Keeping the not-quite corpse on ice until God sees fit to collect them — Vera Mont

I see this as hyperbole. In the case of Graham and Dyanne Mansfield you cited earlier

"In evidence from Professor Sikora, by the 23rd March 2021, her life expectancy was between one and four weeks"

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/you-killed-your-wife-tried-24558942

This type of palliative care is used at end of life and not to keep someone in a coma for years or it would not be classed as palliative care.

↪Andrew4Handel Read the rest of the sentence like you want to comprehend it. — 180 Proof

I am just looking for evidence people value human life. I started this thread with examples including a 44 year old and 24 year old who had assisted suicides for mental health reasons not terminal illness and whose lives were shortened considerably. How is that valuing human life?

Assisted suicide had never just been used on people right at the end of life in severe pain (unless you can provide evidence of this) it has been used to shorten viable lives.

I also raised the cases of my brother who didn't want an assisted suicide despite being paralysed among other things and the case of myself who had undiagnosed cognitive conditions that I received no help for and nearly ended my own life because of the side effects of these conditions.

This is the comment that triggered me to eventually start this thread.

I have no problem with your faith. You can linger as long as your health care insurance lasts; I won't unplug you against your will. But you just bloody well keep your pious paws off my right to die. Religious people have caused an incredible amount of unnecessary suffering with their "value of human life" claptrap — Vera Mont

How is that valuing human life? — Andrew4Handel

I was referring to specifically myself and how I think defeasibly about the issue at hand and not second-hand guessing about the valuations of "others" or "society".

Assisted suicide had never just been used on people right at the end of life in severe pain ... it has been used to shorten viable lives.

Says who? And If true, so what? The ethical problem only arises in circumstances where lives are shortened unsafely and / or coercively.

... undiagnosed cognitive conditions that I received no help for and nearly ended my own life ...

I hope you've gotten some help since then. And if you're against assistant suicide, Andrew, then don't you use an assistant or kill yourself. That said, it's incoherent and biased of you to advocate denying – criminalizing – others for making those choices for themselves.

This type of palliative care is used at end of life and not to keep someone in a coma for years or it would not be classed as palliative care. — Andrew4Handel

Okay. Only eight viable patients, then? Same moral principle: she's not really alive, but she's not technically dead, so we didn't make her suffer and we didn't kill her. Still not sure how many gods would buy that side-step. You cut the god-given suffering by four weeks. Maybe when they finally do die, the victims have to finish out their sentence in purgatory. After all, god is not mocked.

I am just looking for evidence people value human life. I started this thread with examples including a 44 year old and 24 year old who had assisted suicides for mental health reasons not terminal illness and whose lives were shortened considerably. How is that valuing human life? — Andrew4Handel

I didn't claim to value "life". As I explained several times, I value individuals, their autonomy and the quality of their lives. If it has value for them, I would try to help people preserve their lives, however miserable or difficult. If I had the power to improve their lives, I would do that. My very simple policy is: If you can't repair them, let them go.
If the lives they are in, that they experience from hour to hour, has no value to the persons living them, by what authority (in the absence of a sense of moral superiority) could I overrule their assessment? In the cases you cite - presumably because they stand out for some reason - I imagine that the patients were spared many years of torment, rather than only a few weeks, which is the more common situation. Then again, going by the precedents I do know about, they probably would have found a way to do it themselves.

I also raised the cases of my brother who didn't want an assisted suicide despite being paralysed among other things and the case of myself who had undiagnosed cognitive conditions that I received no help for and nearly ended my own life because of the side effects of these conditions. — Andrew4Handel

I would not have interfered in either of your decisions. But you want to interfere in mine.

Hardly. Which politician orders up a flood or a snowstorm or a pandemic? Those are realities with which real, live, present-on-the-scene health care, rescue and emergency workers have to deal with. There are too many of those and too few of them. No politician is able to pull a few thousand doctors out of his hat. People with chronic debilitating illness don't have ten or twelve years - it would actually longer - for a new crop of graduates, even if higher were offered without tuition fees immediately. — Vera Mont

It is a political choice how much emergency capacity you entertain. The Netherlands had to send ICU patients to Germany because we did not have enough beds. Germany did. The height of the tuition fees for instance. Lower them and you will have more doctors. Not immediately, so the shortages now are the result of past policy choices. They might have been legitimate, mind you, but it is not as if there were no warnings. We know extreme weather will occur more often, we know that our hyper mobility makes us vulnerable to pandemics etc.

The 'because' doesn't fit. They were already doing it when they themselves legislated against assisted suicide and abortion, against gay rights and birth control, against science education and school lunches, against environmental protection and worker's safety - but for guns, prisons, executions, militarized police and even more tax-cuts.
Not because of erosion of humane values, but because the things they were for required lots of gullible votes and they presented their platform of 'againsts' as the moral choice. — Vera Mont

This will have to be unpacked for me. I am not thinking it is because of erosion of human values we create euthanasia laws... You use a lot of ' it' and ' they', so much so that I have trouble understanding your argument.

