Would you be in favour of assisted dying being introduced for terminally ill patients in your country?

It bothers me that in the U.S., we extend that courtesy to pets who are suffering from terminal issues. But we expect loved ones to hang on and suffer for no real reason other then the vague notion that the imaginary sky man would disapprove.
My grandma passed away 2 months shy of her 101st birthday. I visited her a few weeks before she passed, she was gaunt, skeletal, couldn't see us and was reacting to hallucination caused by their body slowly shutting down. She didn't even know my Mom and I were even there, and when we told her her daughter was there to see her, she said "No, I don't believe it" while staring blanking into the corner of the room. She wasn't suffering from dementia, it was cancer that came back which was killing her. What reason would we not allow a loved pet to suffer though that, but a blood relative, hell yeah, let them lay and suffer for weeks, months, years.
I don't have any grand ideas on how to prevent abuse, I just think it's humane to not let a thinking being suffer needlessly.
- It's the same for the young end of the spectrum, I've seen lots of kids and adults who were born with a bad disability to be permanently wheelchair bound unable to care for themselves or even communicate. But "they were breathing on their own when they came out, so we can't do anything about it now" because sky daddie might be mad
  And then ofc the whole stress added onto the parents who will have to primarily care for the child for the rest. Of. Their. Lives.
  
  I think a legitimate concern for that one is what do you define as a disability worth terminating the baby's life for. Some would likely abuse it for eugenics.

I Would be in favor of assisted dying being introduced for anyone who need it.
No one should be forced to live against their will.
Also its better to let a person die peacefully than having them die in gruesome ways (jumping in front of a car/train, jumping from a building, hanging themselves with family and loved ones having to see them in this state, etc ..
- Also its better to let a person die peacefully than having them die in gruesome ways
  you know what would be even better? Creating a society where millions of people aren't suffering to the point where they see no other option in the first place.
  
  The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. you could create the society and still give people freedom to decide when to end their lives.
  
  What a great idea! Society should just simply not have any disease! That way there will be no suffering!
  Why hasn’t anyone else thought of that???

Absolutely - and not even just terminally ill. We typically recognize when pets are past their meaningful life - once things start getting difficult or painful enough, we let them off. Meanwhile if you have bone cancer and live an eternity of agony every second, "tough shit lol" I guess.
Sometimes you just can't fix things. Then it gets to be about harm reduction. Flogging someone whose continued existence will only bring them and everyone else pain... seems pretty horrific to me.

We already have it in Switzerland.
I'm all for it. I actually had to promise my mum to off her in case she ever get's dementia. (She had to care for her own mother with dementia for almost a decade, to the point where everyone in the family was just glad when she finally died).
- Get something on paper. I have no idea what the laws are like in Switzerland, but a verbal promise may not be enough.
  
  She already made sort of will for the case when she's mentally impaired which would give me power over medical decisions (not quite sure what all the proper english terms here are).
- I have no idea about Switzerland, but a lot of these death with dignity laws do not include dementia and the like. You may want to check out what the legal options and realities are.
  I've watched both of my grandmas head down this same road, preparing for my mom to do the same. It's absolutely terrifying and I was seriously looking at moving somewhere that would give me the option, only to find it doesn't exist currently in my country (US).
- promise my mum to off her in case she ever [gets] dementia
  My dad has what we call a 'DNR' order after his time as an EMT prolonging the life of some elderly people who didn't. He also now has a 'living will' after an affliction that will kill him in the next decade and is not feasibly preventable. Before his brain is too far gone from oxygen deprivation and he can't be judged fit to make the call, he's got provisions and criteria to end his life. He still had to meet with a psyche to ensure it's what he wanted, a blessing since a former EMT who's worked on the Water has more than enough information and no need to ask permission.

I'm strongly in favour of assisted dying. If an animal is too ill and can't be cured, we do the humane thing and put them down so they don't suffer. Yet if it's a human who is terminally ill, you're just told to suffer. How do animals have more rights than we do in death?
I've never understood how it's considered the "moral choice" from opponents of assisted dying to let people suffer.

