Deaf Twins Euthanised In Belgium

[Sixshells]

If the premise here is that we trust people's own judgment on their own right to life, it seems perverse to then question their emotional state regarding their decision to become organ donors. We accept that someone is of sane and steady mind to make a decision about ending their own life, but not regarding organ donation? That does not seem quite consistent to me.

These are two big life decisions and two important decisions. I don't think it's far fetched to fear that while someone spent a great deal of time to decide to end their lives they might not necessarily have devoted as much attention to the question of organ donation. As such they become more at risk of being influenced or pushed into it by the fact the forms were given together even though they are completely different issues. Just because I am of sound mind at moment T doesn't mean I'm impervious to all sorts of manipulations or influences of all sorts on annex matters even though I am also able to take carfefully thought out life decisions.

Giving the two forms together is, IMO, bad form. It informally ties organ donation and euthanasia even though they are unrelated issues. Consider also the following scenario: a person who chooses euthanasia, who had already chosen not to give her organs, may be feeling pressure to donate her organs upon seeing the form with the euthanasia consent form. She confirms she won't donate, as is her right, but has been pressured to do it and maybe even made feel ungenerous, etc. Isn't that going against her dying in dignity?

[Robin Of House Hill]

They are hardly taken advantage of, they get the choice "assisted suicide & organ donation" or not getting assisted suicide. I they want the first, they have to accept the second.

My main concern with legal euthanasia is not those that elect to die, but those that have to perform the euthanasia. If euthanasia becomes legal, does all MDs have a legal obligation to perform euthanasia?

The idea of such a "package plan" is simply wrong. It is nothing more than extortion. Your last sentence has no historical basis. Do you know of any jurisdiction where abortions are legal, where doctors are required to perform them?

[Seli]

...

My main concern with legal euthanasia is not those that elect to die, but those that have to perform the euthanasia. If euthanasia becomes legal, does all MDs have a legal obligation to perform euthanasia?

Depends on the legislation of course, I would say a sensible legislation would not force them. What you are asking them to do is where 'do no harm' crosses 'take care of patient', and that cross-point is different for all people.

[Fragile Bird]

Well, it's one way to reduce future medical costs. And of course, to get rid of people who have no social utility. Deaf and blind. Fuck em.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Well, it's one way to reduce future medical costs. And of course, to get rid of people who have no social utility. Deaf and blind. Fuck em.

On the contrary, I find that you really say "fuck em" to people when you don't respect their wishes as autonomous human beings with a right to control their own bodies.

Clearly, this is an issue you feel strongly about, but I would encourage you to look at and assess the actual arguments that people are making in support of, and in opposition to, doctor assisted euthanasia in this thread. People are not saying blind and deaf people are worthless, or have no utility or can't find meaning and happiness in their own lives. People ARE saying, though, that ultimately, individuals have a right to control their own destinies that includes decisions about whether to continue living or not.

[Castel]

I just find it odd that you can legally get suicide but not oral sex.

eta: By "odd" I mean "batshit insane".

Well, as I said, it's not the same. Not everyone can get suicide. It's limited to the terminally ill or people suffering extreme anguish. Anyone would be able to get a sex worker. I don't know, it just seems that there's a difference between providing a humane end and letting some 12 year old have sex in a brothel without being a hypocrite.

Not that it's relevant here at all because prostitution is legal in Belgium.

My main concern with legal euthanasia is not those that elect to die, but those that have to perform the euthanasia. If euthanasia becomes legal, does all MDs have a legal obligation to perform euthanasia?

According to the Belgians: no. Doctors simply refer patients they don't want to euthanize to another doctor. Seems like a simple fix.

Clearly, this is an issue you feel strongly about, but I would encourage you to look at and assess the actual arguments that people are making in support of, and in opposition to, doctor assisted euthanasia in this thread. People are not saying blind and deaf people are worthless, or have no utility or can't find meaning and happiness in their own lives. People ARE saying, though, that ultimately, individuals have a right to control their own destinies that includes decisions about whether to continue living or not.

This. We seem to be talking over each other or discussing something other than this Belgian case or even the principle.

[Sci-2]

People ARE saying, though, that ultimately, individuals have a right to control their own destinies that includes decisions about whether to continue living or not.

