe suffering. But after palliative care has been explored preferably.

I think my concern is devaluing life. It is easy to get to the position where you say "we are all going to die anyway so why bother." I think to value life we need to preserve and improve it. I think even with severe illness friends and relatives can value every extra day they get to spend with a sick person. I don't think being seriously ill should rob people of life of value.

I think some people who advocate for AS are advocating for it on ideological grounds and have a different life philosophy and theological stance etc . I think assisted suicide should be argued about on pragmatic or rational grounds but not based ones own personal beliefs. People have a wide range of different beliefs and values vying for a position

Some people believe in an afterlife some don't.

I think assisted suicide should be argued about on pragmatic or rational grounds but not based ones own personal beliefs. — Andrew4Handel

Agreed. Euthanasia, like abortion, happens with or without lawful assistance so on "pragmatic or rational grounds", assisted suicide should adequately regulated in order to minimize abuses or hazards but not criminalized.

Some people believe in an afterlife some don't.

I don't see how this is relevant to deliberating on the issue (except maybe to the one in need of assisted suicide).

I suppose it is to do with allowing people to be released from severe suffering. — Andrew4Handel

So do I. Having had several beloved pets professionally put down after painful deliberation, and having killed a number of maimed victims of of predators, I very much hope someone will be kind enough to do as much for me. And they should not be punished for that kindness.

But after palliative care has been explored preferably. — Andrew4Handel

Explored... if available. Back when my mother was dying, our health-care and social services were still robust enough that she could be brought home, with equipment, supplies, drugs, a visiting nurse and someone to teach us how to take care of her daily needs. It was a harrowing enough experience, even so. Now, after Covid showed us the huge cracks in our elder- and long-term care facilities and stressed our (previously excellent) health-care services to the breaking point, I expect no such help to be available when we need it, even if we had family to do the unskilled part.

I think my concern is devaluing life. — Andrew4Handel

I understand that... from the POV of a member of the valued inhabitants of the world. But, look around with both eyes open. So-called civilized governments sentence innocent people to death every day, and send healthy, fit young ones out into battlefields to kill and be killed for no logical reason, and let people starve and freeze to death on streets, and pine away in refugee camps and prisons.... As a species, we have never valued life - not so's it shows in our actions. A few privileged pockets of history can make that lofty claim - yet, still without regard to the quality of their own citizens' lives, let alone the lives of people in subject nations, client nations, 'developing' nations, exploitable nations. Let's not at all consider the lives of other species. So, just what does this valuation of life really amount to? A strongly-held belief of a very few people and a platitude bruited by a majority who don't really care and enjoy the benefit of not caring.

I think assisted suicide should be argued about on pragmatic or rational grounds but not based ones own personal beliefs. — Andrew4Handel

Beliefs is what all such debates are based on. There is no pragmatic value in the life of someone who is unable to contribute, a waste of resources, a chore and tribulation to people around him and miserable in his own skin. There is only sentimental, religious or selfish value in keeping them alive a minute longer than they wish to be.

I think think there is a moral dilemma here. A person could vote for or not protest an assisted suicide bill that has negative consequences or is simply objectively immoral.

We are always in danger of supporting ideologies and programs that we don't know the full ramifications of.

This is why i am currently a mild moral nihilist. I don't think we can know whether are values are valid without some kind of arbiter like moral facts that doesn't depend on humans.

A person could vote for or not protest an assisted suicide bill that has negative consequences or is simply objectively immoral. — Andrew4Handel

"Objectively immoral" is an oxymoron - or at the very least, a subjective proposition. I strongly believe it's immoral to force thousands of people to suffer for one's own inability to predict every possible consequence of every legislation. Others strongly believe it's wrong to end any life for any reason. Most people's moral stand is situational: wrong to kill some people, right to kill others; wrong to kill some species, right to kill others; wrong to kill foetuses, right to kill felons; wrong to let people own potentially lethal drugs, right to let the same people own intentionally lethal weapons... None of those are objective judgments, but some are more internally consistent than others.

We are always in danger of supporting ideologies and programs that we don't know the full ramifications of. — Andrew4Handel

Then we must never support any, because it is not in our gift to know the full ramifications of any action, even individual, rational action, and far less, group action on which we never achieve complete accord.