Not everyone has an accommodating Germany next door. And what, when all the well-prepared nations need the capacity for their own critically ill - who will take the extra old and infirm off your hands?

the shortages now are the result of past policy choices. — Tobias

So is climate change, but knowing that doesn't alleviate the present problem or mitigate the much larger future problem or increase the available resources for whenever the polity is ready to throw out the bums and install a civic-minded, smart administration. With every hurricane and coastal flooding. more infrastructure is destroyed. How many hospitals did Katrina take out? And she was a pussycat, compared to storms yet to come.

ou use a lot of ' it' and ' they', so much so that I have trouble understanding your argument — Tobias

Yes, sorry. I'll see if I can sort it better.
I had alluded to the conservative parties - everywhere, not just in the US - moving rightward, striking down laws for personal autonomy and cutting social programs, including health services.
To which you replied:

Assisted suicide or euthanasia laws may play into that hand, because if we do not have to keep people alive, and it becomes socially not to, we can cut more beds. — Tobias

By which I assumed you meant liberal governments' permissive suicide laws encourage conservative governments to cut health-care on the pretext that old people will have been killed before they need it.

I contend that this is not a cause-effect situation.

The 'because' doesn't fit. — Vera Mont

That's not why they do it. 'It' is the policy of allocating resources from agencies of public service to agencies of control. 'They' are the aforementioned right-wing political parties which are taking over governance in much of the world.

They were already doing it when they themselves legislated against assisted suicide and abortion, against gay rights and birth control, against science education and school lunches, against environmental protection and worker's safety

I.e. They are not concerned with the value of human life, and never have been; their attitude didn't change when the law was relaxed.

- but for guns, prisons, executions, militarized police and even more tax-cuts.

What they are interested in is central, lock-step power, protecting concentrated wealth.

Not because of erosion of humane values, but because the things they were for required lots of gullible votes and they presented their platform of 'againsts' as the moral choice.

To which end they wooed and won the religious fundamentalist, the racist, the xenophobic, the economically insecure voter blocs by appropriating their simple, punitive values.
There is a clearly traceable history of this trend in the US, which devolved from Nixon to Trump and may end in much worse: a competent megalomaniac. I see the etiology and current state of affairs in Canada. I don't know how it came about (other than through the Middle Eastern debacles) in Europe, or how it will play out in each nation. You're in a far better position to see that side and predict what comes next.

Not everyone has an accommodating Germany next door. And what, when all the well-prepared nations need the capacity for their own critically ill - who will take the extra old and infirm off your hands? — Vera Mont

No, then hard choices need to be made. I have no qualms with that. However, for some that time comes quicker than for others. It is odd that the Netherlands being an equally rich country as Germany is, has less ICU capacity. That has to do with political choices and might well have to do with the sanctity for human life ingrained in the past WW2 generations of Germans. I feel we have an odd debate because I feel we are in agreement, but you are not agreeing with me :lol:

So is climate change, but knowing that doesn't alleviate the present problem or mitigate the much larger future problem or increase the available resources for whenever the polity is ready to throw out the bums and install a civic-minded, smart administration. With every hurricane and coastal flooding. more infrastructure is destroyed. How many hospitals did Katrina take out? And she was a pussycat, compared to storms yet to come. — Vera Mont

Well it does not alleviate the present problem but it is an important acknowledgement nonetheless, if only to establish degrees of responsibility. I do not know what a civic minded smart administration is. I doubt though that when we install it, presto, all our problems will be over. I also do not know what kind of different policies such a government would enact. It is easy to complain from outside.

I had alluded to the conservative parties - everywhere, not just in the US - moving rightward, striking down laws for personal autonomy and cutting social programs, including health services.
To which you replied:
Assisted suicide or euthanasia laws may play into that hand, because if we do not have to keep people alive, and it becomes socially not to, we can cut more beds.
— Tobias

By which I assumed you meant liberal governments' permissive suicide laws encourage conservative governments to cut health-care on the pretext that old people will have been killed before they need it.

I contend that this is not a cause-effect situation. — Vera Mont

Well they never say it out loud of course. I also do not think it is a 'cause and effect situation'. I am thinking along the lines of social discourse. Already we see people wanting raise insurance rates for people living 'unhealthily'. We are moving towards a society which, rather akin to the early 20th century, sees mishap as a personal issue. There is a tendency to frown upon looking at the state for aid (except when you are a bank of course...). Euthanasia laws (for all their good intentions) may be coopted into this line of reasoning. 'Do not look at the state to keep you alive, we will only do so when we still see some benefit in it, after all you can pay for it yourself, or choose death....'. If euthanasia comes to be defended on efficiency grounds then I think we have indeed overstepped ethical boundaries. Even though, it is acknowledged, we cannot keep someone alive at excessive costs even if they wanted to. Making it subject to a cost benefit calculation though, is the the other extreme.

I.e. They are not concerned with the value of human life, and never have been; their attitude didn't change when the law was relaxed. — Vera Mont

I tend to agree, but, that said.... well, the religious. conservatives may well be concerned with the value of human life and oppose it on that ground. There is a plethora of conservativisms.

