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Merged Euthanasia

p0lka said:
Data relating to that has already been posted i think.

Though thinking about it, I know people who have attempted suicide, failed, then admitted it was a cry for help.

I have never met any people who have attempted suicide, succeeded, then admitted it was a cry for help.
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Fact is, most suicides have attempted it before or expressed the desire.

A 'cry for help' is just as much a risk indicator as any. When I worked for a support phone line for desperate parents (a charity) we were trained to never ignore a caller's expressed reference to suicide. By role play we discovered it is typical for one to completely miss the reference or ignore it. We were trained to pick up on it. I had one woman who said she had just come home from being sectioned for suicide attempts, now she was home. She said she had three young kids int he house but she was going to top herself. We were under strict confidentiality but this was an occasion confidentiality could be broken. Her call was traced and the emergency services broke down her door to rescue her and her young kids.

If you look at famous suicides such as Sylvia Plath, from her autobiographical book The Bell Jar we can see had a long history of 'cries for help' (going missing for days when all the time she was underneath the eaves of the house wanting to die, throwing all her clothes out of a skyscraper window, slashing her wrists, etc). She put her head in the gas oven when husband Ted Hughes left her. How is this action defined? A cry for help that went wrong or finally a successful suicide after several attempts?
 
kayle said:
and... my friend killed himself. tied himself to a tree and poured petrol on him and then lit it up. so please continue your pos-vibe people talking about future husbands/wives. can you the ef imagine for a second and for a tenth of it, how he felt?
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What are you saying, that it was right your friend killed himself?
 
I feel at least some comfort knowing that it was by her own will, even if it wasn't exactly the worst it could've been.

I've had close relatives contemplate suicide and they articulated their feelings quite well. Therapy helped them snap out of it, but everyone's different.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Then is suicide just... open then? Like never wrong?

There's not a suicide in history that wouldn't fall under "I'm in pain and I feel like it's not worth going on." Hell that's a workable definition for it.

Then what context and standards do we ever use to stop someone from committing or attempting suicide?
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As a definition it is a little too broad. I wonder how many "normal" 17 yr. olds have said that exact phrase.

17 yr. old to parents sitting in the living room: "I'm in pain and I feel like it's not worth going on."

Dad: "You're still not getting the car keys this weekend."
 
kayle said:
I can't stand this, really. all those preaching nice future and what not -- have you suffered at least the same?
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You are correct that we can't know how it feels to be someone else.

This young woman went beyond wanting to die - she wanted the state to kill her. Should it have done?
 
P.J. Denyer said:
Jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge certainly would be, 'trying' sounds more like a final desperate cry for help. A public place, famous for suicides where you're certain to be noticed. Compared to people who lock themselves in their home and take pills, hang themselves, shoot themselves etc I'd say this is a group that is actually hoping someone will intervene.
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There are more than a few serious suicide attempts where the person survives. It's a myth people are all just calling for help.

We had a patient in the first hospital I worked at that blew his face off because he aimed the gun under his chin and angled it wrong. I've seen two other persons in the news who survived similar suicide attempts, one who was glad she survived even though she went from very beautiful to quite disfigured.

But of course there are non-serious attempts that fall in a different category.

If you question the studies you should address the studies, not throw your personal opinion out there about the study populations you imagine they used.
 
ahhell said:
Well, it seems to be just an ordinary tragedy. Its likely the only reason it got coverage in the English language news is because they thought it was an extraordinary tragedy.

I am unsuprised that I did not have the full story.
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Which is unfortunate given a 17 yr old starving herself to death is still a significant story, IMO.
 
JoeMorgue said:
*Winces* Okay... I don't want to uncover this can of worms but...

I don't think very many suicide attempts fail at all.

I think a lot of attention and/or help seeking under the guise of suicide fail.

On a purely mechanical, nuts and bolts level killing yourself ain't that hard.

Most of the time people who want to die, kill themselves. People who want help try to kill themselves.

How this interfaces with assisted suicide is... not clear.
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Minoosh said:
I don't think this claim can stand without more data ... a way to quantify the "seriousness" of an effort to rule out "cries for help."
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Another gut post, Joe. Find some data to support it or you are just voicing a myth. Minoosh is right.
 
Darat said:
What is different apart from the legal definition? She choose to end her life, you seemed to be opposed to that when it carried the legal term euthanasia, I don't see what is different?
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They refused to force-feed her. That is not the same as assisting.
 
Darat said:
That's my experience in this case (or what we originally thought had happened.) it sounds wrong to me, but when I thought about it more I couldn't come up with a reason why it is wrong.
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You can't think of a reason this is wrong :jaw-dropp :

AACAP Suicide in Children and Teens
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for children, adolescents, and young adults age 5-to-24-year-olds.
The majority of children and adolescents who attempt suicide have a significant mental health disorder, usually depression.

Among younger children, suicide attempts are often impulsive. They may be associated with feelings of sadness, confusion, anger, or problems with attention and hyperactivity.

Among teenagers, suicide attempts may be associated with feelings of stress, self-doubt, pressure to succeed, financial uncertainty, disappointment, and loss. For some teens, suicide may appear to be a solution to their problems.

Depression and suicidal feelings are treatable mental disorders. The child or adolescent needs to have his or her illness recognized and diagnosed, and appropriately treated with a comprehensive treatment plan.
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bobdroege7 said:
Anorexia Nervosa can be fatal, the prognosis may not be as bad as pancreatic cancer or lung cancer but is often resistant to treatment.
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Can be. Sadly people, mostly women, die from a severe electrolyte disorder causing their hearts to stop.

Karen Carpenter is a famous case.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
They refused to force-feed her. That is not the same as assisting.
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Oh goodie now we get to do the 20 page "Active vs Passive Killing" Trolley Problem debate again.

Skeptic Ginger said:
Another gut post, Joe. Find some data to support it or you are just voicing a myth. Minoosh is right.
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*Sighs* And the worms are out.

What "data" am I supposed to **** out exactly? Mind scans? Psychics readings?

It ain't hard (speaking purely on a mechanical level) to kill yourself. It isn't something you're going to mess up if you're actually serious about doing it. You seem to think I'm treating suicide attempts as a way of "asking for help" as something to be ashamed of or to look down on people for and I'm not, but it does factor into how we conceptualize it when talking about assisted suicide.

But, and I should have known, someone has focused on one specific detail and ignoring the larger point I was making.

We can't have two separate arbitrary kinds of suicide with two separate standards built around them where we have to start from two different starting assumptions.

If the rape victim slashing her wrists in her bathtub is tragic the rape victim asking her doctor to turn up her morphine drip can't be noble. We can see nuance to be sure but they can't be... basically diametrically opposite.

We can't expect the conversations we have like "Suicide rates against this or that demographic" or "Is X a factor in this or that demographics suicides?" or any of the other of the similar discussions we're having AND the "It's everyone's right to decide when they die" discussions to stay completely separate.

Alls I'm saying in we can't have it so when someone says "I want to commit suicide" we assume they are wrong and have to be saved AND when someone says "I want to end my life" we assume they are right and have to support them without unpacking that somewhat.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Alls I'm saying in we can't have it so when someone says "I want to commit suicide" we assume they are wrong and have to be saved AND when someone says "I want to end my life" we assume they are right and have to support them without unpacking that somewhat.
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When I responded to your post I wasn't factoring in assisted suicide at all. I was thinking more of a point system for rating suicide attempts (in aggregate; not judging individual attempts). Looking at the circumstances and evaluating whether the subject took only borderline effectual measures and knew others would soon be on the scene vs. taking highly effective measures with a low chance someone would arrive on the scene.
 
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