Religious liberty/Right to Free Exercise of religious faith and legalized suicide

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

15 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

Of course.

Provided it's still a suicide.

it's problematic that you are using 'suicide' and 'sacrifice' interchangeably.

If you consent to be a human sacrifice is it not coextensive with suicide?

[Swordfish]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If you consent to be a human sacrifice is it not coextensive with suicide?

Suicide is killing yourself.

Being sacrificed is being killed by someone else in some kind of ritual.

Consent or no consent, they are not the same thing.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

Suicide is killing yourself.

Being sacrificed is being killed by someone else in some kind of ritual.

Consent or no consent, they are not the same thing.

 

Then by this definition "assisted suicide" is not suicide.

[sologdin]

acquiescence in homicide as distinguishable from assisted suicide, maybe?  the former involves someone asking me if it's okay for them to kill me, to which i consent, whereas the latter is me asking someone else to kill me, in which they consent?  the actus reus stays in the same place, but the mens rea shifts, at least in who initiates the conspiracy to commit consensual homicide?  that's legally significant, no?

[Swordfish]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Then by this definition "assisted suicide" is not suicide.

Sorry Scot, but assisted suicide is not the same as ritualistic killing.

 

[Gears of the Beast]

If you define suicide as the act of killing yourself then 'assisted suicide' is not suicide, it's a form of consensual homicide. 

[sologdin]

we might however develop elaborate techniques for assisted suicide, an imposing edifice of foucauldian discursive regularities that exercise disciplinary mechanisms upon the assistor and the assistee, enmeshing them mutually in readily foreknowable pouvoir-savoir relations that disseminate through medico-legal discourses that oversee 'assistance.'  in that sense, it will be a ritualistic killing, partaking of the normal bataillean accursed share significance, though perhaps emptied of theological import.

[Swordfish]

17 hours ago, Gears of the Beast said:

If you define suicide as the act of killing yourself then 'assisted suicide' is not suicide, it's a form of consensual homicide. 

To be clear, I'm perfectly fine with consenting to being killed, regardless of the circumstances, provided everyone is consenting.  (Not suicide by cop, for example)

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Its splitting hairs in the sense that the end result is the same. But if a distinction is to be made i'd probably describe or think of it in terms as however we might differentiate a martyr and a suicide. Martyr, self sacrifice, suicide all close kin but they could be slightly differentiated. Of course then with suicide alone you have the extra descriptor of personal or assisted. You can see pretty quickly it all gets a bit convoluted.

[Swordfish]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Its splitting hairs in the sense that the end result is the same. But if a distinction is to be made i'd probably describe or think of it in terms as however we might differentiate a martyr and a suicide. Martyr, self sacrifice, suicide all close kin but they could be slightly differentiated. Of course then with suicide alone you have the extra descriptor of personal or assisted. You can see pretty quickly it all gets a bit convoluted.

It's not really that convoluted at all actually.

I have the right to end my life at any time I choose, provided I don;t infringe upon the rights of others while I'm doing it.

It is, after all, my life.

Ritual sacrifice is something completely different, by definition.

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 hours ago, Swordfish said:

It's not really that convoluted at all actually.

I have the right to end my life at any time I choose, provided I don;t infringe upon the rights of others while I'm doing it.

It is, after all, my life.

Ritual sacrifice is something completely different, by definition.

 

 

By that logic you can chose to have your life ended by ritual sacrifice.  Else your complete freedom to end your life is limited.

[Gears of the Beast]

6 hours ago, Swordfish said:

To be clear, I'm perfectly fine with consenting to being killed, regardless of the circumstances, provided everyone is consenting.  (Not suicide by cop, for example)

 

So am I and I also think there's a meaningful distinction between ritual killing and euthanasia but I would say they both fall under consensual homicide.  

edit: well I guess now that I've used the word euthanasia I have to admit that it could also happen without consent of the person getting killed, that's what I get for being a pedant. 