What they are interested in is central, lock-step power, protecting concentrated wealth. — Vera Mont

Yes, conervativism, in its radical variants, tend to place a high amount of value on law and order and on tradition, which opposes change and therefore protects existing imbalances of power.

To which end they wooed and won the religious fundamentalist, the racist, the xenophobic, the economically insecure voter blocs by appropriating their simple, punitive values. — Vera Mont

Yes, in my corner of the world they call this cocktail populism.

I don't know how it came about (other than through the Middle Eastern debacles) in Europe, or how it will play out in each nation. You're in a far better position to see that side and predict what comes next. — Vera Mont

I tend to be careful with prediction but the trend I see is similar and to me similarly worrisome. I do not know though whether it is proper conservativism. Populist parties often couple the law and order values with economic policies that might well be agreeable to the progressive left. Not all, but some parties do. I do also think it is the result of a gap the left has indeed left. The traditional progressive parties have failed to formulate an alternative. They have been implicated in the decrease of the welfare state and the increase of the precariat. They profile themselves on cultural issues which their traditional rank and file does not have time to consider as they are in economic dire straights.

I feel we have an odd debate because I feel we are in agreement, but you are not agreeing with me — Tobias

The only real difference is optimism vs pessimism. I think we'll run out of time, resources and options before the [relatively; numerically] insignificant matter of suicide, assisted and otherwise, can be addressed in any systematic way. I think far bigger and more urgent matters will take up all our attention and efforts...
At this moment, hydro repair crews are working their tails off all around the province, trying to restore power to dozens of communities. We are in a good position, because we invested in diverse sources of heat and light. The technology has existed for decades to make every house and village energy-self-sufficient, and the Liberal governments made some progress in that direction, but every few years a conservative government came along to undercut those efforts: one step forward, one step back. As the conservatives gain strength and keep shifting rightward, the forward step is just to regain lost ground, then one step backward, then two steps back.

... until the final collapse of our civilization. Many civilizations have collapsed before, and I'm pretty sure their comfortable middle classes also refused to contemplate the possibility that their own could go the same way. What comes after is open to interesting speculation.

I do not know what a civic minded smart administration is. — Tobias

But you can imagine it: government that puts the needs interests of the citizens before those of its military or financial or religious or political elite, designs policy, enacts legislation and allocates funds with those priorities.

I doubt though that when we install it, presto, all our problems will be over. — Tobias

I didn't suggest anything of the kind. If we ever installed such an administration, we could begin to solve our problems; unless we do, all the problems will keep growing bigger. Events - catastrophic events - won't wait on us to come to our senses.

Do not look at the state to keep you alive, we will only do so when we still see some benefit in it, after all you can pay for it yourself, or choose death....'. — Tobias

That happens anyway, when we run short enough of everything. It already does. Increased privatization of health care and emergency services, plus the recent overwhelming challenges, means exactly that, even if it's not spoken aloud. People are already dying in emergency waiting rooms in Canada. How they/we feel about suicide recedes as an issue for a growing number of people who can't get cancer treatments or surgery to relieve pain or even an appointment with a GP. It's not a question of how much we value life in general; it increasingly and inevitable becomes a question of how many can be preserved at all.

I tend to agree, but, that said.... well, the religious. conservatives may well be concerned with the value of human life and oppose it on that ground. There is a plethora of conservativisms. — Tobias

That's what I said. The ruthless right-wing collected into its support base the religionists by offering to ban their moral bugaboos: assisted suicide, abortion and same sex marriage. It collected the xenophobes by offering to build walls and secure the borders against migrants. It collected the white supremacists by offering to shut down the BLM movement, keep the Confederate symbols and arm more police. It collected the financially insecure by convincing marginally employed people that cutting tax for business, destroying unions and relaxing environmental protection will result in job-creation; that cutting back on support for the homeless, mentally ill and higher education will increase the spending power of decent, hard-working like you. They have collected the paranoid by offering to increase national security and taking up a tough attitude toward other nations. It collected the 'rugged individualist' fringe with anti-science, anti-institution, anti-state conspiracy propaganda (laughably easy with social media), letting them arm and organize, and inciting them to oppose medical protocols and election results.They have collected these factions that normally would not be under one flag - like God, Guns and Trump - through relentless propaganda. And since the crises keep coming, there is always a scary thing to blame on the scapegoat of the week. The more people are anxious and insecure, the easier they are persuade that only "a strong leader" can save them. Come to Poppa!

Populist parties often couple the law and order values with economic policies that might well be agreeable to the progressive left. — Tobias

I'd be interested to know how that platform reads. Once in power, it doesn't matter what they promised. The communist dictatorships put that kind of program forth as their agenda, but actually do the opposite in power. The fascist-leaning ones the same. I know our premier promised to expand education and health care capacity before the election, and he cut both immediately after he got a majority, plus opened the Toronto green belt to 'development' in the face of public outcry. He has five years to wreak whatever havoc he wants - and those trees and schools and clinics will take much longer to regrow once he's gone; the soil and water will stay polluted. This is always the case: construction is slow and costly, especially when it must be preceded by extensive cleanup; destruction is fast and cheap. He's not even on the far right, and he's already caused a huge amount of un-undoable harm; the new federal conservative party leader is much worse. And so the handcart to hell gains momentum.