I don't think we can know whether are values are valid without some kind of arbiter like moral facts that doesn't depend on humans. — Andrew4Handel

I don't have time to wait for God to enlighten me. So far, I've only heard any of His directives from men, and those directive didn't always make sense.

I strongly believe it's immoral to force thousands of people to suffer for one's own inability to predict every possible consequence of every legislation. — Vera Mont

You reject the efficacy of palliative care. Having a child is forcing someone to suffer. I have been forced to suffer in many ways since birth. If your belief that it is immoral is not objective then what is it other than a statement of personal preference?

The consequences of the legislation have already being manifested in the cases I raised and the history of eugenics and the Nazis etc and judging some life not to be worth living.

This is a case where the direst consequences already happened and are not speculative.

I am an agnostic in general about facts and I believe pragmatism or agnosticism is a kind of solution where you err on the side of caution and in the case of assisted suicide if you allow only it in very clearly delineated cases for individuals and not opening the door to a lax permissive attitude to ending life.

Some people believe in an afterlife some don't.
I don't see how this is relevant to deliberating on the issue (except maybe to the one in need of assisted suicide). — 180 Proof

I assume this doesn't apply to you but I was brought up in a hell and damnation church and household that believed the majority of people were going to spend eternity in hell and possibly a lake of fire as claimed in a few biblical texts and the Quran.

I don't think we can know that we are putting someone out of their suffering if we don't know what happens to consciousness after the death of our body.

It is a faith position either way.

I think if everyone knew what happened after death then dying would be easier. Some irreligious/atheists are so confident there is no afterlife they are not as frightened of death as other people. Some religious people are so confident about the afterlife they have a sense of reassurance. But who can prove one way or the other.

If you don't assist someone's suicide but give them good palliative care you avoid the ethical dimension of ending a life.

I also think untestable beliefs about after death can influence peoples values and actions but could be entirely false. As an antinatalist my solution is not to put another life in this Situation-Dilemma.
But this may be a case of strongly differing values.

You reject the efficacy of palliative care. — Andrew4Handel

No. I reject the claim that quality palliative care is available to all who need it.

Having a child is forcing someone to suffer. — Andrew4Handel

If you know it will be born with serious birth defects, yes. If you know it will be addicted, abandoned or abused, yes. In those cases, early abortion is the kinder option. A healthy baby, well cared for and protected, is open to some risks of suffering later in life, just as a volunteer firefighter, hydro maintenance worker or ICU nurse is at risk of suffering and dying from injury or disease; a police officer or soldier is expected to undertake a known risk of being killed or killing, being traumatized or maimed and causing the same to others. Life is a risky business.
(As it happens, my partner and I chose not to reproduce, but we did raise two children who were already in the world and at risk. I believe they suffered less in our care than might have in other circumstances - but it's also possible they could have fared better. I may have a negative opinion of some people's reproductive choices, but I don't try to force mine on anyone.)
However, none of these risks are comparable to the known, palpable, inevitable suffering of someone who has bone cancer, begs for the means of escape and being surrounded by jurists who tell him "No, because if we let you die, then some other people whom we don't consider eligible might also choose to die. You don't own your life; we do."
If the righteous really wanted to reduce the number of human deaths, they would shut down the arms trade.

If your belief that it is immoral is not objective then what is it other than a statement of personal preference? — Andrew4Handel

Of course. Everyone's moral position is personal, whether through conviction or convenience.

The consequences of the legislation have already being manifested in the cases I raised and the history of eugenics and the Nazis etc and judging some life not to be worth living. — Andrew4Handel

A lot of diverse issues in a little basket. The moral precepts of their vaunted Christianity didn't stop the Nazis any more than it had stopped the inquisition or the conquistadors. It wasn't permissive laws that led to those atrocities; it was very strict laws.

Not very "pragmatic or rational grounds", as you've insisted on, to think about this issue. "Faith", in this case, very much blocks defeasible, practical and public reasoning.

Anyway, how far can you trust a loving, merciful god who would condemn you to eternal suffering for refusing to prolong the undeserved suffering he'd meted out to you?

I'm highlighting the strength of peoples beliefs about the afterlife (as well as all issues related to assisted suicide.)
I personally don't religion should have any role in the running of a country.

That said religion can have a positive role in opposing negative government based on issues of conscience including criticising how the poor are treated. Religious people opposed slavery and so on.

