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.

well, now I'm feeling selfish for calling an ambulance when my mother slit her wrists when I was 10. Sheesh. What a selfish arse I was not respecting her rights.

Some suicide attempts are a cry for help, I think, but this young man, rightly or wrongly, clearly wanted to end his life rather than find a way to live it.

so the woman who called the police is evil??
what a odd thing to say. maybe she had a conscience and couldn't have this on it, to keep quiet makes you part of it.

Jee sorry to hear about your sister

NMC ]hmm] maybe you need to lay off the coffee.

His choice to make and he made it.

His mother has written an email and in it she says

"Whilst we were away some 'well meaning' person involved with social services took it upon herself to call the police.

This person had never met Dan before or after his accident and obviously gave no consideration for our younger daughters who had seen their big brother suffer so much, and the day before had to say goodbye to him.

I am suprised Dignitas allowed it. He wasn't terminally ill and the article doesn't mention mental illness.

ffs NMC youa nd I better book our burdens in now
unbelievable reminds me of JH

'"I hope that one day I will get the chance to speak to this lady and ask if she had a son, daughter, father, mother, who could not walk, had no hand function, was incontinent, and relied upon 24-hour care for every basic need and they had asked her for support, what would she have done?!"'

I have one of those.
The tragedy is this young man was unable to adjust anfd felt second best cos he was disabled. What led him to belive this? What beliefs did he have about being disabled?

how very very sad, it's not clear how much help/ support the family got since the accident.
I do agree with assissted suicide in terminal illness.
My dh had terminal cancer, he took a massive overdose but was saved, he was angry at me for getting him treatment, the way he saw it was that suicide was the one way he felt he could control the way that he died and he wouldn't have had to continue to suffer as he did for another 4 months.

I can understand why he wanted to end his life, and I can understand why his family thought it was the correct thing to do.

I think their decision was wrong because it was too soon after the accident to know whether he would be able to find a life that was worthwhile to him. I actually think it's very likely that with some time he would have because I have met people who have been there and done that, and several years later see their life as actually better than it was pre-accident.

So many people on here saying 'can you imagine how awful that existence must be?' Well yes, but I have also met people in his position who have a life (not existence) that is every bit as good as mine. And if you gave them back the use of their body it wouldn't suddenly become a 'better' life (although no doubt it would be an easier one).

If I had a friend who wanted to commit suicide because of some external trigger - whether it was because of accident, or loss of money, or loss of a loved one, or because they just couldn't see any value in their life I wouldn't say to any of them "yep you're right you know you can't possibly ever have a life that was every bit as good as your old one". Because in no cases would that be true. They might not, but in every case they would have a chance of having a good life without money, without a loved one, even without the use of their body.

Most people never get close enough to very severely disabled people to understand that their life is often equally good as those of the able bodied. It really is. Equally good. So they don't have the confidence to say to someone such as this man "you might not be able to imagine it now, but I can tell you, that your chance of a happy fulfilled life is the same as it was before the accident" (after all how many able bodied people do you know, with no major issues who are utterly miserable- I can name a few- health and wealth don't guarantee happiness). BUt that is the truth. Unfortunately with a very severe injury it is likely to be a shortened life, but for a young man the chances are it could have been a full one. I don't think he could have realised that in such a short time though.

I'm really not judging him or his family, I feel terribly sad that they were helped in this way, when I think better help could have been provided by meeting people who had been where he was but had gone onto live happy full lives.

I do think there maybe a place for assisted suicide when someone is terminally ill. I think for anything else (including dementia) we could end up judging a person's life as being valuable or not, and that to me is dodgy ground.

I speak as someone who spent 6 years of my son's life assuming that he couldn't possibly have full value or enjoyment in his life unless he was somehow 'fixed'. I was totally and utterly wrong.

I tend to agree with those who've said it seems too soon after the accident to be sure of such a decision. Major and traumatic changes take a such a lot of adjustment and I don't think 18 months post such a terrible, shocking, utterly life changing event is necessarily the optimum time to come to a definitive conclusion about whether or not life is worth living and, if not, whether you are likely to feel that way forever. I don't think I would have agreed to facilitate this for my child at that point in time. But who knows? And who wants to be the ones walking in their shoes and grappling with that sort of ethical, human tragic dilemma? This is the sort of decision no parent would ever want to face in their worst nightmares and I would hope and guess that these parents felt they were doing the right thing for their child.

?The tragedy is this young man was unable to adjust anfd felt second best cos he was disabled. What led him to belive this? What beliefs did he have about
being disabled?? I don?t think that we should ever play down how hard it must be to adjust to being able to do everything one minute and then having that all taken away in a split second. Because although it is perfectly possible to live a completely fulfilled life as a disabled person I do think that it is also important to acknowledge that suddenly becoming disabled is hard, and requires immense adjustment and acceptance.

And actually I think that applies not necessarily just to becoming disabled but to anything that changes your life beyond all recognission.