I also raised the cases of my brother who didn't want an assisted suicide despite being paralysed among other things and the case of myself who had undiagnosed cognitive conditions that I received no help for and nearly ended my own life because of the side effects of these conditions.
— Andrew4Handel

I would not have interfered in either of your decisions. But you want to interfere in mine. — Vera Mont

You would have interfered because you want assisted suicide legalised which would mean I could have been drawn to an assisted suicide before knowing I had autism and ADHD. You would have compromised the tricky process of diagnosis and enlightening social attitudes towards cognitive disabilities.
You want to throw vulnerable people under the bus with health systems that are complex and easily compromised and societies marred by social inequalities that make slow progress.

You want a law that effects everyone because of a personal preference. And you fail to comprehend the vulnerability of people who don't want an assisted suicide under your legal system.

You don't have a right to be be killed by someone else and by state legislation, if you do that right has been invented on your behalf and it is not a natural right.

Rights are invented not natural.

ou would have interfered because you want assisted suicide legalised which would mean I could have been drawn to an assisted suicide before knowing I had autism and ADHD. — Andrew4Handel

You could have been drawn to jump off a bridge without any help from me. Are you going to make bridges illegal - just in case?

You want to throw vulnerable people under the bus with health systems that are complex and easily compromised and societies marred by social inequalities that make slow progress. — Andrew4Handel

And buses. Outlaw buses, in case I'm drawn to throw somebody under under one.

And you fail to comprehend the vulnerability of people who don't want an assisted suicide under your legal system. — Andrew4Handel

I won't compel you to come here.
You really are pushing this too far. The entire world does not exist, and millions of other people should not have to suffer, for the sole purpose of safeguarding your specific personal vulnerabilities.

millions of other people should not have to suffer, for the sole purpose of safeguarding your specific personal vulnerabilities. — Vera Mont

No you are throwing millions under the bus and the integrity of the health and care systems and the value of life due to your desire to have someone help kill you. Something you could easily do yourself. Where suicide is legal millions of people are not using it only a few thousand at the most and a minority of the terminally ill.

I have already provided evidence of who is being affected by assisted suicide such as the poor, the lonely and victims of abuse from others.

You could have been drawn to jump off a bridge without any help from me. Are you going to make bridges illegal - just in case? — Vera Mont

There is a bridge that attracts suicides in Bristol UK where I live, it has phone booths on either side for phoning the Samaritans suicide help line. It has guards monitoring each side and cameras. Most bridges like this have phone numbers on them for suicide charities and people volunteer to patrol them looking for distressed people and peoples lives have been saved.

No you are throwing millions under the bus and the integrity of the health and care systems and the value of life due to your desire to have someone help kill you. Something you could easily do yourself. — Andrew4Handel

That's where we came in. Old people in reasonable health are killing themselves long before they need to die, and in unnecessarily painful and messy ways, for fear that if they are no longer strong and independent when the time is right, they will be forcibly prevented from dying, by someone thinks the world should march to his superior moral drumbeat.

Your society is already, according to that bridge business, expanding a lot of its resources to protect some vulnerable people from themselves. You want everything to be organized around saving you from yourself, and if it means depriving everyone else in the world of the freedom to make decisions about their lives, well, you figure you're worth that little sacrifice.

Old people in reasonable health are killing themselves long before they need to die, and in unnecessarily painful and messy ways, for fear that if they are no longer strong and independent when the time is right — Vera Mont

Statistics please.

There are quick accessible ways to potentially painlessly kill yourself if you are able bodied.
And if you don't fear death.
If people don't have access to advanced palliative care how would they have access to assisted suicide?

Your side of the argument are doing your own scaremongering and convincing healthy old people that they could face and unpleasant and unbearable death.
Several of the most prominent terminally ill assisted suicide campaigners died peacefully and or quickly in the end

Terry Pratchett: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett#Death
.
"Pratchett died at his home from complications of Alzheimer's disease on the morning of 12 March 2015. He was 66 years old.[59] The Telegraph reported an unidentified source as saying that despite his previous discussion of assisted suicide, his death had been natural."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kevorkian#Illness_and_death

"Kevorkian had struggled with kidney problems for years.[61] He was diagnosed with liver cancer, which "may have been caused by hepatitis C," according to his longtime friend Neal Nicol.[44] Kevorkian was hospitalized on May 18, 2011, with kidney problems and pneumonia.[1] Kevorkian's condition grew rapidly worse and he died from a thrombosis on June 3, 2011, eight days after his 83rd birthday, at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.[1][5] According to his attorney, Mayer Morganroth, there were no artificial attempts to keep him alive and his death was painless"

I can cite several more if needs be

There are quick accessible ways to potentially painlessly kill yourself if you are able bodied. — Andrew4Handel

Yeah. Like helium and carbon monoxide. But as I recall, those people I cited who took your recommended exit, didn't count because they were in favour of assisted suicide.