So I would not say religious input was irrelevant even if it personally is to you. Can one persons morals and ideologies triumph? In the end one position is instituted as law after a competition of ideals.

Anyway, how far can you trust a loving, merciful god who would condemn you to eternal suffering for refusing to prolong the undeserved suffering he'd meted out to you? — Vera Mont

I don't agree with this but I was always told that humans were innately sinful and deserved to suffer. (Yes it was an unpleasant upbringing) I find that a macabre and indefensible position now. There is the theology of total depravity that has been influential.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_depravity
Yes it all is cruel but then even without religion, life, nature and people is cruel. Even without gods you can feel persecuted by fate and nature.

But my issue is that we don't know what happens after someone dies. For example if I knew I was going to go to heaven in some kind of idyllic setting that would give me motivation to struggle on and hope.
Should people have hope or should they not? And who is to decide?

However, none of these risks are comparable to the known, palpable, inevitable suffering of someone who has bone cancer, begs for the means of escape and being surrounded by jurists who tell him "No, because if we let you die, then some other people whom we don't consider eligible might also choose to die. You don't own your life; we do." — Vera Mont

There is a You tube video about a young man or teenage boy who died of bone cancer by committing suicide with his family around him. It says he refused palliative care. His family were investigated but not charged with anything.

Your positions is unrealistic because it is not just people with chronic illness and massive pain who seek assisted suicide the principle is that anyone should be able to choose when to die at any stage outside childhood.

My older brother had primary progressive MS that paralysed him and he repeatedly asked to be kept alive after pressure sores , several bouts of pneumonia, a tracheotomy, the inability to speak and being peg fed.
A lot of people in this condition including with Locked in syndrome do not want to die. And according to Canadian statistics I can link to most do not choose assisted suicide.

However why does the government have a duty to assist you killing yourself? Doctors do not have to prolong your life indefinitely and do give overdose levels of morphine among other things but giving someone a lethal injection or placing a poisonous pill on the tongue is the government killing you.

Suicide is not illegal in a lot of countries and there are few prosecutions for assisted suicide and few convictions and these can happen in extreme cases like the case you mentioned where someone slit his wife's throat. I asked my brother whether he might want an assisted suicide early on in his care and said to him that I couldn't personally help him. I would have not being involved in my brothers care if I thought I might be tempted to harm him.

So-called civilized governments sentence innocent people to death every day, and send healthy, fit young ones out into battlefields to kill and be killed for no logical reason, and let people starve and freeze to death on streets, and pine away in refugee camps and prisons. — Vera Mont

But you trust the same governments and society to enact an ethical assisted suicide scheme?

Religion was used to justify slavery and absolve slaveholders. Read the Bible. "Thou Shalt Not Enslave Others" is not one of "God's commandments". No prophet has ever preached "Free all slaves!" or "Slave masters are damned to Hell!" Religious beliefs (which "faith" tradition? which sect of that tradition?) have no place in deliberating public policies like physician-assisted suicide. :shade:

I do not really understand your argument Andrew. You are an antinatalist, so you must feel the chances of spending life suffering is bigger than the chance of becoming happy. Why then, would you withhold the medicine to end the suffering for someone so unlucky as to have been born, just because others are needed to administer it? Your position simply seems cruel by your own lights.

I agree that we have to look at assisted suicide or euthanasia laws very closely and that it is an ethical issue worthy of the deep societal debate they have caused. I also agree with some of your arguments, but I question the coherence of your position as a whole.

Yes but Slavery abolitionists were also religious and could use the bible to condemn it. How many slavery abolitionist were irreligious?

David Hume was irreligious but:

"David Hume advised his patron, Lord Hertford to buy a slave plantation, facilitated the deal and lent £400 to one of the principal investors. And when criticised for racism in 1770, he was unmoved, writes Dr Felix Waldmann"

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/david-hume-was-brilliant-philosopher-also-racist-involved-slavery-dr-felix-waldmann-2915908

How many slavery abolitionist were irreligious? — Andrew4Handel

That's irrelevant. Anyway, search wiki & google.