Yeah, it's hard to not think of bodily autonomy as an important right, and easy to think of it when the stances are easy.

But what happens when the kid who wanted an abortion without parental consent wants to commit suicide without parental consent?

Hell, what if they want to get skull tattoo on their face? [Or take growth hormones? Or get plastic surgery?]

It's actually hard to decide what the right answer is, as the more caveats we introduce to bodily autonomy the more we infringe on a person. OTOH, surely at some point there is a responsibility for others to intervene?

[Fragile Bird]

I am actually being a little flippant there. Or more than a little flippant. I have no problem with seriously ill people making a decision to end their lives. I am however very suspicious of the fact that after 5,500 suicides no decision has ever been reviewed by the police. Pardon me for suspecting that once the decision is made by a person to kill themselves the file is closed, no matter what "safeguards" are in place. I have read articles written by reporters who were given permission to attend the meetings between the person who wants to die and the official responsible for the interview, and there isn't a hell of a lot to it. I do have a suspicion that the attitude has come down to a matter of, if you want to die, go ahead and kill yourself. I'm not deaf or blind, I have no family members who are deaf or blind, but I'm willing to believe the decision shocks and offends many of the societies for the deaf, or the blind, or the deaf and blind, around the world.

It's like the attitude expressed by many people in the gun thread - how dare you include the 30,000 people who kill themselves every year in the gun death statistics, they aren't gun deaths, they're suicides.

[Castel]

I am actually being a little flippant there. Or more than a little flippant. I have no problem with seriously ill people making a decision to end their lives. I am however very suspicious of the fact that after 5,500 suicides no decision has ever been reviewed by the police. Pardon me for suspecting that once the decision is made by a person to kill themselves the file is closed, no matter what "safeguards" are in place. I have read articles written by reporters who were given permission to attend the meetings between the person who wants to die and the official responsible for the interview, and there isn't a hell of a lot to it. I do have a suspicion that the attitude has come down to a matter of, if you want to die, go ahead and kill yourself. I'm not deaf or blind, I have no family members who are deaf or blind, but I'm willing to believe the decision shocks and offends many of the societies for the deaf, or the blind, or the deaf and blind, around the world.

It's like the attitude expressed by many people in the gun thread - how dare you include the 30,000 people who kill themselves every year in the gun death statistics, they aren't gun deaths, they're suicides.

Are these articles in English? What type of people were killing themselves? What kind of illnesses did they have?

[Fragile Bird]

Castel, there have been numerous articles in the Canadian press about the way the right-to-suicide laws work in Europe, usually every time a high profile case comes up with an eloquent and tragic spokesperson, Whether or not you can find them on the internet, I don't know. However, you are very likely to see a spate of them, now that Quebec has decided to try and craft a death with dignity law.

[Castel]

Castel, there have been numerous articles in the Canadian press about the way the right-to-suicide laws work in Europe, usually every time a high profile case comes up with an eloquent and tragic spokesperson, Whether or not you can find them on the internet, I don't know. However, you are very likely to see a spate of them, now that Quebec has decided to try and craft a death with dignity law.

Oh, finding articles on the issue is no problem. However as you say the ones that I see are about tragic and eloquent people seeking death, which doesn't really speak to your complaint. I assumed that there was some particularly egregious case that you saw, and I thought I'd ask before going to google with something so vague as "euthanasia in europe", especially since this incident will be prioritized above older stories.

Because in terms of stories like this, there being "nothing to it" is...not a negative for everyone. If we were talking about people who were simply depressed, that would be a much bigger issue.

I'm not deaf or blind, I have no family members who are deaf or blind, but I'm willing to believe the decision shocks and offends many of the societies for the deaf, or the blind, or the deaf and blind, around the world.

I'd like to come back to this: why would they be offended? It's not really their concern now is it? This is not saying that deaf and/or blind people cannot live a happy life, it's saying that this one pair of deaf and blind people didn't want to try.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Yeah, it's hard to not think of bodily autonomy as an important right, and easy to think of it when the stances are easy.

But what happens when the kid who wanted an abortion without parental consent wants to commit suicide without parental consent?

Hell, what if they want to get skull tattoo on their face? [Or take growth hormones? Or get plastic surgery?]

It's actually hard to decide what the right answer is, as the more caveats we introduce to bodily autonomy the more we infringe on a person. OTOH, surely at some point there is a responsibility for others to intervene?