If people don't have access to advanced palliative care how would they have access to assisted suicide? — Andrew4Handel

Weeks in a hospital bed with 24 hour care on constant morphine drip vs 10 minutes in your own bed - after the two-week wait time for the paperwork. Multiply by number of chronic, long-term and terminal patients who would prefer to stop having to cope.
Lots of people don't have access to either. But those states make it easy to get a gun - problem solved. So what if a mentally ill suicides decide to take a theater or school full of companions along, oh well, thoughts and prayers and flowers on the sidewalk - same time next week?

Your side of the argument are doing your own scaremongering and convincing health old people that they could face and unpleasant and unbearable death.
Several of the most prominent terminally ill assisted suicide campaigners died peacefully and or quickly in the end — Andrew4Handel

In the end. The last two minutes may seem quick, and loss of consciousness may seem peaceful to an onlooker, but it was preceded by quite long periods of slow unpeaceful illness.
I don't know what cancer treatments and surgeries you've undergone, how many dead people you've seen or autopsy reports you've read, but for myself, I'm never convinced by the press release, or well-meaning stranger saying "He didn't suffer."
Yah, he did.

The only real difference is optimism vs pessimism. I think we'll run out of time, resources and options before the [relatively; numerically] insignificant matter of suicide, assisted and otherwise, can be addressed in any systematic way. I think far bigger and more urgent matters will take up all our attention and efforts... — Vera Mont

Sure, but there is always a bigger problem to address.

... until the final collapse of our civilization. Many civilizations have collapsed before, and I'm pretty sure their comfortable middle classes also refused to contemplate the possibility that their own could go the same way. What comes after is open to interesting speculation. — Vera Mont

Possibly. But why then write about anything? I think we are in a unique position to recapture lost ground.
That, once, our civilisation too will collapse is a given. We are like the old Norwegian Gods. They knew ragnarok would come but they saw it as their duty to postpone it as long as possible.

But you can imagine it: government that puts the needs interests of the citizens before those of its military or financial or religious or political elite, designs policy, enacts legislation and allocates funds with those priorities. — Vera Mont

I am not certain that many governments do not try to do that. They are however stuck within an interplay of forces including those of very powerful market players. I do not know if it is the government that is the issue, or whether politics is more and more played outside of regular political circles. Politics is conducted in many places. Citizens also seem less interested in having their say in politics. I think therefore the chaleng is a different one, how to make politics more participatory and accessible especially for people who are not often heard.

It's not a question of how much we value life in general; it increasingly and inevitable becomes a question of how many can be preserved at all. — Vera Mont

It is a matter of how much we value preserving everyone and how hard we are willing to try and of course what to sacrifice for doing so.

I started this thread with examples including a 44 year old and 24 year old who had assisted suicides for mental health reasons not terminal illness and whose lives were shortened considerably. How is that valuing human life? — Andrew4Handel

Well if their suffering was uncurable who are you to say they should live? Your premise is simply that mental illness is no good ground for euthanasia, but it may well be. If one suffers unbearably and incurably. You question the doctors who have conducted the diagnosis, but you have no credentials to credibly make such claims.

No you are throwing millions under the bus and the integrity of the health and care systems and the value of life due to your desire to have someone help kill you — Andrew4Handel

The onus is on you to show that a health care system that provides for euthanasia is less caring than one that does not. Doctors, who deeply care for their patients generally perform euthanasia out of care for that patient and his or her suffering.

I have already provided evidence of who is being affected by assisted suicide such as the poor, the lonely and victims of abuse from others. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, being a victim of abuse may lead to terminal and unbearable suffering. That is terribly sad, but is it any better to be a victim from abuse, suffer immensely and being denied a way out? The problem is you treat the issue in an unsophisticated way, there is only right or wrong. Of course unbearable suffering is wrong and yes, it is always sad if a life is ended on request. The question is what regulatory regime leads to the least amount of suffering, while keeping basic human rights and fairness intact.

You want a law that effects everyone because of a personal preference. And you fail to comprehend the vulnerability of people who don't want an assisted suicide under your legal system. — Andrew4Handel

No Andrew, you want that. Forced assisted suicide is a contradiction in terms. The law which we have created is outlawing it. We have right now a law that affects (not effects) everyone. Having that law is not the default state, it is the product of a regulatory choice.

There are quick accessible ways to potentially painlessly kill yourself if you are able bodied. — Andrew4Handel

The problem is that those who needs assistance generally are not.

Several of the most prominent terminally ill assisted suicide campaigners died peacefully and or quickly in the end — Andrew4Handel

So? What does this, or any anecdotal evidence you provide have to do with the issue at hand?

I can cite several more if needs be — Andrew4Handel

Yes yes yes, we need more because it makes your argument so much, like, stronger. Who cares how campaigners for assisted suicide die?