We humanely end the suffering of our old cat or dog. Heavens forbid we let grandma go out peacefully. Sorry gramma ya gotta slowly drown in your own blood because I’m afraid of theoretical scenarios in which the government decides to kill everyone.

Do you think people should be allowed to choose when to end their own life?
People who want to kill themselves will do it without permission.
What assisted dying provides is dignity for the person, and some amount of closure for the family.
I fully support assisted dying, because mandatory suffering is insanely cruel and inhumane.

Any person should have the choice to die at the moment they want with dignity.
If you've lived 40 years of a terrible life and want out, you should be able to.
The legislative side of this issue would be a mess, but the work has to start now.
- The reason it's not legal is because dead peasants don't increase profits or pay taxes.
  
  I didn't write it in my post, but that's a 100% correct. Keep the machine running.

Yes
- Yes

The bioethicists have ready worked out the kinks of assisted suicide laws and I would defer to them. You don't offer it to people who cannot make the decision, you make sure people are fit to make the decision before they become too impaired, and you have plenty of checks for elder abuse, family pressure, and so on. Ultimately right now I can choose to end my life and that knowledge has made bearing some really painful medical things much easier.
We can all do things that make us less safe. We can drive, we can eat unhealthy food, we can drink alcohol, we can smoke, we can have unprotected sex, we can go base jumping, and so on. There is a concept called Dignity of Risk, meaning that while we have a duty of care, a responsibility to protect someone, we also have to respect that person enough to let them make choices, including choices we disagree with. If we don't have this then we treat people as less than human and in the process we are stopping them living the life they want.
If we are going to say life choices should be in your hands then I think death choices should be too.

Dying should always be a personal choice, and not even limited by physical or mental health. Other people having a say over it is, imo, evil.

With a waiting period, I think assisted dying should be available for adults in general, regardless of terminal illness.
No one opted in, and at least in my society where we are belligerently unwilling to tangibly help one another, where most are expected to endlessly produce regardless of our wellbeing under threat of homelessness and gruesome death by exposure, and where struggling people are often condemned for being lazy or making bad decisions when they're already down, it would be a small, efficient mercy to allow a quiet, painless opt out.
We could even have the capitalists run it and charge a small fee since they need to turn everything into a for profit endeavor. Everyone wins.
- I was with you until the capitalists part ad that would incentivize abuse and overuse for malicious reasons.
  
  What, don’t you want to pay for an assisted suicide subscription? Look at all the options! We’ve unbundled it so you can get the basic plan with a DIY bottle of Benzos, our mid tier with a caregiver that can assist, and our top tier at our Aid in Dying facility with a nurse on standby. You can even add packages like flowers, snacks for the family, and even carting service to the funeral home. Subscribe now and get 50% off your first death!
  
  They're the biggest reason assisted dying would be so popular, regardless of how it was run.
  This is their world, and they must benefit to permit something merciful for the people to happen. Their malice is already everywhere, for this to even have a chance of ever existing, they must get their cut, or they wouldn't let their middle managers in governments pass it. Just the reality.
  I was just suggesting a potential offering to the rule makers to make it achievable. They have no kindness or mercy to appeal to, only money.

Absolutely. Thankfully we actually have it in the Netherlands, with some restrictions. I.e you do need to be clearly ‘suffering’ for a doctor to agree to it.
Personally though, I think there shouldn’t be any restrictions on this beyond making sure it’s a well articulated wish and not someone just having a bad day.
If say, a healthy 30 year old wants off this ride, they should be allowed to die with dignity at a time and place of their choosing. Nobody asked to be born, so we should at least give them the freedom to choose how they depart this realm.
In my opinion, nobody should disagree with that - it’s not your place to force someone to live if they don’t want to.
- Thankfully we actually have it in the Netherlands, with some restrictions. I.e you do need to be clearly ‘suffering’ for a doctor to agree to it.
  A judge in a region of Canada just ruled a girl of 27 may under-go Medical Assistance in Dying (aka assisted dying) when the only overt afflictions present are ADHD and Autism.
  Are we enabling suicide, or are we merely enabling dignified suicide? When someone chooses to die - 6 times as often for boys - one of two things are gonna happen: they'll be assisted or they won't be. The result is the same, but one way has more dignity and less collateral fall-out.
  I think we don't gauge suffering like olympic judges gauge figure skating, and instead we just allow people to choose.