Why focus entirely on situations involving minors? I don't think the fact that we have separate rules for minors impacts how we view bodily autonomy for adults.

[Sci-2]

Why focus entirely on situations involving minors? I don't think the fact that we have separate rules for minors impacts how we view bodily autonomy for adults.

Oh, I was thinking of hardest cases to support even if you support the idea of bodily autonomy.

But yeah, we could go back to the argument over right to sell organs, or any number of problematic cases.

[Fragile Bird]

@Castel

People who have handicaps face considerable issues, one of the big ones being a very commonly expressed opinion of "why would you let a child like that live?" See Sivin's response upthread. Societal attitudes have historically been along the lines of, if it can't survive on it's own, why let it live. Amazingly enough, a lot of people with multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis or Down's Syndrome love their lives, imperfect as they are. I suspect there are many people who are both blind and deaf who are also very happy to be alive. Whenever a story comes out along the lines of these Belgian twins (and I can only say, along the lines, because I don't think I have ever seen anything like this before) the handicapped say they feel the pressure on themselves.

I consider the story incredibly sad and tragic.

With regard to the reporters' stories on euthanasia, I remember a number of them being struck by how little was actually done in terms of determining whether or not the decision was appropriate. IIRC, one was about an older women who said she had simply lost the desire to live, and that was enough. Hey, who needs lonely old people, right?

[Sci-2]

Hey, who needs lonely old people, right?

This sort of goes back to Ser Scot's whole idea of making someone else a Helen Keller -> Do you plan to visit and befriend these people? How many will you befriend? Should you forgo X, Y, Z to donate to organizations that care and support the lonely and the disabled?

The other side is just as crazy of course, the idea that society can simply let people fall through without any regard. Is the principle of bodily autonomy the easy way out, the way that allows one to disregard any sense of responsibility towards those often ignored or put down?

[Ravenhair]

I am incredulous that there are those who think that the people who have posted on this thread supporting a right to die are somehow saying all people with disabilities should die. No one has said that. There are certainly countless disabled humans who have deep and fulfilling lives, including one of my own family members who lost sight in one eye at an young age and who, to me, is the living embodiment of courage in the face of adversity. I am, therefore, in no way advocating that people with disabilities should be routinely euthanized or some such atrocity. What I do support is people having the right to end their lives when faced with what they consider to be a situation where they no longer wish to live. These twins had been deaf, were going blind, and decided they did not want their lives to continue under such circumstances. Are people seriously advocating they should have restrained in some fashion and forced to live? That, to me, would have been a true horror, in direct violation of these men's rights as human beings.

[TrackerNeil]

IIRC, one was about an older women who said she had simply lost the desire to live, and that was enough. Hey, who needs lonely old people, right?

I don't recall anything in that article that suggests that euthanasia is a standard recommendation to old people, or to anyone else. So I don't understand that remark.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

Deaf and Blind? I'd fucking kill myself, that's no quality of life I'd want to have. I mean, seriously? What are they supposed to do with their lives at that point? Learn to read braille and discuss it with each other via tapping morse code on each others' heads?

I'm not so sure I'd want to live like that either. I might be able to tolerate going deaf but losing my sight is something I could not deal with.

[Howdyphillip]

. Are people seriously advocating they should have restrained in some fashion and forced to live?

No... I am not advocating that these people be restrained and forced to live, but I am saying that their reasons for suicide would make it impossible for me to assist them. I also find it morally reprehensible that someone actually did.

I can completely understand and support euthanasia in cases where the person is in pain and there is no hope of that subsiding. This decision was not about that.

[Res ipsa loquitur]

Well arguably the suicide of these twins was a result of a mental disorder. The reason cited was being unable to bear the thought of not being able to see one another. Another description for that mental state could be depression. There's not many cases where people want to kill themselves that don't involve some sort of treatable emotional or psychological disorder. These guys could have been worked throught he transition to blindness and they may have come out of it with a reasonable and happy life.

Having a terminal illness and being in intractable physical pain would be one of the few circumstances that would qualify for euthanasia in Anti-targistan.

ViniS,

Yeah, Helen Keller, WTF was she thinking leading a full and rich life?