It is a matter of how much we value preserving everyone and how hard we are willing to try and of course what to sacrifice for doing so. — Tobias

We have a pretty good indication of how well governments and societies do that in the way the Covid pandemic has been and is being handled. We also have a pretty good overview of the public responses to government efforts. It's given us a fairly comprehensive picture of humanity in crisis...
...and from here on, it's all crisis, all the time.
Yes, there is some remote possibility of saving civilization. It's just that I lack faith in our collective will to save it.

It isn't necessary. There are plenty of people ready to help voluntarily. Many of the strongest advocates of legalizing assisted suicide have been health-care workers who had too watch too many patients suffer through terminal illness that no decent person would allow their pet to endure. — Vera Mont

Can you provide any evidence for this claim? I can provide evidence to the contrary.

My Dad was a geriatric nurse for the largest part of his working life working in a hospital for the elderly. He saw lots of old people dying and he didn't witness a demand for an assisted death but did witness people reluctant to die. He died this year and was not eager to die despite a range of health problems including chronic back problems and diabetes.

One of my Sisters was a community nurse for ten years who also witnessed people dying and she didn't support assisted suicide and talked about how good palliative care could be.

My late brothers illness left him severely disabled, paralysed for several years and only communicating by blinking and he wanted to be kept alive until the last moment when his body completely gave up. (It's called a desire for life)

None of the nurses and care workers involved involved with him expressed an opinion on assisted suicide that I can remember but none of them advocated it loudly if they held that opinion.

Here is an example of a Doctors survey from 2009 UK.

"There are many other (non peer-reviewed) surveys of British doctors' views in the public domain, a total of fourteen of which are thoroughly reviewed in the seventh appendix of the 2005 report of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill [24]. In addition to these is the submission to the committee by the Association for Palliative Medicine of a survey of 610 members carried out in 2003 showing 565 (93%) opposed legalising assisted suicide. "

https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6939-10-2

There is a range of studies I can find eventually including when where the public were questioned about the definition of assisted suicide and it was clear a lot of people did not know what it was and what it entailed and support for it dropped when they knew the true definition.

Can you provide any evidence for this claim? I can provide evidence to the contrary. — Andrew4Handel

What you provided was evidence that people who disapprove of assisted suicide disapprove of it and don't discuss it with people who do approve of it. I have similar anecdotes, and more recent senate committee hearings.

This is not complicated, though some people want to complicate it, drag all kinds of unhappy teenagers and dysfunctional families and what-ifs into it, claim superior moral judgment and plead extreme susceptibility to suggestion, saying that easy and painless death should not be available to people who ask for it, because it might then tempt people who could be helped in other ways, and making cheap and fast death available to people who want it will somehow diminish the capacity of the system to provide other kinds of help for those who need it, and besides the people who do want it already have easy ways available, but my wanting to make them legal will somehow make them more attractive to people who don't want it.

It's actually quite simple:
Most people don't want to die. And if they can be helped to live, that should be their choice.
Some people do want to die. And if they can be helped to die, that should be their choice.
Not yours. Not mine. Not their daughter's. Not Judge Dredd's. Not Kevin Stitt's.

What you provided was evidence that people who disapprove of assisted suicide disapprove of itand don't discuss it with people who do approve of it. — Vera Mont

Where did I do that?

My dad worked with the Elderly for decades. I had a discussion with him and he talked about his experiences of working with the elderly not about whether assisted suicide should be legalised and his experience that they often were reluctant to die. Neither of us were on a campaign trail or doing political advocacy.

He is also the person who encouraged the doctors in intensive care to keep my older brother alive and not turn off his life support and after my brother survived that he went onto meet his wife and get married and lived for another 10+ years.

I went into hospital in the ambulance with my brother when he had pneumonia But I couldn't stay and advocate his wishes because I had a severe cold and had been up all night with him so I had to go home to bed.

My brothers carers and may have supported assisted suicide but didn't express that in the years I was involved with them. The other evidence I provided in my next post was a survey of doctors and palliative care experts

You provided no evidence but claimed people that work with the ill and dying strongly supported assisted dying.

I don't know anyone who is politically campaigning against assisted suicide. I have not been involved in politically campaigning. Your position is the most political it seems. Voicing concerns is not politically campaigning.

I think people have failed to defend the notion of autonomy.

The people who have the most autonomy are the people with the most interventions and assistance and the most access to resources.

It is not a Natural state. We are not created through or with our autonomy. We are unable to care for ourselves for several years so cannot rely on our autonomy as we are reliant on parents and other adults.

If we have a desire to be a doctor or pilot etc we need pre-existing societies structures like scientific institues, roads, money and welfare systems. The more of these societally created tools the more we can fulfil our desires. There are few desires we can fulfill if left alone in the wild. So we are in something of a social contract where we are provided services due to cooperation and giving up some freedoms for others.

Assisted suicide is being pushed by people who are already privileged have increased autonomy given by others through societal innovation and support not the truly disenfranchised who have been the biggest victims of euthanasia and have lives determined unworthy.

Lack of desire to live can often be associated with and induced by helplessness, learned helpless and disenfranchisement and that was my experience of feeling suicidal. Not autonomy and choice. Feeling pushed to die by suffering or fear of is an experience of coercion.

