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.

oh, i fully plan on topping myself if i develop dementia.

absolutely.

that is NOT the way i want to go.

i dont think this has anything to do with societys view of people with disabilities, it was his own choice, he was not born disabled he knew what it was like to be able to walk, live on his own ect and i would imagine feeling like a second class citizen had more to do with what he felt he had lost, rather than how others saw him.
i have a family member that was injured in a motorbike accident who is now paralized from the neck down, i know that he has considered assisted suicide but his family will not help him. it is such a difficult subject, my cousins parents want him to live and cling to the hope that there will be a miracle, he has had enough and wants to end his life but is phsically unable to do so. Personally i think he should have the right to choose

In fact my son's disability (severe) I would say has taken me (who must be way less affected than the man in this case) 6 years to get to stage where I can consider his life good and every bit as valuable as mine.

It wasn't all gloom and disaster before but it has taken me that long to truly believe that he can have a life that isn't second class in some way (and his own life, not some pretend vaguely 'normal' one).

1 year just isn't long enough to be sure of your decision.

"You need time to adjust. It's a completely different life"
so right jimjams, this poor man was probally depressed. seems so sad that rather than being given help to get better, he was helped to die.

"live and cling to the hope that there will be a miracle"

I'm not talking about miracle. That is society;s view that anything other than walking talking is second class. I'm talking about recognising equal value in a life where someone can't move freely or talk or read or whatever.

One thing ds1 has taught me is that life is about experiences. We sat one weekend in the middle of Dartmoor (my favourite place in the world) and I realised that his experience - despite his disability was every bit the same as mine. He was getting the same pleasure out of being there as me. Who was I to judge his life as being second class to mine?

You can;t make that sort of adjustment in a year.

Most people can't imagine that anything other than waling talking being anything other than second best. Once you've adjusted you realise that is not true. But you don't get there in one year. No-one does.

But even if he made the wrong decision it was his to make. And because he was so dependant on others, their non-cooperation with his suicide would have been hugely tyrannical.

If someone is genuinely not in their right mind and suicidal it might be appropriate to section them and physically prevent them from committing the act. But if someone is sane and has simply made the wrong decision, we ought not to prevent their suicide against their will.

Given his dependancy, a refusal to assist would have amounted to an active prevention of a sane man's wish. And that is such a frightening prospect -- to be imprisoned in life.

Someone as the disabled swimming club I go to was left with a brain injury following a RTA. It affects his movement and his cognitive ability/memory etc. It's pretty global. But he said to me the first week I met him "life's about change isn't it?' This was before I was at the point of seeing ds1's life as equal to mine, but it got me thinking.

this is another article that made me re-think euthanasia

in my life I know someone who was disabled at birth.
a man who was disabled because of a terrible accident,
and a man who suffered a brain injury.
I have seen all these people in the same room at the same time.
they all have a life,
this man deserved a life, it would have been a different one to the one he knew, but with counselling/help/love, it would have been a good one.
just different. I am so sad that he now will never know this.

Eapat by the time you have demntia it will be too lat.

How about if someone who was completely physically able with what you judged to be a good life ahead of them said "I want to kill myself because I don't judge my life worth living' - because if you would find that hard to accept then you're not seeing a disabled life as equal to a non-disabled one. And therefore you haven't made the adjustment I'm talking about. I have met plenty of people who have, who had rich fulfilling lives (richer and more fulfilled & more of a laugh than many without disabilities imo) - but they didn't get there overnight.

jimjamshaslefttheyurt, my cousin is in a very similar position to this young man, but his accident was 6 years ago, he does see his life as second class, we dont see him that way, its the way he sees it himself. he knows all the things he used to be able to do, he see what his friends are doing now and he knows he will never get better. If he could end his life tomorrow he would.

jimjam, I would find their decision hard to accept in either case I'm sure. But it would still be their decision.

I really wouldn't want to make any judgement about the quality of that man's life. I'm not in any kind of a position to. I just feel very acutely that no one should be compelled to live their life, unless they are too severely mentally ill to make an autonomous decision.

I suppose you could say that they haven't adjusted about anyone who can't move on whether its from an accident or a girlfriend leaving or lack of money or whatever. 6 years maybe they feel they won't ever be able to adjust to their new life and I agree to an extent you have to respect that. But I think people owe it to themselves to give themselves more than a year.

I'm sure you are right about that. If he was my son I would be begging him to leave it longer.