[Swordfish]

26 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

By that logic you can chose to have your life ended by ritual sacrifice.  Else your complete freedom to end your life is limited.

 

Most assuredly.  I said as much in my initial post.

 

 

[Stubby]

1 hour ago, Gears of the Beast said:

So am I and I also think there's a meaningful distinction between ritual killing and euthanasia but I would say they both fall under consensual homicide.  

edit: well I guess now that I've used the word euthanasia I have to admit that it could also happen without consent of the person getting killed, that's what I get for being a pedant. 

But that's the mistake opponents of voluntary euthanasia want you to make.  Insert the word "voluntary" in front of euthanasia and there should no longer be any suggestion of the death happening without consent.

A large proportion of the arguments I have read opposing voluntary euthanasia simply omit the word "voluntary" and rail at the strawman.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm resurrecting this thread because I had an interesting realization about my opposition to assisted suicide.  I watched "Me Before You" over the weekend and finished the movie absolutely enraged about the character's choice to euthanize himself rather than attempt a life with a severe disability.  

I saw him as abandoning Emilia Clarke's character.  I have "abandonment" issues and I'd never realized that I see suicide as abanding the people who are close to the person who chooses suicide.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Oh FFS (that seems to be all I'm typing these days).  Didn't realize this was an old thread.  I read it, and was very excited to read posts from solo and nestorm'sluvkid, and then saddened when I realized they were from a year ago.

[Xray the Enforcer]

The Board giveth and it taketh away

[The Anti-Targ]

6 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm resurrecting this thread because I had an interesting realization about my opposition to assisted suicide.  I watched "Me Before You" over the weekend and finished the movie absolutely enraged about the character's choice to euthanize himself rather than attempt a life with a severe disability.  

I saw him as abandoning Emilia Clarke's character.  I have "abandonment" issues and I'd never realized that I see suicide as abanding the people who are close to the person who chooses suicide.

Suicide is often a selfish act totally without thought for the effect on other people, and a sense of abandonment can be extremely strong, and pretty well justified, as is anger towards the person. Then there is the situation where it is clear to everyone who knows and cares for the person that death is a mercy for all concerned, in those situations there's no abandonment, no anger, just relief.

Then there's the grey area. The person is suffering from some significant disability and feels like it's all too much and too much suffering, but the friends and family see that there is a chance at a reasonable quality of life and want that person to keep on living.

Then there's the dark area, where "friends" and family see a disabled person as an unwanted burden and an anchor and they want that person to decide to die.

I'm personally conflicted about euthanasia for terminal people. But aside from that I am opposed to any other legal allowance for suicide. And in the end I think the chances of too many terminal or severely disabled people being pressured into killing themselves makes me lean towards not supporting euthenasia. I dunno if there can be some kind of halfway house where people who have assisted someone who is terminal to die would be acting unlawfully but would not be subject to a homocide charge or face a prison sentence.

[Stubby]

I think it's important to remember that when we are talking about euthanasia for persons with terminal or other illnesses/disabilities we must remember that it is voluntary euthanasia under discussion. Opponents often omit the voluntary component - making it seem that there is some aspect of the process that is involuntary.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 hours ago, Stubby said:

I think it's important to remember that when we are talking about euthanasia for persons with terminal or other illnesses/disabilities we must remember that it is voluntary euthanasia under discussion. Opponents often omit the voluntary component - making it seem that there is some aspect of the process that is involuntary.

Stubby,

I appreciate what you are saying but are you really going to suggest that it isn't possible to have a situation where someone with significant disabilities is pressured into euthanasia?  Where guilt is used as a weapon to create the appearance of voluntary action?

My wife, who un addition to having her JD has her masters in medical ethics supports very limited voluntary euthanasia but says what gives her pause is situations where there is the appearance of "voluntarily" action but what has been done is not truely voluntary that it is just all the proper boxes being checked.  

TAT,

You've layed out my problems with euthanasia.  I would have huge problems with a member of my family choosing euthanasia but I recognize those would be my problems.  I would never ever encourage someone to make such a choice.