Discussion What if assisted dying legislation will be abused

[excinephile]

My sudden onset disease that landed me on SaSu instantly converted me into an assisted dying advocate as seems to be the norm on this platform. I haven't really delved into this topic when healthy but vaguely remembered skeptics speaking out about possible dangers of the legalization of VAD.

Yesterday I listened to an interview with the Journalist Ashley Frawley who's critical of Britain's recent move towards legalization and I started to get really angry about her obvious ignorance about the depths of possible suffering people are forced to endure in absence of a secure way to end their lifes. But then the general trajectory of her argument stuck with me.

The gist of it being that the normalization of euthaniza would create a social climate with strong incentives to nudge the elderly, chronically or terminally ill and disabled towards euthaniza because it would literally spare tons of money. She sees it as part of a general trajectory of devaluation of human life.

Here's an article where she expresses these arguments (big trigger warning for everone passionate about this cause):

Keep the Stigma Against Suicide | Ashley Frawley

The stigma served an important function. It reminded us of the value of being human—not just our biological lives, but the unique capacities that make us human.

www.firstthings.com

It may seem like a stretch and this woman is clearly oblivious of the severity of the suffering endured by so many of us. Yet knowing this fucked up society and the reign of neoliberal profit logic I have to admit that she has a point. I can absolutely see a dystopian scenario in which vulnerable populations of people who can't generate profit for society because they are too sick are encouraged to check themselves out for the greater good, even if they wouldn't have chosen that way independently. How can these problems be addressed within a pro choice argument?
As usual the the fact seems to apply that capitalism ruins every big innovation society undergoes and turns it against its own people.

 

[charaunderground]

My sudden onset disease that landed me on SaSu instantly converted me into an assisted dying advocate as seems to be the norm on this platform. I haven't really delved into this topic when healthy but vaguely remembered skeptics speaking out about possible dangers of the legalization of VAD.

Yesterday I listened to an interview with the Journalist Ashley Frawley who's critical of Britain's recent move towards legalization and I started to get really angry about her obvious ignorance about the depths of possible suffering people are forced to endure in absence of a secure way to ens their lifes. But then the general trajectory of her argument stuck with me.

The gist of it being that the normalization of euthaniza would create a social climate with strong incentives to nudge the elderly, chronically or terminally ill and disabled towards euthaniza because it would literally spare tons of money. She sees it as part of a general trajectory of devaluation of human life.

Here's an article where she expresses these arguments (big trigger warning for everone passionate about this cause):

Keep the Stigma Against Suicide | Ashley Frawley

The stigma served an important function. It reminded us of the value of being human—not just our biological lives, but the unique capacities that make us human.

www.firstthings.com

It may seem like a stretch and this woman is clearly oblivious of the severity of the suffering endured by so many of us. Yet knowing this fucked up society and the reign of neoliberal profit logic I have to admit that she has a point. I can absolutely see a dystopian scenario in which vulnerable populations of people who can't generate profit for society because they are too sick are encouraged to check themselves out for the greater good, even if they wouldn't have chosen that way independently. How can these problems be addressed within a pro choice argument?
As usual the the fact seems to apply that capitalism ruins every big innovation society undergoes and turns it against its own people.

I saw an article awhile ago (not sure it's still up), something about how if you're too poor for xyz, you should just euthanize yourself since it's (apparently?) legal there. I think it's awful. Not that it's an option, but "You're poor? Just kill yourself!" is...not good, I think. People should get the right to choose, but it's kind of scummy to be like "if you're too poor for housing / insurance, die" to people who otherwise might want to live.

Not sure if that makes any sense though.

 

[SVEN]

I wouldn't be too concerned about either this Bill passing into law here in the UK very soon, or the death it offers being generally available (even on request whatever your condition).
The whole thrust of governments and administrations nowadays seems to be to remove and restrict access to any easy or gentle means of ctb. They just make it more and more challenging to obtain any comfortable way of sleeping away. Even Bridges & cliffs have high anti jump barriers, CCTV and wardens to deter desperate folk from finding a way to end their misery.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

The thing with any sort of legislation that's in place is that it has a chance to get abused by people. This doesn't just apply to assisted dying, it applies to every single positive liberty right that we have. If you want to argue on the grounds of banning assisted dying because it could be misused, you have to be consistent and claim that everybody should permanently be locked up in a prison cell as that way none of us can abuse the system. But of course they don't apply that sort of logic to other positive liberty rights that we have, they only apply it to assisted dying because they'd rather have people suffer for infinity.

This world is worse off without assisted suicide than with assisted suicide so I think that we absolutely do need assisted suicide in place. It's unfair that we have to suffer in existence for as long as possible until we die anyway.

