“Go thou and do likewise.”

I agree. If anybody surpasses the century mark and, after competent and informed consideration, decides he would like to choose the time and manner of his death, I hope he does so. And I hope all the rest of us do as well.

If one does not have control over her own existence, can we really say that she is an autonomous and free entity?

to society or to those who know us.

In fact there are RfMers who applaud the suicide of others for this reason.

If suicide becomes commonplace, many will die at the convenience of their doctors and heirs who don't want to miss important trips and meetings or they need the money for important reasons.

If that's what insurance companies and society wants, perhaps it's worth it, but we must all be willing to accept whatever fallout happens with it as with all changes in care and societal pressures.

These are the arguments made years ago when Oregon was passing it's "death with dignity"as. And the fearmongers were wrong.

You are wrong to do it.

I'm not wrong. I've gone to many hospital fund raiser dinners and events. A good portion of doctors and nurses talk about patients and say they aren't worth medical treatment because they are old. Of course the doctors and nurses who talk that way are young and don't think they'll be in that situation.

I am not opposed to everyone having a right to end their lives. What I object to is those who claim NO heirs or medical people will ever make mistakes. That's totally unrealistic.

How old are you if you'd like to share?

Cheryl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If suicide becomes commonplace, many will die at
> the convenience of their doctors and heirs who
> don't want to miss important trips and meetings or
> they need the money for important reasons.

Suicide is commonplace. No Swiss clinic(s) needed.

An average of 20 veterans kill themselves every day.

Want to lecture them, Cheryl? Lecture their families?

And euthanasia isn't related to those who need and want help to live but give into suicide instead.

He said his life "stopped being enjoyable" 5 or 10 years ago.
Then he spends his last few days doing all sorts of things he enjoyed.
Wait...what?

I fully support everyone's right to control their own life -- including ending it.
But sometimes it just doesn't seem very well thought-out or reasonable when they do so.

That’s just what I thought when I read about the fish and chips and cheesecake. My guess is that it was more of an issue of control.

Yep.
However, making self-contradictory statements when you're about to end it sure does make me wonder...

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> However, making self-contradictory statements when
> you're about to end it sure does make me wonder...

I'm of the opinion that if we really have control in our lives we also have a huge opportunity to make mistakes. Some mistakes just can't be undone. Life is like that and the right to have the ultimate decision in living or not seems to me the closest thing to a human right that exists. I would never want to take this from someone with a sound mind, enough life experience, and some attainment of wisdom.

I can't really define those things well, but checks on the life-ending decision have to be in place. We are social creatures.

This makes sense to me.

I would, however, observe that society has to be careful with the preconditions it imposes since every rule is in effect an infringement upon the individual's liberty and autonomy.

These are the obvious and easy cases, though, since a person past the age of 100 can surely make his own decisions, a woman with cancer can reasonably choose to forego treatment, and a person kept alive via long-term incubation should be free to end the torture. The tougher questions are younger and healthier people.

I'm just saying that given society's present extreme position regarding the sanctity of life (and conversely the triviality of individual autonomy), we can safely say that the change now should be toward greater "choice" in the matter of life and death.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm just saying that given society's present
> extreme position regarding the sanctity of life
> (and conversely the triviality of individual
> autonomy), we can safely say that the change now
> should be toward greater "choice" in the matter of
> life and death.


I agree. As we progress in understanding more the human systems and how nature and nurture interact, I wonder if even younger people could choose based on something like a living will for losing your mind when you are old. If I'm living but not really living why would in my sound mind would I choose to continue when I've lost it?

One of the most pressing concerns of some elderly is being a burden - a fate worse than death for them.

I don't know how much aches and pains a 104 year old body exhibits day and night. I know what a 70 year old body does and doesn't do.

Of all the old people I've associated with, they all talk about the quality of life. They don't want to live to be a burden to their family and friends.

If I reach 104, yes I'd do things I enjoy, why would I do things I hate. I'd eat the foods that taste good but might clog my arteries, I won't care.

