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.

Is she? Has she told you that?

unfortunately, As Oregan and The Netherlands has shown as, choice soon becomes 'duty; for the sick and disabled.

my dd has no body function too, is doubly incontinent etc etc and she is very happy and loves school and life. Physically she is worse than this guy was.
Dragon - I've lost count of the number of people you say 'of course, if you became disabled everyone would want to die'. People feel the need to say it to me, a wheelchair user, within dd's hearing, a quadraplegic. Its a common view that needs challenging.

and, I used the girlfriend scenario to challenge those who think everyone has a right to end their own life. Do you think its ok in tht scenario or do you think the person would need some counselling and help? Or is it only ok if someone is disabled?

the sad thing in a couple of years there might be drugs that would have helped him. I was told at dd's MDR that she can try a drug9name forgotton) which will help her.
all the time medical people are finding new wasy to help people.
how will the parents feel then?

Your DD is happy. This man was not. People are different.

I don't think anyone here has said that everyone who becomes disabled must want to die. Have they? I think it would be just as unreasonable to say that everyone who becomes disabled must live at all costs though.

what drug 2shoes?
Even Christopher Reeve started to regain some feeling and movement after years and he was a C2 quadraplegic.

Assisted suicides rates in Oregon have remained small and relatively stable:

see here : www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/docs/year8.pdf

A state produced report. In 1998 24 prescriptions were provided with 16 resulting deaths in 2005 64 prescriptions and 32 deaths. Not huge numbers IMO.

RE girlfriend scenario, do we know if this man had counselling or not? I think that if someone wants to kill themselves there is very little you can do to stop them. This man had tried 3 times but was unable to do so because of the severity of his disability. As I said before, if he had been just marginally less disabled he would not have required assistance to get his wish.

The only assistance would have been his parents taking him to Switzerland and a stranger holding a cup for him to drink from. He wasn't forced in any way.

Please don't think that because I support this man's decision I believe all disabled people should be "put to sleep". I simply defend this man's (and others) right to choose.

I am going to bow out of this now and we'll have to agree to disagree. My stance is that I believe in the right of a person to choose for themselves.

I was very concerned when I read about this and especially two points in particular: one, that this man was so young and was helped to take his life after only one year. and two, that his mother described his life as 'second-class'. I agree with the poster who said this is indicative of wider attitudes to disability in general - that such a life is 'second class'.

Another point which I don't think anyone has raised is this issue of 'dignity' and lack of dignity; I would really like a definition of this word and I would like to know why so many people find it convenient to say that illness and disability is inherently undignified.I actually find this view quite offensive.

gomez,
Ok what about the right wing organisation like The Times newpaper.

Times article

We would like to think that these things didn't happen and prefer to push it under the carpet. Sad to say I think that nmc is right to be scared for the life of her daughter if there was enuthanisa in this country.

The Times article will make you wince.

I have just read that link Reallytired ; it is very shocking. I really don't see how that could not be classed as murder.

He didn't have a duty to the disabled community to live. His disability was irreversible. He decided that was intolerable. I don't make any assumptions about anyone else's quality of life based on that decision.

I wouldn't chose to abort a baby with downs but others would. AFAIK the fact that it is legitimate to terminate a pregnancy on the grounds that the baby has downs has never resulted in calls for people with downs to be killed or suggest that their life isn't worth living. It's an acknowledgement that we don't all have the ability to cope.

I don't see what's so shocking about that article. The same thing happens in hospitals to terminally ill patients up and down the country daily.

What an absolutely dreadful experience for her parents. I find it actually quite shocking that you would have preferred them to have watched their child endure another two years of suffering.

'AFAIK the fact that it is legitimate to terminate a pregnancy on the grounds that the baby has downs has never resulted in calls for people with downs to be killed or suggest that their life isn't worth living. It's an acknowledgement that we don't all have the ability to cope.'

Actually it has. Eugenics calls have been with us a long time, even before the nazi's. Many people vene say it out loud about people with DS and people with other disabilities. The docs at the hospital wanted me to end dd's life cos they said she wouldn't have a'ny sort of life'. Their ND perdspective was her life as a disabled person was worthless cos they couldn't imagine it. I told them to eff off. Thankfully I didn't have to take them to court to stop them killing her like others have had to do.

You know what, if assisted suicide ever becomes legal then I fear for my life and my daughter's life. Especially hers as she can't talk, cant feed herself and will eat through a tube 'atificial feeding' they call it as if a tube is somehow lesser than a spoon.

I don't think this is a euthanasia debate.

It's about whether the society we live in allows a young man to kill himself because he suddenly became disabled...

The article was scary because the reporter stated that he came from a 'rugby family' and that his life was subsequently 'second rate' after the accident.

desperately sad...

legalised suicide become assisted suicide becomes in euthanasia.....as in Holland

slippery slope

NMC you need to walk a way from this thread. people sadly will always think disabled= second class and compare it to dementia on this thread.
we know the truth.
but you can only bang your head against a brick wall for so long.

probably right. Only I will wheel away. I am disabled you know

I think that life is sacred. Euthansia is far too easy solution for getting rid of those who are a burden. Its also cheaper and easier than providing good quality palitive care.

Its easy to pick one particularly horrific genetic condition and say we should end the child's life. However what about better palitive care, in this country the little girl would have been given a high dose of morphine or heroin which might have hastened her death rather than a lethal injection. I think there is a difference.

What scares me is giving lethal injections to small babies with brain damage or spina bifida. The affects of brain damage on small babies is surprisingly unpredictable. There are children whose brains look very damaged on scans, but they make very good progress.

In Holland it hasn't just been a slippery slope but a vertical drop.