I think people have failed to defend the notion of autonomy. — Andrew4Handel

Because tou say so, nice.

The people who have the most autonomy are the people with the most interventions and assistance and the most access to resources.

It is not a Natural state. We are not created through or with our autonomy. We are unable to care for ourselves for several years so cannot rely on our autonomy as we are reliant on parents and other adults. — Andrew4Handel

You are confusing principle with practice. No one is purely autonomous. However, treating people as means to an end as Kant would have it requires that we treat people as autonomous authors of their lives. That people need each other does not mean that one can make decisions for them. Sure I am reliant on my parents up until a certain age, however when I am 'of legal age', I can decide for myself how long I stay out at night.

If we have a desire to be a doctor or pilot etc we need pre-existing societies structures like scientific institues, roads, money and welfare systems. The more of these societally created tools the more we can fulfil our desires. There are few desires we can fulfill if left alone in the wild. So we are in something of a social contract where we are provided services due to cooperation and giving up some freedoms for others. — Andrew4Handel

Excactly, well according to social contract theory, but that matter is best left to another threat.

Assisted suicide is being pushed by people who are already privileged have increased autonomy given by others through societal innovation and support not the truly disenfranchised who have been the biggest victims of euthanasia and have lives determined unworthy. — Andrew4Handel

Where is that sort of thing taking place and who is advocating for state sponsored murder? Euthanasia does not mean the state gets to decide to kill you. It means the patient gets to decide, within certain legal limits and subject to procedures designed to make sure utmost care is being taken by the practicing physicians, to end their lives aided by others, provided the physician that does so is also willing and in agreement.

Lack of desire to live can often be associated with and induced by helplessness, learned helpless and disenfranchisement and that was my experience of feeling suicidal. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, by all kinds of things, including intolerable and endless suffering.

Feeling pushed to die by suffering or fear of is an experience of coercion. — Andrew4Handel

Yes and we should be very weary and take the utmost care that it does not become subject to coercion. However is it a good argument to ban the practice altogether? Is that a proportionate measure to that threat or should it be regulated in a way that makes sure people remain uncoerced? In the Netherlands where we have such laws, pysicians will not just put you down (at least they should not lest they commit manslaughter) because you have lost the will to live.

No you are throwing millions under the bus and the integrity of the health and care systems and the value of life due to your desire to have someone help kill you. Something you could easily do yourself. — Andrew4Handel

If one could "easily do it", then assistance euthanizing oneself wouldn't ever be needed; but it is, thus the issue.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. — Benjamin Franklin

Seems to me, Andrew, what your position 'criminalizing the choice of whether or not to assist or be assisted ending one's life' amounts to is the tradeoff Ben Franklin warns about.

I have already provided evidence of who is being affected by assisted suicide such as the poor, the lonely and victims of abuse from others. — Andrew4Handel

With or without the option of well-regulated assisted suicide, "the poor, the lonely and victims of abuse from others" will always be adversely affected, so your "evidence" is moot.

Because you say so, nice. — Tobias

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see a definition of it here. Listening to debates on this on You Tube people used the autonomy argument there but failed to define or justify it as if we all agreed on something before hand (Begging the question).

That people need each other does not mean that one can make decisions for them. Sure I am reliant on my parents up until a certain age, however when I am 'of legal age', I can decide for myself how long I stay out at night. — Tobias

You can only safely stay out at night because of a social contract and a police service.

Some people are attacked when walking at night so this doesn't prove you have an autonomy that is not provided or dependent by social structures.
I think the theory of social autonomy leads to antinatalism and defeats itself because autonomy is not possible due to the nature of procreation and fundamental lack of consent.

In the Netherlands where we have such laws, physicians will not just put you down (at least they should not lest they commit manslaughter) because you have lost the will to live. — Tobias

But they have done that.

people used the autonomy argument there but failed to define or justify it as if we all agreed on something before hand — Andrew4Handel

Were they debating in a society where the law requires adults to take responsibility for their actions, then it was something they all agreed on before this particular tropic became a subject of debate.

If one is assumed to have control over one's actions, one is considered an autonomous adult. Once the age of majority is reached, the citizen is entitled to vote, sign contacts, buy property, marry without parental consent, choose where they will live and what work they do, beget and raise children. And if they attack you late at night and you call the police, they will be arrested, tried and punished - just like grownups who are expected to pay their taxes, keep their promises, fulfill their duties and make their own autonomous decision.
Shouldn't obligations and responsibilities come with rights and freedoms?

You can only safely stay out at night because of a social contract and a police service. — Andrew4Handel

Says you... there are a lot more theories about how society functions besides the social contract. Actually, it is rather unlikely that a police force exists because we have sat down and signed a social contract bringing it into existence.

Some people are attacked when walking at night so this doesn't prove you have an autonomy that is not provided or dependent by social structures. — Andrew4Handel

Confusing principle and practice again. Our autonomy is safeguarded by social structures, it is no invention of them. In fact many of those social structures are there because we feel we are autonomous beings.