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He said his life "stopped being enjoyable" 5 or 10
> years ago.
> Then he spends his last few days doing all sorts
> of things he enjoyed.
> Wait...what?
>
> I fully support everyone's right to control their
> own life -- including ending it.
> But sometimes it just doesn't seem very well
> thought-out or reasonable when they do so.


I guess he enjoys eating things and listening to music, but honestly is that enough to continue to live for? So you spend a couple days doing the stuff you enjoy (or at least the stuff you can still do at 104). Then what? Do them again?

He had developed ennui at the end of a very long and fulfilling life. There was nothing new to look forward to.

It seems to me that he was able to enjoy those activities during his last couple of days because he had a lot of help. In Australia, he was apparently not getting as much help as he required and had determined that he didn't want to ask for it.

I think a man who has reached the age of 104 and decides he no longer wants to live should have every right to check out if he pleases. In fact, I generally believe most people should have the right to that kind of self-determination... but especially someone who has already lived for over a century.

He is the terminator

mind = blown ~


Age 104 = youth ??? ~


Switzerland = Asia ??? ~


??? ~


mind = blown ~

Wonder if they prepared him fully or if he properly understood the process? His exasperation that it was taking a long time is odd. Certainly not one of the last emotions I’d want to experience.

to fall as soon as he presses the plunger or whatever. It's the few moments between hitting the plunger and getting the blackout effect he was waiting for that, I suspect, were rather un-nerving. It isn't as easy as switching off the light, you know.

If I could have helped my BFF ease her transition at all by flying a couple of States, I know that her oldest son, well into his 30s, totally supported me. I think if either of us could have come up with a foolproof way of easing her out of life without being nailed as murderers or accessories to suicide, we would have done it.

I loved her dearly. She was my best friend for most of my life. I've known her son since he was born, so he was like my nephew.

We wracked our brains for hours to think of a way to ease her from what was plainly misery, without getting mailed for murder (when it was no such thing) but could not come up with a way to do it.

We aren't killers. We wanted to release his mother and my dearest friend from a wretched situation. But in the end, we couldn't.Our failure eats at me even now, and it's going on four years.

So sorry your BFF went through that. It must have been terribly agonizing for her loved ones to have to see her going through that process.

What I can't figure out is why we as a society practically insist that pets be euthanized. People who allow pets to die naturally at home are usually called cruel and uncaring. But we are outraged when people want the same peaceful dignified death for themselves. What's up with that?

My temple bride recently 'terminated' her life by ending dialysis and switching from penny-ante pain medication to morphine. I'm told it took her body two weeks to 'quit'. Supposedly she had her BP's 'permission' to do so.

When appropriate, I point out that she was completely TBM and always paid her tithing, while I am a heathen atheist who bad-mouths the church's teachings and its leaders, and I'm older than she was, very healthy and very happy.

Why does this complete reversal of mormon promises exist?

A kid I once knew, Judic West, said something about a Bell Curve.

I'm not sure if that is relevant, but Judic was as wise as he was homely.

How come mormons haven't integrated The Bell Shaped Curve into their teachings? After all, the biblical concept of "...ghawd maketh it to rain on the just and unjust..." is quite plainly stated...

Why not add the caveat that when you pay your tithings, there's as good a chance that shit will happen (and it does!) as not? Why make promises your own ghawd can't, or won't, keep?

(Judic West was one homely S.O.B., but he was a snappy dresser.)

Past tense?? I hope Judic is off seducing his classmates in Junior High and will still grace us with his presence from time to time.

The rain thang, is one of the most profound observations in the Bible. It is a reason I cannot dispense entirely with the notion of a illiterate peasant who made some good points lo these millennia ago.

I used the past tense because Judic has had some 'work' done... Just removing the warts ended the little-kids-starting-to-cry episodes. He feels that he's been reborn and the CA DMV actually let him get a new driver license photo, for free!

I'm relatively certain he's out making more memorable quotes even as we natter at one another!