Besides, if people fear this idea so much, instead of giving us the positive liberty right to get euthanised, the government could instead merely give us the negative liberty right to not restrict suicide methods like nembutal and the sacro pod. That way, those who want to die can just buy nembutal and peacefully end their suffering and there won't be any coercion involved because all that is being allowed is the right to buy a product. We wouldn't need euthanasia in most cases (though of course there may be some edge cases out there where euthanasia could be required) if the government merely treated us adults like adults and stop restricting the painless suicide methods out there

 

[FuneralCry]

No, for me it'd be a relief to be able to access such as personally I could never see any benefit to suffering until old age, I don't see value in being enslaved in this existence capable of suffering to unlimited amounts, to me existence truly is the most horrific, terrible tragedy and I should be able to painlessly die in peace to free myself from the torturous, futile imposition of existence.

The way I see it, there are no disadvantages to being dead yet this existence can get so torturous way beyond how anyone can imagine it to just for one to die in agony from old age anyway. For me ceasing to exist could only ever be something positive, it's suffering prevention in an existence where there's all this endless cruelty and suffering, death is all that's inevitable anyway so I see so much cruelty in how they wish to force others to suffer so unnecessarily no matter what in an existence that was forced in the first place, I'd always prefer to not exist no matter what.

 

[excinephile]

The thing with any sort of legislation that's in place is that it has a chance to get abused by people. This doesn't just apply to assisted dying, it applies to every single positive liberty right that we have. If you want to argue on the grounds of banning assisted dying because it could be misused, you have to be consistent and claim that everybody should permanently be locked up in a prison cell as that way none of us can abuse the system. But of course they don't apply that sort of logic to other positive liberty rights that we have, they only apply it to assisted dying because they'd rather have people suffer for infinity.

This world is worse off without assisted suicide than with assisted suicide so I think that we absolutely do need assisted suicide in place. It's unfair that we have to suffer in existence for as long as possible until we die anyway.

Besides, if people fear this idea so much, instead of giving us the positive liberty right to get euthanised, the government could instead merely give us the negative liberty right to not restrict suicide methods like nembutal and the sacro pod. That way, those who want to die can just buy nembutal and peacefully end their suffering and there won't be any coercion involved because all that is being allowed is the right to buy a product. We wouldn't need euthanasia in most cases (though of course there may be some edge cases out there where euthanasia could be required) if the government merely treated us adults like adults and stop restricting the painless suicide methods out there

Definitely a good point you raise about simply making the relevant methods available. This still would imply that a large group of people who could potentially recover with adequate help would take themselves out. But the lack of instutionally mediated dynamics of coercion definitely makes it a more agreeable prospect.

I'm not entirely sure if I would subscribe to the claim that with the legalization of euthanasia the positives always would outweigh the negatives. After all fascism has been historally know to get rid of ostensibly deviant individuals by those means within a framework of eugenics. Given that the elites to this day are quite attracted to the legacy of that horrible pseudoscience I see a large potential for grievances here. If not in the near future then certainly a few decades ahead when humanitarian and societal standards will further declined.

No, for me it'd be a relief to be able to access such as personally I could never see any benefit to suffering until old age, I don't see value in being enslaved in this existence capable of suffering to unlimited amounts, to me existence truly is the most horrific, terrible tragedy and I should be able to painlessly die in peace to free myself from the torturous, futile imposition of existence.

The way I see it, there are no disadvantages to being dead yet this existence can get so torturous way beyond how anyone can imagine it to just for one to die in agony from old age anyway. For me ceasing to exist could only ever be something positive, it's suffering prevention in an existence where there's all this endless cruelty and suffering, death is all that's inevitable anyway so I see so much cruelty in how they wish to force others to suffer so unnecessarily no matter what in an existence that was forced in the first place, I'd always prefer to not exist no matter what.

Man I get you. I largely share your view of existence but I'm abstracting from my personal perspective to access this situation in a way that meaningfully reflects the real world and the sentiments of 95% of the people living therein. Your bot-like sermons about the innate horror and wrongness of all life just aren't much of an contribution in this regard bc the vast majority of humans will never share that position - as much as advocates for anti-natalism etc. Wish that to be the case.

I saw an article awhile ago (not sure it's still up), something about how if you're too poor for xyz, you should just euthanize yourself since it's (apparently?) legal there. I think it's awful. Not that it's an option, but "You're poor? Just kill yourself!" is...not good, I think. People should get the right to choose, but it's kind of scummy to be like "if you're too poor for housing / insurance, die" to people who otherwise might want to live.

Not sure if that makes any sense though.

Yeah apparently some governments and insurance agencies already state these ideas pretty blatantly which is totally disgusting