I do not really understand your argument Andrew. You are an antinatalist, so you must feel the chances of spending life suffering is bigger than the chance of becoming happy. Why then, would you withhold the medicine to end the suffering for someone so unlucky as to have been born, just because others are needed to administer it? Your position simply seems cruel by your own lights. — Tobias

I am not withholding medicine from anyone I am opposing the legalizing of physician and government assisted suicide because of a wide range of concerns that I have outlined already. I am not advocating prosecuting anyone for assisting a suicide either except on a case by case basis which already occurs in countries with assisted suicide when the suicide is suspect.

However Antinatalists often face the objection that if you don't like life you can just kill yourself.

I personally think that once you have created a life you have created a responsibility to make that life flourish. It is an easy way out for parents to say "well you can commit suicide?" and have the state facilitate it. It is something that people have said to me and health professions and other professionals can offer suicide over assistance as has happened.

Most antinatalist are strong supporters of assisted suicide so I am in a minority. I think the only way to avoid suffering is not to create more people, once you have created them suffering is inevitable and assisted suicide often happens because of suffering.

So it is arguable how much suffering assisted suicide prevents and some older people kill themselves when healthy to avoid imagined future suffering yet a lot of old people I knew died peacefully in their sleep without major disabilities.

Religion was used to justify slavery and absolve slaveholders. Read the Bible. "Thou Shalt Not Enslave Others" is not one of "God's commandments". No prophet has ever preached "Free all slaves!" or "Slave masters are damned to Hell!" — 180 Proof

Amen, Brother! Isn't it staggering that the Bible wants to micromanage human behaviour to the point where you can't eat shellfish or wear mixed fabrics, but owning another human being? No problem.

Amen, Brother! Isn't it staggering that the Bible wants to micromanage human behaviour to the point where you can't eat shellfish or wear mixed fabrics, but owning another human being? No problem. — Tom Storm

:100: :shade:

But you trust the same governments and society to enact an ethical assisted suicide scheme? — Andrew4Handel

I have no choice. I had no choice - or only very limited choice - for most of my life but to live under governments that made discriminatory laws, stupid laws and lousy decisions. Every now and then, they get something right. I vote; I hope the government shifts to policies more in line with my convictions.

That's irrelevant. Anyway, search wiki & google. — 180 Proof

Maybe you can find a few, to defend the idea that religion is the problem. The evidence is that religious people can be humane and find solutions and campaign for rights and being secular atheist or even highly intelligent is no guarantee of reason or compassion.

If there were a raft of non theists/atheists/ the irreligious campaigning against slavery and racism that would be a great advertisement for them. Now it seems people just take credit for things they assume are a result of irreligiosity.

Martin Luther King was a Baptist minister.

I hope the government shifts to policies more in line with my convictions. — Vera Mont

That's the problem isn't it. Someone has to lose and we want society to run on our own terms. But I don't see why you would trust the government to a manage an assisted suicide considering their track record of eugenics and the current problems with it.

There certainly is the issue as how far can we trust the government and how much power can we invest them with. It may be that we just are stuck with our government doing a mixture of terrible and good things.

The solution maybe apathy and self preservation otherwise it maybe a long battle for ones values.

I've made my point clearly enough. Deny it to your heart's content. And while you're at it, Andrew, cite a single religious scripture of any major world religion that explicitly prohibts or condemns slavery ... or rape .. or homophobia ... or misogyny ... or poverty ...

However Antinatalists often face the objection that if you don't like life you can just kill yourself. — Andrew4Handel

If your views become popular enough, there will be no more assisted and no palliative care and no food production or electric power, so the whole issue will be moot for the last generation of old people. If they can't commit suicide on their own, they'll either have to help one another or wait for God to finish them off.

It is an easy way out for parents to say "well you can commit suicide?" and have the state facilitate it. — Andrew4Handel

I don't see this becoming a systemic problem. I have never heard a parent say that to their child. I have heard of a few parents killing badly damaged children out of pity, and a lot more killing undamaged children and many more infants, for various societal and personal reasons.

It is something that people have said to me and health professions and other professionals can offer suicide over assistance as has happened. — Andrew4Handel

Yet you keep telling people to seek help. What makes you think they'll get it? What makes you think that's a viable option for everyone who has a life they find difficult to bear?

Maybe you can find a few, to defend the idea that religion is the problem. — Andrew4Handel

In the question of "who owns a life", religion is and has always been one of the two central problems. The other, of course, is its bed-partner, the military state, with all its hungry coffers and cannons.