O Praise Be!

I look forward to more cryptic wisdom from the boy genius. Glad to hear about the warts, too, although I'm surprised he got a driver's license at age 12.

But I guess anything can happen in California. . .

Not to take anything away from Judic, but I stole my first car when I was 13.

I'd borrowed one when I was 12, but I don't count that.

I perhaps give away too much with this, but when I was a little Mormon I hung out with the bad boys and tomboys. We used to sneak out of Sunday School and hotwire cars in the parking lot.

It had to be quite old cars since the manufacturers had grown more sophisticated in the intervening decades, but much fun was had tooling around the neighborhood as we tried to see over the dashboard.

And the look on the faces of the owners when they came out of church and found their cars parked tens of yards away from where they'd left them: priceless.

Who says Mormonism wasn't good for kids back then?!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2018 05:54AM by Lot's Wife.

It's a disgrace that this option isn't available everywhere. In Canada, we have new legislation that allows euthanasia under limited circumstances, which will, hopefully, expand over time.

I don't buy it. The man just got bored, lazy, and decided he was done. By the time one is 104 I would hope that depression would be something that could be mastered? If he wasn't seriously terminally ill, and his brain is working there is always something to do. My neighbor is in his 90s and comes by to visit and still runs his businesses and fixes houses like he was in his 50s. He spends a lot of time reading as well.

Incidentally Warren Buffet one of the most highly productive money managers is 86 and still goes to the office every day, 40 hours a week. He says he reads/studies 6 hours a day. He still has speaking engagements.

Sure -- but everyone should be able to decide for themselves.

"Mastered depression" -- please educate yourself.

Ok your right. I would say that 'most' depression should be able to be overcome after 100 years of practice. Unless something terribly unusual occurs. But in my experience of examining people the elderly seem to be the happiest of all people. It's the young 20 something year olds that are more unhinged.

Of course there may be exceptions.

1) You must be fairly well-off to get away with it. (The gentleman in question apparently had the means to travel from Australia to Switzerland to do the deed.)

2) Apparently his family and friends were supportive. Nobody was contesting his right to turn the lights off as he left.

Just a point I thought I would mention: if you are planning to do this, check your life insurance, and read the fine print. A number of life insurance policies will not pay if you died by your own hand. And they would almost certainly classify this gentleman's means of departure as "by his own hand." I have paid premiums on my life insurance for a long time, and I want my family to benefit from it when I kick the bucket. (My insurance, BTW, does NOT have a suicide clause in it.)

I can see where there needs to be a system of checks and balances in cases like this. A young and basically healthy person who feels desolate because his GF broke up with him needs to be reminded that there are other fish in the sea. OTOH, a person with a terminal illness should not have to "ride it out" until the disease takes them. My BFF died a horrible death from MS. She told me often that she would end her life if she had the means to. And I couldn't agree more.

I concur on all points. There should be some level of safeguards in place to protect against incompetent decisions, including mental health, pressure from others, etc. That should include insurance--or insurance contracts should be changed to allow for physician-assisted suicide.

I would add that doctors already do this. The average MD does not opt for extreme life-sustaining measures; whereas a typical person would go through a few years of torture--I mean, medical care--MDs generally die in about 6-9 months of the onset of terminal illness. In short, they choose to turn off the machines.

They presumably face all the complexities others do, including relatives with mixed incentives, etc., but are considered by other doctors capable, on average, of making informed decisions. All we are suggesting in general is that other people be informed and empowered so they too can choose for themselves.

Assisted suicide is an oxymoron. If someone else does it for you, it's not suicide.

There is a great aspect of selfishness in this act. He spent a considerable sum of money going across the world to do what he could have done in Australia.

He could not have done this in Australia. It's illegal.

Schweizer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Assisted suicide is an oxymoron. If someone else
> does it for you, it's not suicide.

LOL! This implies no intent in a lot of "crimes" where the perp doesn't "do" the crime.

It is absurd. Thanks for the laugh!