I think some of the stories on here show how 1yr was just too soon to have any true realisation of how his life could have been.

Yes his injury sounded appalling, but if he had attempted suicide before then he must have had some degree of independence, even 1 1/2yrs after his accident.

I don't think people should spend 20 years miserable and suicidal! But I think a year is just not long enough to know how you will feel, and therefore it shouldn't be sanctioned or made 'officially' OK at that stage.

I used to be very pro euthanasia btw. My own experience with emotions surrounding disability- and the time it takes, and having come into contact with people with aquired injuries has made me rethink that. Also realising that disabled lives aren't less worthy or less meaningful- they can be equal in experience.

The article I linked to above made me rethink it for terminal illness.

By the by, I'm actually swimming the length of the channel at the moment for Aspire, a spinal injury charity. They provide equipment and support for people with spinal injuries. A cheeky one, but if anyone want to sponsor me they can do so here I hope they;re the sort of people that would be able to stop people wanting to do this sort of thing and help them rebuild their lives.

'stop' perhaps the wrong word. Just give people hope maybe. We all need hope to carry on living.

people talk about "live that life"
Imo that high lights the problem.
the adjustment this man would have had to go through, would have been awful. one day you are able bodied, next day you can't even wipe your own bu.
but it is a life. just different.
he needed support. he needed to put it bluntly to be sectioned and have intensive professional help.
he did not need to die.
how sad that in 2008 people can think that this young man with so much potential made the right decision.

On the news earlier they interviewed the son of a woman who had used Dignitas last year, he had supported her and felt assisted suicide should be available here but only for the terminally ill who had less than 6 months to live. His mother had actually died before she became incapacitated because she didn't want her children to be prosected for assisting a suicide if she was unable to travel to Switzerland independently. He felt it was wrong for a 23 year old who didn't have a life threatening condition.

Why did he need to be sectioned? I don't see anything in the reports that said he was mentally ill. Being suicidal alone is not enough to be sectioned, and what treatment would be given, or is the idea to lock someone up "until they come to their senses"? If he hadn't been disabled he would have been able to kill himself with painkillers, or throw himself off a bridge, or gas himself, and maybe he attempted some of these, but wasn't physically able to.

I think his decision was incredibly sad, but I don't see why that right should be stripped of him (along with all the other things he would have taken for granted). Yes there are many amazing things that disabled people are able to do, but this chap would never have been able to be independant, and I think (from the reports) it was that that he couldn't cope with. He had eight months of intense therapy and rehab at Stoke Mandeville, so not totally unsupported, I think (although the staff there that worked with him must be incredibly sad).

why is those who try and kill themsleves over failed love affair etc etc are sectioned? Talked down from buildings or bridges or resucitated after taking lots of pills.
Its considered wrong. But when a disabled person wants to kill themselves then of course its natural as disability is so awful etc.
That lad had more mobility than many of our paralympions.
Why didn't get get more counselling?
I was diagnosed with MS at 26 and told I'd be in a wheelchair for ever. It meant a period of re-adjustment but wheelchairs don't bother me in the slightest now. DD was born with no limb movement at all, she can't sit, roll, hold anything, feed herself or wipe her bum. Total depednace. But she is happy.
Its how you approach it.
I bet if he'd been depressed over a girlfriend leaving they'd of attempted to talk him out of it and get him sectioned.

NMC i don't think we can compare this man with our dd's. yours like mine will have never knoe anything different.
so being suicidal is not a mental ilness!!
sorry I don't get that.
he must have been depressed and sadly his parents rather than getting him help for that, helped him to die.
it is a very hard adjustment to make as a parent. if your child is born with a disability it can take years to come to terms with it.
these people had only had 18 months. this was not long enough imo.

well, we can compare him with me.
He did not give it long enough and both him and his family saw being a wheelchair user as second best and life being over.
I just don't get it.
If he'd been depressed over a girlfriend would they have been saying 'sure, off to switzerland'

but NMC the phrase second class has been used.
Imo he and his familly felt his life was second class.
and as we well know that is a veiw a lot of people have on disabeld people.

and I think thats the point. Why didn't someone tell him that being disabled is ok?
Even Larry MacAfee who campaigned for a switch to go on his breathing machine changed his mind when he got out of the ghastly hospital he'd spent 4 years in with no support and no dignity. He moved into a group home and regained control of his life and then he no longer wished to kill himself despite being a C2 quadraplegic with breathing machine.
It was quality of life and dignity that made him realise life is worth living.