I think the theory of social autonomy leads to antinatalism and defeats itself because autonomy is not possible due to the nature of procreation and fundamental lack of consent. — Andrew4Handel

We are not autonomous beings before we are born, we are when we are born and enter into life. Of course, vulnerable as we are, we are cradled within the family, society, a bedrock of rules etc, but with the purpose of becoming individuals, people realizing their autonomy. You might think whatever you want, however the idea that antinatalism somehow lays waste to autonomy as a philosophical concept is not very current.

From what I have read I infer that you do not have a firm handle of what autonomy means. Autonomy does not mean you can do everything yourself as you seem to think. It means that you are at liberty to shape your life freely and you should be able to do so within the confines that you do not compromise the autonomy of others. So yes, if I want a wife and kids I am dependent on someone willing to marry me and procreate with me. I might not find her. However, I am free to pursue that aim. That is autonomy. It pertains to this situation 'in casu' as follows: I should be free to decide for myself the way I will die. Willing others who assist me should not be prevented from doing so because the state should not impinge on my choice unless there is a more pressing moral concern. There are some I think, as I outlined above, that is why judicious regulation is necessary. My autonomy still carries a lot of weight though. The default is not that I am no autonomous choosing individual, delivered to the will of the collective. The default is that I am. You are a closet totalitarian Andrew.

But they have done that. — Andrew4Handel

Probably. People also have murdered others in the Netherlands. That does not mean Dutch laws on murder and manslaughter do not function. People have also driven their car without a license god forbid. Proves nothing.

Of course, vulnerable as we are, we are cradled within the family, society, a bedrock of rules etc, but with the purpose of becoming individuals, people realizing their autonomy. — Tobias

How does one realise their autonomy?

They can't choose their genes, their parents, their country of birth, their sex and so on on.
A lot of theorists no longer believe in free will. How are autonomy and the belief in no free will compatible?

I don't think that necessity to get a job or to work/strive to avoid starving is autonomy
but brute necessity. If you need someone to assist and legalise your suicide that does not indicate autonomy either.

At best committing suicide by your own hand is autonomy but not involving others and enforcing legislation that effects others.

Autonomy has a large discussion page on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomy#Philosophy

This topic can also be linked to the topic of personal identity which I made a thread about as well and who is it that persists over time. If, as I mentioned earlier, you are put in a coma before dying naturally does that person in a coma have interests? Who is this autonomous individual? Peoples beliefs and identities change through time and this applies to peoples suicidality and value towards life.

How does one realise their autonomy?

They can't choose their genes, their parents, their country of birth, their sex and so on on.
A lot of theorists no longer believe in free will. How are autonomy and the belief in no free will compatible? — Andrew4Handel

One realizes ones autonomy within a framework that allows you to realize it. Parents that constantly belittle a child and raise it to become an insecure adult unable to make any decisions by itself compromise the child's autonomy. So does a state that prescribes you how to live your life.

Whether the will is really really really free or not does not matter in this regard. Choices appear before us. When I asked how I want my steak I cannot just say 'well, it is predetermined anyway how I want it, have a go at it', no, I need to make a choice. I am happy with that, I can say 'red', or 'well done' or 'a point'. When the owner tells me 'bro you get your stake well-done, no excptions', then I do not have that choice and I feel positively peeved. Notice how free will does not matter one bit, but autonomy does.

I don't think that necessity to get a job or to work/strive to avoid starving is autonomy but brute necessity. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, it is. So? That is why many advanced states are welfare states. It means people have a fall back option and will not be exploited. However I fail to see the connection to the matter at hand.

If you need someone to assist and legalise your suicide that does not indicate autonomy either. — Andrew4Handel

Why not? It simply means I need help realizing my choice. If I choose to relocate, I need someone to assist me too. That does not mean that my decision to relocate is not made autonomously.

At best committing suicide by your own hand is autonomy but not involving others and enforcing legislation that effects others. — Andrew4Handel

Look, there you go again. We have legislated against assisted suicide. That legislation is enforced. Allowing assisted suicide comes down to non-enforcement of the penal code. Again you seem to think that disallowing it is somehow the natural state of affairs, but it is not. It is a product of regulatory activity. Again, you have the odd idea that autonomy means doing everything yourself. Autonomy relates to choice, not to having all the resources to realize them without help of others.

This topic can also be linked to the topic of personal identity which I made a thread about as well and who is it that persists over time. — Andrew4Handel

Yes it can possibly be, but why would we, eh? Let's not muddle the subject.

If, as I mentioned earlier, you are put in a coma before dying naturally does that person in a coma have interests? — Andrew4Handel

Possibly, but he does not have the capacity to articulate them. In such cases we grant guardianship to someone else.

Peoples beliefs and identities change through time and this applies to peoples suicidality and value towards life. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, people change, so? That does not imply we have to force them to be alive against their will, because we feel there may be an off chance that a chronically suffering patient might have a miraculous recovery. The point of euthanasia laws is that they allow assisted suicide under certain conditions. In the Netherlands one is that the patient has to be suffering chronically. Again, doctors do not terminate life based on a whim. At last they are not allowed to do so.