Bored and lazy? The man had three doctorates! He was working until just two years ago, when he was asked to stop because the powers that be were afraid he'd hurt himself.

He was 104 years old and didn't want to be a burden to other people.

Where do you draw the line? Some children will be itching to get their hands on tbeir inheritance.

It was his life and his money. *shrug*

It is bad enough in this ugly world when predatory organizations like LD$ inc are already established and poised and waiting to parasitically stab people in the back from the instant that any one is born.

When a person's own body starts getting in on the act, that really sucks. Then it might be time to start stabbing back to get out.

* The man's 104. He wouldn't have had to wait long anyway.
* He spent thousands of dollars doing this.
* He traveled all the way from Australia to Switzerland to do this on the other side of the world.

The more I think about it, the more this annoys me in some regards. He could have easily done this within his own country (there are ways and means), and he could have given all that money to a youngster as a deposit on something or as seed money. That would be so much more positive in the long run.

He seems to have preferred to do this as a publicity stunt instead. It's all a bit "Logan's Run" (or is it "Soylent Green"?)

<<<* The man's 104. He wouldn't have had to wait long anyway.>>>


I disagree with this statement. He had no terminal illness but a stated loss in quality of life. Quite a number of people are living well past his age. He stood a good chance of living many more years.

Who is to say what is "too old" to live or "too well" to die? These are the questions that we cannot answer for someone else. If we could all manage our own demise at the precise time everyone agreed and we wished to leave, there would be little to argue about. But more often we find ourselves in the throws of dementia or disability and then are no longer able to take action for ourselves. It's got to be a living nightmare.

Schweizer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> * The man's 104. He wouldn't have had to wait long
> anyway.
> * He spent thousands of dollars doing this.
> * He traveled all the way from Australia to
> Switzerland to do this on the other side of the
> world.
>
> The more I think about it, the more this annoys me
> in some regards. He could have easily done this
> within his own country (there are ways and means),
> and he could have given all that money to a
> youngster as a deposit on something or as seed
> money. That would be so much more positive in the
> long run.
>
> He seems to have preferred to do this as a
> publicity stunt instead. It's all a bit "Logan's
> Run" (or is it "Soylent Green"?)

So now you're telling him how and when he can or cannot die AND telling him how he should spend his own money. Niiiiice.

I talk to lots of people over 80 and 90 years of age at my mother's retirement and skilled care facility. I haven't yet heard one that said, "I hope I live to be 100." They have all said, "I sure have no desire to live to 100." My mother says this as well.

The people in my mother's facility are very fortunate to have the means to be there. I read often of the elderly who die in house fires because they could not get out of bed, could not afford help, and lived alone.

I talk to lots of other children of residents who are visiting their parent, or both parents, who have advanced dementia and can no longer talk or can talk but don't know where they are or who they are. The children often say that they know their parents would be horrified if they knew they were spending endless years in a facility while their children watched their minds disintegrate and their savings wiped out.

I've been watching for years as a woman who is younger than my mother wastes away with dementia. Yesterday I saw her in her bed and I didn't even recognize her because she was so thin, frail and withered.

I'd like there to be death with dignity for these people because watching this every day when I visit my mother makes me scared about my own future demise.

I don't know the answers for all this but doing nothing because some people believe it is "God's will" seems terribly cruel.

Practically every day I try to think of a way to make sure I never have to suffer the indignity many of these people are suffering.

Thankfully my mother is basically happy to see me every day and still be living. She does hope, however, that she passes in her sleep before she reaches a depressed state. We will see......

This resonates.

I've seen some of the same things. In my family we went through both sides of the experience.

A parent, whom I'll call a father, went through a horrific illness in early middle age. He spent months in the hospital, with wires protruding from all sorts of places and a breathing tube shoved down his throat. There were times when the combination of drugs and sleeplessness literally caused him to lose his mind. They had to tie him down to stop him from ripping out all the tubing and running out of his room and the hospital, although he wouldn't have gotten that far.

