Suicide Tourists (tonight on 60 Minutes II)

[Wonk]

Under Swiss law, assisted suicide is legal, as long as nobody profits from a death.

But one Swiss organization is pushing this law to its limits - attracting an increasing number of tourists who want to take their own lives, and raising serious ethical questions about an act most countries forbid. Correspondent Lara Logan reports.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/05/24/60II/main48284.shtml

[KamaAina]

1. OK, I just found the name for my retro-punk band

"Suicide Tourists: The Last Resort Tour '03"!!!

But seriously, folks, this issue has more aspects and nuances than a cat has hair. And not one of those weird Yoda Sphynx cats, either!

http://www.notdeadyet.org/

Since 1983, many people with disabilities have opposed the assisted suicide and euthanasia movement. Though often described as compassionate, legalized medical killing is really about a deadly double standard for people with severe disabilities, including both conditions that are labeled terminal and those that are not.

Disability opposition to this ultimate form of discrimination has been ignored by most media and courts, but countless people with disabilities have already died before their time. For some, a disabled person’s suicidal cry for help" was ignored, misinterpreted, or even exploited by the right to die movement. For others, death came at the request of a family member or other health care surrogate. This is not compassion, it’s contempt.

[DemBones DemBones]

2. DUers need to know about Not Dead Yet -- thanks!

"Assisted suicide" is a threat to the disabled, like "mercy killing."

[THUNDER HANDS]

3. I disagree

I support assisted suicide, I think people should be free depart this world whenever they see fit.

I think the Not Dead Yet folks just want to impart their feelings on the rest of people with disabilities.

People should have a choice. Not everyone in America, I'd imagine, likes the idea of living life (or knowing a family member who is) as a pseudo-vegetable.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. Not Dead Yet is saying that disabled people can still have good

lives and that no one should be suggesting to the disabled that we have no reason to live. Your idea of "a pseudo-vegetable" having a choice is ludicrous. A pseudo-vegetable would be someone in a persistent coma and the comatose are not known for communicating their wishes. I disagree that the family should be able to order a person's death if the person has not previously signed a living will. People do emerge from comas after years have passed and no one can really predict whether this will happen in a particular case. I can, however, predict that those who are taken off respirators, allowed to starve, etc., will die and lose any chance at recovery from their comatose state.

Advocating death for the disabled (i.e. "nonproductive") is a strategy of ultra-right-wing people who adopt the greed is good, money is God philosophy. Assisted suicide for the terminally ill is a step down the slippery slope toward deliberately killing the disabled. Already you're willing to call some people "pseudo-vegetables," suggesting that their lives have no value. Initially, legalized abortion was advocated for reasons of health only -- to preserve the life or health of the mother or to eliminate a defective fetus. Experience suggests that assisted suicide advocates will broaden its target range, too.

[KamaAina]

16. Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

Initially, legalized abortion was advocated for reasons of health only -- to preserve the life or health of the mother or to eliminate a defective fetus. Experience suggests that assisted suicide advocates will broaden its target range, too.

Linking the assisted suicide debate to the abortion issue is a favored tactic of the far right. Straight from the horse's ass, uh, mouth :-), Dr. James Dobson himself:

http://www.family.org/docstudy/solid/a0006701.html

...a lugubrious story about "assisted suicide on demand" concludes with...Diane's mother gets the clinic administrator on the line, who says, "I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Johnson, we were just getting ready to call you. I know this will be hard for you, but please sit down. Diane came in this afternoon and asked to be assisted in her passing. You may know that she had been very depressed about her grades and because of the rejection letter she received from the state university. Then when her boyfriend let her down ... well, she just didn't want to go on living. And as you know, `right to die' laws now apply to every adult eighteen years old and over.

"Try to understand that this is what Diane most wanted. It was her choice, and she is entitled to control her own body. I assure you she was very peaceful as she left us, and her last words were an expression of love for her family."205 Does that story seem too far-fetched to be credible? Perhaps. But who would have thought in 1950 that we would soon be filling garbage bags with perfectly formed premature babies who were mangled or burned to death with salt? Could we have imagined that nearly forty million of those precious children would be torn from their mothers' wombs?

And we wonder why the assisted suicide debate so often sinks into the nasty, vituperative sniping we're so used to on the subject of abortion. It's because the far right wants it that way.

Edit: Ooooh, James Dobson makes me so mad, I can't even keep my italics brackets straight!

