23 year old has assisted suicide in Switzerland

[Evenstar]

Here news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/7676812.stm

This is terribly sad, I wonder how much help and support this family were given in the wake of their son's accident.

but 2shoes, dontcha know its better to be dead than disabled?

I know I know. I forgot sorry, disabled = burden

When I was diagnosed with MS at 25 I did get depressed. I was a keen walker and cyclist. Its been tough as i miss cycling hugely (you all know how anti-car ranty I get!) but life is about change and things happen. Thank goodness I had support and knew disabled people who told me to get a grip when I said life was over.
As it is the dire predictions of the doctor were wrong. They often are. I use a wheelchair outdoors but hobble round the house. But I can talk and watch TV and read and all sorts.
My dd can't, being totally quadraplegic, partially sighted and no speech but I will certainly tell her life is for living whatever state your body is in.

I cannnot think 'so be it' if he decided to starve himself to death. THat would be an awful death. I can see, as a parent, though it is unimaginably awful, that if a child had got to that point, and found every minute of his existence a terrifying agony, then I might help him rather than see him starve himself to death. I am sure his parents did not want him to die, but they also did not want him forced to live what was to him, an intolerable life. If it was my child I would hope he would stay with us, remain hopeful of medical and technical breakthroughs that would offer increasing independence and find something that gave them happiness. But I'd say they knew him better than any of us here.

herbietea what has happened to your Nan is very sad. but it is not a disability in the same way this man was disabled. I always thought these clinics were there to help people like your nan(sorry) to die with dignety. not a young man 18 months after his accident.

you say you are disabled. I bet(I could be wrong) you have been through hell. accepting it. and I bet it took longer then 18 months to get there.

NMC Your dd will have a wonderful life imo. because she is loved by all around her, she will blossom(as my dd has) because of that love. sadly I think this mans parents just saw a wheelchair.

thing is, legalised assisted suicide will lead to other people making choices for a disabled person.
Before long it would be done by burden and cost. Cheaper to persuade someone they are a burden and owe it to the family to die than provide decent care and support to them and the family.
My biggest worry is when I am gone someone will decide my dd's life is 'worthless' and the State will kill her.

And lots of non-disabled live unfulfilled lives too

My MIL only sees the wheelchair. She says in my and dd's hearing failry often its better to be dead than disabled. I told her I'm waiting for the 7 th Harry Potter Movie.
She has asked to be helped when she gets frail. Not demnetia but unable to hike mountains and run marathons. What a view of life!!
Mind you, might be first in the queue to give her a shove....

NMC tthis is why these things scare the shit out of me. we already have late abortions of disabeld babies, and now this. as you say how long before we have to fight to keep our children alive.

In Holland is already possible to put down your disabled child. Its not just life threatening conditions, but children like NMC's dd.

I feel its too much like the nazi holocast where children were murdered for simply being blind, deaf or having Downs as well as a range of other countless conditions.

See this link.

www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/mar/06030601.html

Its sad that people worry about human rights in Turkey, but not on our doorstep in the EU.

oh fuck, I can't read that I got to the second line.
bloody hell I didn't know that was happening in the 2008.

good grief. Thats like the nazi's. How could be allowed in 2008?

horrifying doesn't cover it

I do think the issue re the value of life is a personal one. But only personal to oneself.

I think it is possible to decide that your own life has no value, and tbh I don't think anyone else can judge that as only you know how you feel. However I don't think that it's possible to make that judgement on behalf of someone else, so to say that someone else's life has no value, because you can only really judge that from your own opinion.

Dementia is totally different to disability because dementia is a degenerative, progressive illness, the outcome of which is always death. Whereas becoming disabled must be a terrible shock and take immense adjustment, the outcome is usually a different type of life, but it is still life.

If I were diagnosed with dementia then i would end my life before it got to the point where I didn't know who I or my family were, and while I was still in a position to be able to do it myself. But I see that as being different to becoming disabled, because it's not a question of coming to terms with it, you are going to lose your mind, you are going t die, and I think that it should be allowed to happen with dignity.

But this man was young. He had only been disabled for 18 months, and he most likely had not yet actually come to terms with the fact. And maybe he never would have, but we will never know that now, because those who were supposed to be supporting him did so in the wrong way IMO. how much convincing do you thinks the parents might have needed? 18 months isn't long to convince someone to help you kill yourself after all.

I wonder if he'd say, broekn up with a girlfriend and wanted to die if his parents would have then wanted to help him?

I get the feeling that some posters feel that to say he clearly didn't feel his life was worth living with his disability is teh same as saying that either life isn't worth living with disability, or that disabled people should be killed. But that's just not true. If someone whose child/ren had died wanted to kill themselves, I'd think it was appalling and sad, but I'd understand why. It wouldn't mean that I think she should or that people who had lost their children should be killed.
It's just that something happened that made that person feel their life was now intolerable.
I can see the slippery slope arguments, and that it was too soon for him to decide, but I can also see that for him, it may have been a release. I think it is totally wrong to judge his parents or make cruel assumptions about them, based on no proper information.

Of course not, nmc. It's totally different. It's much more akin to being bereaved. And they only helped him because he could not do it himself, and the alternative was that he would starve himself to death.

its the call to legalise assisted suicide that worries me and the message this sends to other people. It reinforces the 'better dead than disabled' thought that is current.
And in the next few weeks, everyone left disabled by accidents or car crashes or maybe already disabled and feeling like a burden will be thinking about this.

mabanna but that sounds like loss of girlfriend - cousre you're not serious about killing yourself and we aren't going to respect that.
Becoming disabled - well of course you'd want to die, I mean, who wouldn't.
So why do people try and persuade the suicidal not too genrally?
We were all horrified when the crowd bayed for that lad to jump a few weeks back. And he did. Tragic end and all that. But if he wanted to kill himself then surely those in the crowd were right and respecting his wishes and the police trying to talk him down were wrong and infringing on his rights?

Reallytired Lifesitenews is a right-wing, pro-life, homophobic, neo-con and for some wierd reason anti-Harry Potter organisation so I will not being placing too much credence on their report re: the position in Holland.

How the f*ck can you possibly compare breaking up with a girlfriend to being left tetraplegic ??

If you don't think that it's possible to make the judgement that someone else's life has no value, why do you think you have the right to make the judgement that this man's live was worth it? He had decided it wasn't. Had he had the use of just one arm he would have been able to kill himself. You would rather he starved himself to death than have a dignified end of his choosing. No one forced him to do it, the assistance was just in holding a cup.

You keep harping on about how he hadn't had long enough to come to terms with his new life. How long do you think he should have lived unable to walk, with no hand function but constant pain in all of his fingers, incontinent and suffering uncontrollable spasms in his legs and upper body? Do you not think he had the right to end what he deemed to be an intolerable life?

You seem to think it's OK to end your own life if you've just lost your mind, but not when you are in constant pain and have lost the physical ability to do anything, even to end your own life.

This isn't about parents or The State ending a disabled person's life, this is about a man's personal choice and what he deemed to be intolerable.

'You keep harping on about how he hadn't had long enough to come to terms with his new life. How long do you think he should have lived unable to walk, with no hand function but constant pain in all of his fingers, incontinent and suffering uncontrollable spasms in his legs and upper body?'

Well, I'm hoping my daughter lives for at least 60 years and she's actually worse.

"Becoming disabled - well of course you'd want to die, I mean, who wouldn't."

You are making this into something it isn't. He made that decision about his life. He decided that the life his had been left with was intolerable. Some people would have felt able to continue with their new life, some wouldn't. Life's like that.