Terry Pratchett calls for Death Panels

[Graham Kennedy]

Link

The author Sir Terry Pratchett is calling for euthanasia tribunals to give sufferers from incurable diseases the right to medical help to end their lives.

Pratchett will insist in his Dimbleby lecture, to be broadcast tonight, that "the time is really coming" for legalising assisted death.

Two polls published today back his views. Of more than 1,000 people interviewed for a BBC Panorama programme, 73% believed friends or relatives should be able to assist the suicide of a terminally ill loved one. A YouGov poll of 2,053 people for the Telegraph produced even stronger support, with 80% saying that relatives should not be prosecuted, and 75% backing a change in the law.

Pratchett, author of the bestselling Discworld fantasy novels, was diagnosed two years ago with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's disease - a discovery he memorably described, when he broke the news on the Discworld News website, as "an embuggerance".

[Tyyr]

I don't believe in suicide but I still find it hard to feel any malice towards those who help someone commit suicide when they're terminally ill.

[sunnyside]

My opinion? Someone should set up extreme sports for the eldarly. Like wheelchair parachuting, cheap F1 type racing and such. No reason you couldn't get something like that to work. Sign a liability waiver and a do not resucitate form and the results are that you live awesome or die trying.

[Nickswitz]

My opinion? Someone should set up extreme sports for the eldarly. Like wheelchair parachuting, cheap F1 type racing and such. No reason you couldn't get something like that to work. Sign a liability waiver and a do not resucitate form and the results are that you live awesome or die trying.

That sounds so horribly wrong so I'm not sure why I feel this would actually be an amazing way to go... Or think that this should be done...

[Reliant121]

My opinion has been waivered by my work experience in a nursing home. Seriously, considering how utterly incapable some of the patients are of even moving, I would rather terminate myself by choice than live a life of being spoon fed, washed and served in almost all ways by some random nurse.

[Mark]

The killer part is......without assisted suicides options are really limited for some.

The first choice (especially for men) in to shoot themselves. Thats IF you have access to a firearm. The problem with that is the bloody pulp of a body you leave behind will be traumatic to your loved ones.

Hanging oneself can go HORRIBLY wrong. A friend of my ex's son tried to hang himself like he saw them do in the movies....and botched it. Instead of dying, he's a quadrapaligic (spelling?) now.

Pills and wrist slashing are really hit or miss. Not always very effective.

Jumping off of a tall structure can just as easily kill someone else as ones self.



All of that seems quite drastic to force somebody into......especially when with a shot somebody can drift off to eternal sleep completely painlessly.

[Foxbat]

I am all for the right for someone who is in possession of their full faculties to make the decision to want terminate their own life in such severe cases. I would hope they would choose to live, and I feel that a medical and or psychological review would be warrented to make sure they have the capacity to understand the ramifications of their choice.

So, who pays for such a procedure? Would there be coverage for such an event?

I have no answers, but the debate interests me, as someday I may be in that position to have to try to make a terrible choice.

[Nutso]

My opinion? Someone should set up extreme sports for the eldarly. Like wheelchair parachuting, cheap F1 type racing and such. No reason you couldn't get something like that to work. Sign a liability waiver and a do not resucitate form and the results are that you live awesome or die trying.

Elderly people...on trampolines!

[sunnyside]

Elderly people...on trampolines!

Well, the idea isn't to just horribly injure them worse.

Now replace the tennis court on this building with a trampoline and put a basketball hoop near the edge and you're ready for an extreme elderly slam dunk competition! (Requires more mobile elderly than racing, parachuting, or underwater cave exploration. )



Note that such a thing wouldn't be suicide because the idea is to flip around a few times and land an awesome dunk. Only if you messed up would you go off the trampoline.

[Tyyr]

So, who pays for such a procedure? Would there be coverage for such an event?

Given that they'd no longer have to pay for extended intensive care I'm fairly certain the insurance companies would be all over this.

[Mark]

So, who pays for such a procedure? Would there be coverage for such an event?

Given that they'd no longer have to pay for extended intensive care I'm fairly certain the insurance companies would be all over this.

What procedure? You'd need the 2nd opinion to confirm the diagnosis, the psych eval, and then....forgive me the pun, but its a one shot deal. The specialist administers the injection, and their suffering ends quickly and in a controlled and digified manner, where no poor soul has to find the body later.

[Graham Kennedy]

The killer part is......without assisted suicides options are really limited for some.

The first choice (especially for men) in to shoot themselves. Thats IF you have access to a firearm. The problem with that is the bloody pulp of a body you leave behind will be traumatic to your loved ones.

I once saw a documentary about a guy who put a double barreled shotgun under his chin and fired both barrels... and lived. His face looked like something out of a surrealist painting. You would not want to live the life he ended up with.

[sunnyside]

I once saw a documentary about a guy who put a double barreled shotgun under his chin and fired both barrels... and lived. His face looked like something out of a surrealist painting. You would not want to live the life he ended up with.

I've always found it bizzare how people will try to kill themselves. Only wind up horribly maiming themselves, and then decide life is worth living. Is it just because they finally got the attention they wanted?

On that note I remember a statistic that women attempt to kill themselves far far more often than males, but males have a higher rate of killing themselves, because women are so frequently "unsuccessful"

[Graham Kennedy]

Some people who try and kill themselves are after attention. Those are the ones that threaten it and don't go through with it, often, or use a method unlikely to succeed.

A lot of the serious ones are in a bad time... some convergence of events and mood and whatever... lose the job, lose the house, wife dies, etc. It just gets too much. Often if you can keep them alive long enough they just come out the other side of it as the problems and grief recede into the past.

It's the main argument against suicide on demand; suicidal desires are very often transitory.

[Mark]

I remember this one guy from the Army, Pvt Spottedeagle (native american). He cracked and REALLY wanted to die. I saw idiots try and strange themselves, jump out of second floor windows, tie power cords around their necks and toss the buffer out the window, but it was all crap.

This kid wanted to die.

He snapped off the bottom of a bic saftey razor and opened both arms from wrist to elbow. He tried cutting the artery in his arm too but missed. Several of us had to tackle him to take him down to stop the bleeding (he was running away on the drill pad to keep us away AND to bleed out faster). We finally got him down, tied off his wounds and had him evac'd. Some freakin' idiot sent him back to us after being stitched up instead of putting him in an institution to help him. My CO didn't know what to do, so he went on two man 24/7 suicide watch. The crazy bastard had no belt, no shoes, couldn't take a crap with the stall door closed, and could only eat with a spoon. In the chow hall one day, good ol' then PFC Nelson (me) and Pvt Watterman were eating with him. The crazy shit took a HUGE bite of his steak, force swallowed it, and intentionally lodged it in his own throat. He tried running from us again. We just waited for him to pass out, heimiched (spelling?) him, and back to the loony bin he went again, this time to stay for a while.