When he emerged from that hospital hell, he wrote a living will stating definitively what sort of medical care he would accept. He explicitly said that he would never, ever let them incubate him again. He went on to be a great grandfather, the glue that held a crumbling TBM family together as just a family.

But then he grew old and suffered strokes. He lost his memory for names; he could not drive. It got worse. The kids and grandkids loved him deeply despite his more frequent repetitions, his sillier and sillier jokes, and always his stories from his childhood so many decades in the past. Those fascinated the young ones, and for some reason he recalled them quite precisely although anything recent was lost.

Was he a burden? In some ways, yes. But on balance he was a great, great, great force for good: he lit up everyone's life and gave the children a sense of belonging that no one else, and nothing else, provided. I remember once when my children said "we want to go see grandpa." I replied that I could not get off work to make the trip. They answered, "we didn't invite you." So off the kids flew by themselves to see the old man whom they loved so deeply.

Then there was the last stroke.

The hospital told us that he would probably survive but that he needed to be incubated: that dreaded breathing tube. The doctors said it would only need to be in place for a few days, so we overruled dad's express wishes and went forward with the procedure. His condition worsened, though, and after those few days the hospital told us that he would need to be incubated indefinitely and that there would never be much of him left.

We knew what he wanted. He had written it in his will; he had told each of us dozens of times. We loved him so much that we violated his instructions. But when you looked at him in the hospital bed, barely alive, you felt guilt for putting him in the position he knew so well, and hated, from decades before. So we belatedly did as he had instructed us.

There is not one day, one hour, when any of us doesn't miss him. Life is bleaker without him. I feel some guilt for having incubated him that last time, depriving him of a bit of his dignity, but I think he'd forgive us if he knew we were doing it because the grandchildren needed him so badly. That is probably the one excuse he would have accepted.

I'm sorry about what happened to your loved one. I can tell he was a great man and much missed by his family. However, I think the word you mean is "intubated". I would be quite surprised if a man his age was being "incubated".

My own father went through several years of devastating illness before he finally died. Fortunately, no one in our family objected to taking him off of life support. I was surprised when my mom asked me how I felt about it. Of course it was her decision and I had seen what kind of hell they'd both gone through for the last six years.

He actually died after he had his gallbladder removed. It was very inflamed and needed to come out, but he never fully recovered from being under anesthesia and lost the ability to swallow. When they removed his breathing tube, he had a very hard time breathing on his own, although he really tried. My mom finally told him to relax and let go. There were people waiting for him on the other side. He closed his eyes and was soon gone. Although he's missed, it was a blessing when he passed.

Hah! Yes, intubate.

But yes, it sounds like our situations were similar. Those final years can be hell, particularly with modern medical technology.

We were fortunate in that medical technology saved him from a very premature death, gave us extra decades with him. But at the later stage, healthcare became problematic: they can keep an unconscious person's body alive for many years.

We put him through more than he had hoped, but I don't think he'd hold it against us that we wanted to try a bit longer to preserve what he so generously gave his family. He would have tolerated our selfishness in that as so many other things.

He's a hero in my book. Don't let others keep you alive when you know it's the right time for yourself. No one has the right to keep you alive if there is no way back to a quality life.

I didn't get to decide when to enter this world. Just maybe I will decide when to exit. The trick is deciding before it's too late mentally or physically. I hope I or people I select to decide on my behalf have that option. I've seen people made to suffer because it made the family feel better. Sometimes we make better choices for our pets when it is time to go than we would make for ourselves.

But to Cheryl's point, there has to be checks to keep people from intervening for convenience, money or lack of empathy.

It's an in interesting topic. I've been watching how it works out in states that allow assisted end of life.

I guess an argument could be made that 'hospice' is euthanasia-lite, euthanasia at a snail's pace...

But at least your insurance covers it!

If any member of my family, as I age, hopes I chose to end my own life because they think my life is no longer dignified, they are going to be disappointed.

I have zero interest in taking my own life.