[Wonk]

4. What if they're of sound mind and tortured terminally ill body?

In a way this is another "pro-choice" vs "anti-choice" issue, if you think about it. Should we force people to extend their suffering as long as possible? Who does that benefit?

http://www.deathwithdignity.org/

[KamaAina]

6. Some hard data from Oregon, the only U.S. state with assisted suicide

Oregon's Death with Dignity Act requires the Oregon Health Division to publish an annual report on its use.

http://www.ohd.hr.state.or.us/chs/pas/arresult.cfm#concerns

The most frequently reported concerns included losing autonomy (84%), a decreasing ability to participate in activities that make life enjoyable (84%), and losing control of bodily functions (47%). -- in other words, acquiring a disability as a result of the illness.

Huh? Where's "unmanageable pain"? Isn't that the one most often put forth by proponents of assisted suicide?

http://www.ohd.hr.state.or.us/chs/pas/ar-tbl-3.cfm

Oh, right, it's down at 26 percent, below even "burden on family, friends/caregivers".

[Wonk]

9. Just so we're clear here, you're on Ashcroft's side on this issue?

IYHO, it should be banned completely?

[DemBones DemBones]

10. I haven't heard Ashcroft express concern that disabled people are

being coerced into killing themselves :shrug:

I think, though, that you're just trying to smear Not Dead Yet and those of us who agree with them (and Kama Aina and I ARE disabled, BTW) by saying we're "on Ashcroft's side."

For the record, we are on the side of disabled people.

[Wonk]

11. Are you on the side of disabled people who've had enough and want out? nt

[DemBones DemBones]

17. Had enough of what? It's not really pain that people fear (see

Kama Aina's post above) but quality of life issues. Our society could do much better by the disabled. No one should have to feel that death is preferable to living in this country.

[Pastiche423]

20. Whoa baby let me step in here

As most people here know, I am disabled. I live in Oregon where twice Oregonians have voted for Death w/Dignity. And twice asscroft has stuck his stinking ass into our state's rights. We are suppose to learn the decision late summer on rather or not he will leave us the fuck alone.

Our Death w/Dignity law has many precautions and rules. A person must be terminal, must see two shrinks and their diagnoses must be confirmed by two doctors. There are others, but I don't feel like looking them up right now.

Since we are the only (?) state w/an assisted suicide law, I, for the life of me, can't figure out what Not Dead Yet is so hot about.

I live w/pain twenty four hours a day. And when my illness gets to the point I qualify, I'll be damned if someone tells me I can't exit when I want and need to. Life w/that kind of pain is NOT LIFE!

So to answer your question, Wonk, yes I am on that side.

[KamaAina]

12. I have indeed struggled mightily with this paradox

Last year, I attended a seminar about the issue (which was then before the Hawai'i legislature) -- sponsored by Hawai'i Family Forum, the local cat's-paw for Focus on the Family!!

A well-known and respected national disability activist, based in Berkeley, for crying out loud, traveled here, helped arrange the dinner, and was working closely with HFF to stop the bill! "Madeline (not her real name)," I said, "doesn't it bother you that you're working alongside Focus on the Family, of all people?" Turns out she truly believes it is possible to form a single-issue coalition on an issue like this with the Dark Side.

I told you this got complex: Some of the earliest support for the disability rights movement came from the lesbian community, courtesy of the Sharon Kowalski case in Minnesota, in which a woman was denied the right to visit her partner in the hospital, where she was recuperating from a disabling injury. And, of course, we all know how Focus on the Family feels about lesbians!

"So, Madeline (again, not her real name :-) ), what would you tell a lesbian activist who asked you why you were working with Focus on the Family?" "Well, I'd say that we were working together on this one issue blah blah blah...", which I found entirely unsatisfactory, coming from a high-powered Berkeley activist who is, in all other respects, One of Us.

[Aaron]

21. They should to leave Oregon alone - They and Ashcroft both (n/t)

.

[Wonk]

5. On now (kick)

[Wonk]

15. mp3 for those who missed it

3 M

[Wonk]

19. quicktime

40 M

[KG]

7. well, it's happening in Switzerland

not a whole lot we can do about it. :shrug:

[DemBones DemBones]

14. We can stop it from happening here. eom

*

[ldf]

18. i wish you the best of luck in making sure it never happens to you

but i plan on making the decision myself. NO ONE ELSE will have any imput. period. end of debate.

it is like abortion, in a sense. outlaw abortions and you have the horror of the backalley option.

make sure competent people who opt to exit "gracefully", can't, and they end up doing it "not so gracefully". messy. for them and the families involved. it is so uplifting to find a loved one with their brains splattered all over the wall.

or better yet, force them to continue in a living hell, because that is what it is to them.

there are people who are able to make the decision.

plus, the arguement that it will end in wholesale slaughter of segments of society is a HUGE leap.

i'm an atheist, so the religion angle is irrelevant.

[ShaneGR]

8. A nice relaxing vacation that lasts FOREVER

nt