Assisted Suicide: A Very Slippery Slope

Posted: 8/17/2018  Update: 9/10/2018

Update Of 9/10/2018

Today, I read this comment (The Ugly Culture Legalizing Physician-Assisted Suicide Would Create), which made a number of excellent points I would like to add here and more.

Some salient quotes from above article (emphasis added):

1. “... we all play a role in counseling and protecting the sick, the weak, and the elderly, whatever their background or circumstances ...”
2. “For one, physician-assisted suicide sets up arbitrary guidelines about who receives suicide prevention and who receives suicide assistance.”
3. “Contrary to the prevalent myth that physician-assisted suicide is mainly an option for those in excruciating pain, studies suggest that the leading cause of physician-assisted suicide is not pain, but existential distress.”
   [Often existential distress is only temporary and can be overcome.]
4. “When physician-assisted suicide is on the table, so too are less-than-pure motives to choose—or pressure someone to choose—death over life.”
   [What about e.g. those relatives who would like to inherit your estate?]
5. “Family members may be increasingly tempted to think that suicide is what sick or elderly relatives “would have wanted” when facing down the emotional and financial toll of caring for others.”
6. “Patients might think themselves “better off dead” when accounting for the toll that additional medical care might take on their families.”
7. “Patients might withhold information from their doctors for fear they will be counseled to take their own lives.”
8. “So-called legal “safeguards” are gravely insufficient to protect against these negative social trends. Waiting periods, written requests, sign-offs from physicians—none of these requirements remove the pressure on patients to kill themselves or protect against other forms of abuse.”
9. “Life is treated as disposable, which helps explain why many European countries that have legalized physician-assisted suicide now have expanded into non-voluntary euthanasia.”
10. “The U.S. is hardly safe from these dangerous trends. Thus far, six states have legalized physician-assisted suicide.”

Physicians are neither angels nor saints. A doctor who feels good about assisted suicide will help anyone asking for it. Some doctor even delight at the opportunity to shorten someone’s life who they think might be a burden to society or if they have homicidal inclinations (not unheard of).

Trigger

Just read this disturbing article: ORGANIZED DEATH IN THE NETHERLANDS When “the time is right” for assisted suicide. This article goes far beyond the Netherlands. Apparently, the number of countries that allow for physician assisted suicide (active or passive) has increased from a few to a dozen or so.

Two Sides Of The Issue

As with most other major societal and civilizational issues, there are at least two issues regarding this topic in conflict with each other:

1. The individual’s right to end one’s own live if e.g. the individual is terminally ill and greatly suffering with no reasonable hope of improvement
2. To protect the weak or ill individuals from being eliminated

A Very Slippery Slope

I would argue that assisted suicide is generally a violation of the Hippocratic Oath taken by each doctor. This should never be taken lightly. Whether passive assistance (e.g. providing the pill, but not administering a pill) is sufficient is debatable.

As the article above points out, assisted suicides have quite likely been used to get rid of mentally ill individuals or other individuals, whose life was not appreciated.

More Safeguards Necessary

Clearly more safeguards are urgently necessary to prevent the elimination of unwanted individuals through legal courts or medical regulations etc.