Therapy? What therapy or counseling would restore their ability to communicate? Blind and deaf as adults, they really would be locked in their bodies, a horrid prison from which there is no escape. Kids born blind and deaf , or who become so in very early childhood, do not know any differently, and so do adapt, as thats the only life theyve known. Its very different than depriving an adult of two of the five senses.

Oh, I'm not 100% sure they shouldn't, but I think it gets into dangerous territory where caregivers can recommend suicide to someone and then harvest their organs.

Of course there are good arguments the other way, that if a person can be talked into suicide then it must be something they've considered and so on.

They are hardly taken advantage of, they get the choice "assisted suicide & organ donation" or not getting assisted suicide. I they want the first, they have to accept the second.

My main concern with legal euthanasia is not those that elect to die, but those that have to perform the euthanasia. If euthanasia becomes legal, does all MDs have a legal obligation to perform euthanasia?

The idea of such a "package plan" is simply wrong. It is nothing more than extortion. Your last sentence has no historical basis. Do you know of any jurisdiction where abortions are legal, where doctors are required to perform them?

That is a concern. To make an analogy, certainly not all MDs do abortions, as not all MDs are OBGYNs. And of the subset of OBGYNS, not all of them do abortions. Based on that, I do not believe doctors would be forced to euthanize. However, there is an issue with providers being forced to dispense medication with which they morally disapprove, (like Plan B/ Morning After Pill and or Birth Control Pills) so I suppose there is some risk of that. But I do think its rather a low probability.

As for organ donation/ harvesting....I do not see the concerns you have. Suicide is by default pretty selfish, so I hardly think they will care if someone thinks they are a bit more. Not all selfishness is wrong or bad, though, and I do not at all believe a persons selfish choice to commit suicide rather than live in agony or suffering is a bad or wrong choice in the slightest. It is a choice I support as I support a persons rights to their own life...that means they also have the right to end it; it is theirs.

Well, it's one way to reduce future medical costs. And of course, to get rid of people who have no social utility. Deaf and blind. Fuck em.

I am actually being a little flippant there. Or more than a little flippant. I have no problem with seriously ill people making a decision to end their lives. I am however very suspicious of the fact that after 5,500 suicides no decision has ever been reviewed by the police. Pardon me for suspecting that once the decision is made by a person to kill themselves the file is closed, no matter what "safeguards" are in place. I have read articles written by reporters who were given permission to attend the meetings between the person who wants to die and the official responsible for the interview, and there isn't a hell of a lot to it. I do have a suspicion that the attitude has come down to a matter of, if you want to die, go ahead and kill yourself. I'm not deaf or blind, I have no family members who are deaf or blind, but I'm willing to believe the decision shocks and offends many of the societies for the deaf, or the blind, or the deaf and blind, around the world.

It's like the attitude expressed by many people in the gun thread - how dare you include the 30,000 people who kill themselves every year in the gun death statistics, they aren't gun deaths, they're suicides.

I approach this from two vantage points. One is as a nurse, the other is as a cripple myself (cerebral palsy). The arguments are similar and intertwined. And, Fragile Bird, I feel absolutely no pressure to off myself because someone else believes their crippling condition is not one with which they can live. Societies for the deaf and blind are wrong to condemn these twins choices. They are not saying to KILL people with sight and sound impairments. The twins are saying that they find their own lives unlivable being BOTH blind and deaf as adults. I can understand that, and even if I did not agree, I should not force others to live a life they hate for my convienence. Lets say a dancer, athlete, or someone with grace and dexterity suddenly found themselves with a condition that gave them my very sub par level of coordination and dexterity. I could well understand how someone who once could move through the world with ease and now was a clumsy klutz could wish death rather than a life like that. And it does not matter that I myself love my life and enjoy it; their wishes would be relevant, not how I view myself.

So yes, as the 30,000 who kill themselves with guns should not be counted in gun violenceas they CHOSE that for themselves, these twins as well CHOSE their own death. It was not forced upon them by people thinking they are unfit, rejects, or anything else pejorative.

I as an RN think that if a person has a disabling condition, or in terminal pain, or end stage illness from which there is no cure and no decent mitigating factors, and can not possibly face life with the condition, it should be their right to die as they wish because their life is their own. As I respect the life of the one living it, that person has, I believe, the right to end their own life.