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.

I wondered that ILMD. They are reputed to be strict but can you trust any private org that needs money?

18 months is more than long enough for some and maybe not for others.He wouldn't have been living what he considered a fulfilled life It doesn't matter how many others in a similar position could and would cope with the change and make a different life for themselves with help and support.This young man couldn't and wouldn't.It is about choice of the individual

But did he get to make an informed choice? Or was he influenced by societies views of disabled people? His family use the word 'second best' so I'm guessing he had a negative view of disability. Did he get to meet disabled people with happy fulfilled lives? Did his family? It sounds like he had no hope for future medical breakthroughs (Chris Reeve felt the same but it was his family who pulled him from that dark place) and no hope for a decent life.
A tragic young end to a life.

18 months with no hope is a pretty big influence i would think.I know lots of disabled people with amazing lives but I still think I would find it extremely difficult.It was second best to the life he had before which is a huge decider i would think.

18 months is not a lot of time....

Obviously it's subjective, but seem to recall that if one wishes to have a sex change operation, one is obliged to live as that sex for minimum of 2 years as it's a life changing event.

Nothing so final though as death

My old boyfriend was paralysed in an accident, from waist down. He lives a very 'fullfilled' life. Teaches in an able-bodied school, kayaks, bikes etc.

Still thinks his life is shit though. He will have nothing to do with the Spinal Injuries Association as he thinks they are UTTERLY patronising. I'm just waiting for him to email me and rant at there response to how a young man, paralysed from the chest down can have a fullfilling life.

interview with his mother

Very sad, and I don't know what I really feel. It was very soon, and he must have been suffering dreadfully from shock and reactive depression, but for this particular man, whose life was all about movement, then sudden paralysis and endless pain so young would have been a worse torment than for someone like, say Stephen Hawking, who incredibly rich intellectual and inner life must make life more bearable despite massive physical limitations. Also of course Hawking has got to his state gradually, and has children and grandchildren. I remember a policeman who was paralysed who kept trying to kill himself because he could not accept his disability and in the end succeeded.

I don't think anyone who is able-bodied and healthy can tell someone who is terminally ill or wheelchair bound how to live their life.

Needmore coffee wrote, 'It adds to the assumption that being disabled is so awful its better to be dead'

For some people with a disability, it is exactly like that. For my ex, he had the spinal injuries 'club' hovering round him telling how he could be fulfilled by painting and sitting beside a loch on a wheelchair path enjoying the fresh air. 11 years down the line, he says his life is totally unfullfilled and the only glimmers he gets is when he goes kayaking or skiing. But the organisation involved stresses him beyond belief, to the point where he says it's almost not worth it.

it's not up to any opf us to judge that poor bloke. If he wanted to end his life, that's his choice.

nmc is disabled

But everyone is different. Some people love not having kids and shudder at the thought, others have nine and love every minute, and others cannot have kids and are desperate and miserable. While some people adapt brilliantly to disability and live amazing, fulfilling lives full of love and achievement, others are desperate and miserable.

nmc isn't the young man at the centre of the story though. No one can speak for how he felt except his parents and they only know second hand through what he told them. How long do you think he should have been forced to live a life he found intolerable before you think it would have been OK for him to take this step?

I think assisted suicide and euthanasia are 2 completely different things. I would be very uncomfortable with the idea of euthanasia even though I can see situations where it would be preferable to life for the patient. It sounds like the Dutch laws have not been implemented with any degree of restraint (living wills etc? I don't know). Does Switzerland have a similar problem?

2shoes "do you think that a clinic should assist a person to die 18 months after an accident?" no I don't. In fact I don't think that a clinic like this one should be allowed to help someone who is not terminally ill to die.

As I said above, I can understand that some people might find it hard to deal with suddenly becoming disabled, but imo that doesn't justify helping them to kill themselves.

And while often one cannot stop someone killing themselves, there is a vast difference between being unable to stop them doing it and actively helping them to do it.

I think the parents were wrong. And I think they should be prosicuted.

How can we be sure that this man was of sound mind when he asked his parents for support? How can we be sure that the parents helped him to kill himself out of the wish to be supportive, or whether they did so out of the inability to accept him for the person he had become?

So, they should have let him starve himself to death instead?

I don't see the morals involved here as being any different to those involved in abortion TBH.

There are a lot of similarities, people who believe that babies with a disability are of no value and should be killed will no doubt hold similar views towards disabled adults.

The irony of this case is that had he been marginally less disabled, had the use of one arm for example, he could (and would) have killed himself with no assistance.

Unfitmother, this man deemed his own life to be of no value. He made that decision, no one else.

I'm well aware of that.

Yes, his parents didn't force him into this. It was his choice. It's a very, very sad choice, but not murder

there's a difference between letting someone kill themselves, ie not being able to stop them doing it and facilitating the process. If starving himself to death was the only means by which he could end his own life, then so be it.

I don't see why we should say "oh it's so sad, you're unable to kill yourself, here I'll do it for you."

Suicide should never be seen as the easy option. Because the easier you make it the harder it is to look beyond the here and now.

The only exception to this should be

What would any of us do if their child thought their own life had no value?

unfitmother good point. sadly there are a lot of people who believe that, I have just read it on another thread.

course your nanas life has value. You and your family are caring and loving which is valuable to you.
Same as my friends child's life has value. He has almost no brain matter. Totally helpless but the love and caring he brings in those around him are priceless.
You become a better person helping others IMO.
As for not being able to do anything for yourself. big deal. My dd will never do anything for herself yet she has immense value for as long as she lives.

why do people insist on comparing being disabled with dementia? this young man as people keep saying made the desicion to die. so he did not have dementia.
he also did not have a terminal illness.
He was disabled