anyone here have a problem with this?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-M ... icide.html

Montana Judge: Man Has Right to Assisted Suicide

HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- A Montana judge has issued a ruling saying residents of the state have the right to doctor-assisted suicide.

The ruling issued late Friday by state District Court Judge Dorothy McCarter makes Montana only the third state in which doctor-assisted suicide is legal, joining Oregon and Washington state.

The judge said Saturday she ruled in a lawsuit filed by a terminally ill Billings man, four physicians and a nonprofit patients rights group, Compassion & Choices.

McCarter's ruling holds that mentally competent, terminally ill Montanans have a right to obtain medications that can be self-administered to bring about a peaceful death if they find their suffering to be unbearable.

The ruling also says physicians can prescribe such medication without fear of criminal prosecution.

good. no one wants to see their loved ones suffer, i'm sure. if you decide you want to die and this is truly what you want to do then you should be allowed to do so.

I do'nt have a problem with this at all.

It's better than black market suicide.

people will try other ways to kill themselves. more risky ways that may cause harm onto others.

well, we're not talking about assisted suicide non-related to terminal medical condition here are we?

As Sean Connery would say, "Dosh it mattah?"

well, yeah, big difference.

no, it doesn't matter. people die either way.

Let's talk about slippery slopes, shall we?

I think most of us are pretty much on the same page that a terminally ill person should be able to end their life in the manner they choose. But what about people who are suffering who are not "terminally ill". How about people who are mentally ill? They suffer on a daily basis, and may wish to end their suffering rather than to continue living in a mind out of their control for the next 50 years. Will a doctor give that person the drugs necessary to kill himself? Will a doctor be permitted to deny a person who requests the drugs? As it stands today, a mentally ill person who is contemplating suicide can be involuntarily committed to an institution by doctors or family. What if they are found to have a right to kill themselves? Will they be able to be committed?

Fun stuff. Not as simple as we might all like it to be.

don't forget that people tend to suck at killing themselves and often fail

If you fail then you didn't try hard enough.

Well, that is a problem that I think is meant to be addressed by physician assistance.

I thought that was implied

that's the thing, most people that commit suicide (well, pretty much ALL people actually) are mentally ill, at least temporarily. Meaning they're NOT capable of making a rational decision about their lives.
Actually suicidal ideation is the best way, after being a danger to someone else, to get yourself committed.

and the reason many people fail in their attempt at suicide is because they're not really trying to kill themselves i.e. a cry for help, or they're not that rational about it (impulse attempt) because it's really not that hard to do it 'right' (actually cutting your veins, lenghtway, finding a high enough building, for the yanks shooting your brains off.. you'd have to be very unlucky to miss those).

And mental illnesses are often manageable in a lot of different ways, with appropriate help.

the assisted suicide laws are for a very different set of circumstances, were people have objectively no hope and pain that cannot be reasonably alleviated.

Helping people to die that can get better is wrong. Helping them to feel better is what's needed, and it's a physician's job.

actually a lot of the failed attempts are because the people do not want to leave a mangled corpse. (yes, it is true. I have had this pounded in my brain for the past 4 years) People (women especially) are vain about this type of thing and worry about having an open casket funeral and the such.

This is circular logic. A person is considered mentally ill because they have suicidal ideation, so therefore pretty much all people who commit suicide are mentally ill. Cute.

I'm not busting on you personally, just on the psychological community and the culture that it promotes that suicide is a sign of mental illness. Like there aren't damned good, logical reasons for not wanting to stay in this hell of a world.


This is the point I was making in my first post. Mental illness IS manageable in many cases, and treatment can prevent suicides, and that is by and large a good thing. My beef is with the "truism" that suicidal thoughts are evidence of mental illness, and teh result from that logic of confining or drugging people until they no longer want to kill themselves, occasionally because they are simply so zonked that they don't give a shit anymore.

they wouldn't seek help if they really wanted to die

As far as the physician assisted suicide for terminally ill people? It's not really a subject I like to make a decision on. I'm glad I'm not in the position to be for or against or deciding on the laws.

But I can offer a scenario to think about: someone I met once was taken off of life support while suffering from a liver failure. There was no recovery from this. He was mentally stable before he went on life support. I don't believe pulling the plug could be considered killing him against his will.