Suicide

[boxy]

Philip Nitschke has made a habit of grabbing the bull by the horns, and unsurprisingly, he's finally copped a goring.

Apparently, he consulted with a young, healthy, depressed man about suicide, and didn't refer him to another medical professional, to see if his depression was treatable, without resorting to the ultimate solution.

He got canned, by the Medical Board, because he is now viewed as a serious risk to public safety.

My opinion... he's overstepped the bounds by a fair margin. Euthanasia is about caring for people's well-being, and relieving their suffering, when it is the last, best option. Not helping people kill themselves when it just becomes more convenient (for them, or others).

[IQS.RLOW]

He always struck me as more a proponent for his own self promotion of advocation of "kill yourself if you want to" so it's no surprise that he took it to the next level of "oh, so you don't have a terminal illness, you've just had enough? Here, let me help"

There's a lot of reasons that suicide and especially state sponsored suicide has never been acceptable over the course of thousands of years of human history. Challenging that status quo is foolish and shows that the proponents have some kind of mental hang up.

Suicide is easy for anyone who really wants to do it. They don't need some guy who enjoys his own publicity to facilitate it.

[skippy]

Philip Nitschke has made a habit of grabbing the bull by the horns, and unsurprisingly, he's finally copped a goring.

Apparently, he consulted with a young, healthy, depressed man about suicide, and didn't refer him to another medical professional, to see if his depression was treatable, without resorting to the ultimate solution.

He got canned, by the Medical Board, because he is now viewed as a serious risk to public safety.

My opinion... he's overstepped the bounds by a fair margin. Euthanasia is about caring for people's well-being, and relieving their suffering, when it is the last, best option. Not helping people kill themselves when it just becomes more convenient (for them, or others).

Yep, I agree with that. I am surprised he has done this, I always respected him.

[Neferti]

I have an elderly neighbour who says she voted for the Euthanasia Party or whatever it was called in the last Election. (She usually votes Green.) Anyway, she says that she wants to be able to "end it all" should it come to that and I guess most people would prefer taking a pill than becoming a burden on family, etc. if they are terminally ill, and lingering, etc.

As others have said, suicide is not all that difficult if you are really hell bent on ending it all. I haven't checked the youth suicide statistics recently but it used to be fairly high (including suspected suicides via car accidents, etc). I have read though that some elderly couples decide to "walk in front of a train", hand in hand, to end it all if one of the couple has been diagnosed with cancer. "Until Death Us Do Part?" What a horrible way to end it all. A pill sounds a lot more "respectable" and less messy to me.

[IQS.RLOW]

Plenty of ways to get a sleepy death happening where you don't need a doctor.
A few billion heroin addicts over the course of history can't be wrong.

You could always hit up some shady character in Adelaide.
I hear he hoards his pain meds, you just have to dress up in a school kid uniform and he'll throw tons at you.

Just look for the poor, tired and abused exclamation mark and he won't be far away.

[freediver]

Suicide may be easy, but people are stupid, especially as their bodies are on the verge of dying. Plenty of people fuck it up in nasty ways. Plenty go through a slow, nasty death because they are afraid to go through with it all alone.

[IQS.RLOW]

Suicide should always be hard to do.

If you are too stupid to do it yourself, you deserve to go on living and suffering in your jocks.

[boxy]

Luckily, for the human race, 99% of them are more empathetic than you.

It's sad that people have to make the choice to go early (while they can still be sure of being able to do it themselves) and alone (so they they don't expose loved ones to legal problems). And worse still, those who choose suicide pacts, helping their partner to die, and killing themselves as well to avoid the shitstorm of outrage.

[Outlaw Yogi]

The pro life anti suicide crew, who tend to be Jesus freak zealots really should learn to mind their own phuking business.

We euthanize animals all the time, but taboo it for humans.

This planet is over crowded, so if someone wants to exit, for whatever reason, no matter how trivial, thus making space for another, I say let them go.

Really the anti suicide stance is just a cultural taboo. Just like Hari Kari was culturally honourable in Japan in years gone by.

[5.56 NATO]

The ones that are fair dinkum don't seek advice from anyone, they just do it. The ones that have a history of repeated attempts are full of shit. Like those clowns at Manus island for example. If and when they do get it right after a succession of attempts it is an in the vast majority of cases an accident.