I have often thought about how it would be if I could suddenly see. And family have said how wonderful it would be. But I can honestly say that the prospect of suddenly being able to see terrifies me. Because to me it would be like becoming disabled in the same way as someone who suddenly could not see, because I would suddenly have to learn to do things in a different way, adjust to doing things in a way I? never done them before, learning to read and write in print rather than Braille, learning to look where I was going instead of going with a dog, learning what colours look like and how to recognize people visually rather than by their voice etc. And to me the prospect is scary. But yet I feel there are very, very few people who could understand that, because as sight is such a natural part of life people would find it hard to understand how I couldn?t be overjoyed at the prospect. But I?m sure in time I would adjust, but I don?t think that I would be rejoicing overnight at how wonderful my life is going to be, and in a similar way I don?t think that someone who has suddenly become paralysed could be expected to look at their future and see a fulfilled life.

I don?t judge him either. But I do feel sad that he felt unable to give it longer than a year to allow himself to adjust to a different life. And I do judge the clinic that assisted him to end his life before he?d even given it a chance.

But he had tried to kill himself three times already before going to the clinic!

Such a tragic story . He may well not have been depressed or fulfil the criteria to be sectioned.

If he was reliant on, eg, a ventilator to keep him alive he could have requested that it was switched off to allow him to die - there is legal precedent for this. Equally he could have said that if he developed a life threatening infection that it was not to be treated and those wishes would have to be respected. There's such a fine line here between someone actively killing themselves and making a decision that will result in their death.

I agree with the person who earlier said this thread had made her leave MN

bodycolder? what?

'I think for anything else (including dementia) we could end up judging a person's life as being valuable or not, and that to me is dodgy ground.'

But what about the right of an adult with dementia to chose an other alternative to this?

This man was not a child. This was an adult chosing an alternative to what he thought was not a life he wanted to life.

I just don't see why it's okay to support one person who has a similar accident and decides his/her life is worth living but not another who decides otherwise because one doesn't agree.

I agree with nooka.

I agree it's not in doubt that he was suicidal, soupdragon. But I honestly think it's possible that given a lot more time he might have eventually felt that his life was worth living again. Of course, he equally might never have come to that conclusion and found every waking second horrific. He would then have suffered for years while his family refused to endorse his decision. I do think it's a really extremely difficult situation with no right answers. But I still tend to feel that 12/18 months post-trauma is not very long at all.

I think Imo that the problem is not that this poor man did this but the time scale.
18 months
He had not had the chance to build a new life. His parents were greiveing(imo) for their "lost" son and getting to know their "new" son.
If it had been 5/10 years I would feel differently.

Agree very much with your last post, 2shoes.

Why are people leaving over this thread, btw? It seems to be discussing a very sensitive issue in a fairly balanced way to me. Am I missing something?

I think someone has conused my general flounce with a flounce about this thread. It's not - and also not imposrant.

Where Nooka? Can we have a monotorium of oldies name changing. Surely it's a bit mutton after 4 years?

I think it is an interesting debate, like NMC my views are probably biased as I have a disabled child and the comment the mother made in the papers were offensive imo.
but i also feel sympathy for her. when you are going through that awful grieving process it can make you feel like the worst parent in the world. that is why I stand by the opinion that it was too soon.

So at what point in time do you consider it is appropriate for him to decide that actually he was right at 18 months post trauma with the way he felt and he would indeed like to kill himself?

Is it another year he has to live in his prison? 5 years? in the hope he'll be inspired by someone else's story?

Maybe he was always going to be devastated, never get over what has happened to him? Should he carry on just to satisfy society's belief that he made the right decision for him in an acceptable time frame?

No! One person's grief is not the same as anothers. Some people move on very quickly and others take years.
Do we say to a person grieving to get over it because they're taking too long?

The time has bot all to do with it imho.

Even those with families who do live with disability can have no idea how he felt, who are we to judge that his life was/wasn't worthwhile. That is his decision and his alone and he made it.

I don't know, sorkycake. I really don't. But there are people who decide categorically that they definitely want to die because they feel there is no prospect of their life ever being worth living who do not succeed in serious suicide attempts and come to a place later on where they are glad they did not succeeed. As you say, there are also those who continue to feel utterly dreadful. I am not sure there is a right answer here. However, I do continue to feel that in theory at least 18 months is a very short time to adjust to the consequences of any major life changing event, let alone one with such profoundly life changing and difficult consequences. But obviously in practice this young man's parents felt it was absolutely the right thing to do. I hope never to have to face such a tragic situation.

Is it another year he has to live in his prison? 5 years? in the hope he'll be inspired by someone Else's story

he wasn't in "prison" he was disabled.
he needed help yes, but to die?
do you honestly think that dieing is the only solution?
do you not think that if he and his family had given it more time they might have found another way to cope?
being disabled is not a prison. it is just different to the "norm.