I live in Oregon in the US and we've had it for a number of years. We had to fight hard for that and even so its fraught with BS, but a couple years ago I had a family member make use of it and I was very glad it was available.

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is also yes.

I'm also in favor of having it as an option for anyone. There should be nobody opining what I should do with my life or with my body who doesn't know me at a deep and personal level.

It was introduced in my country (Canada) and immediately the government started talking about expanding access to it for people with intellectual disabilities; and worse yet, people with treatable conditions where the treatment is just very expensive. That freaks me out quite a bit.
I think it's good for it to be available but there need to be significant guardrails on its availability. My cousin and his wife recently used it for her father, and based on my understanding of his situation, I think it was probably a lot better than letting him die slowly.
- Disabled Canadian here. Spinal cord injury. I think assisted death is necessary in any society and I am glad we have it. That's said... That some are choosing death over starvation or homelessness due to disability is not ok. If we give the option for assisted death we also need the support structure to avoid such unfortunately necessary choices for some. I have 3 young kids. I'm fully disabled now at almost 50. I went from a salary when working of almost 100,000/year to $12, 440.61 on disability. Even if I could find work that would make exceptions for my disability I could only earn $6000/year before I would lose my disability altogether and have to work full-time. $6000. Try live for a year on that, but that's what the feds say justifies full time employment for someone like me. $12,000/ year is no walk in the park but half that would be devastating.
  If my major purchases (home etc)were not paid off we would be homeless for certain. A single grocery bill for us for two weeks is well over $300 and we grow all our own vegetables, chickens and eggs out of necessity. If we had a mortgage and car payment we would be seriously considering one less mouth. We are lucky because we live rurally and have some stability in owning our home otherwise MAID would be a consideration. Not because I don't want to live but because I couldn't afford to.
- Some terminal illnesses, I think I’d prefer this route. ALS, for example. No fucking way am I doing that.
  If it’s not a play on eugenics, just giving the terminal choices in how they go out, I don’t see the problem.
- Say, didnt you guys hear about that one party which was hugely popular in germany once? The guy in charge was called "the boss" and they had a very specific greet.
  They too extended it to people with disabilities.
  I dunno.. But it seems somewhat relevant..
  
  you guys hear about that one party which was hugely popular in germany
  Evil people can accidentally do humane things under completely evil reasons. The question is always what the victim actually wants.
  But I completely respect your ability to make this false comparison and then loudly express concern for it, as reminding us how evil can even coerce people into a bad decision for purely inhumane reasons of cost around the alternatives is a way we can work to avoid that kind of mis-use of this process. We need to be reminded every moment about it.
  
  Brain dead take. The Nazis also breathed air so you better start holding your breath.

It should be available to anyone as long as informed consent can be achieved and they're of sound mind in the view of at least a few medical professionals.
I think it should be available as a medical directive, like a DNR order with specific criteria, and require several doctors to evaluate the criteria unanimously, and no family to object if the patient can't give informed consent, only whatever form of consent they can give.
It should be called off if the patient objects, regardless of their ability to give informed consent.
Scenario I'm picturing is a person with dementia who previously filled out a form stating that if they're no longer themselves or able to function, and other criteria they specified beforehand, and doctors agree the circumstances have been met, and the family doesn't object, it should be able to proceed even though someone with advanced dementia cannot consent because they cannot fully understand. If they say no it must stop.
I feel concern about people with mood disorders seeking that route, which is why I want a medical professional to say they're of sound mind.
Ultimately it's your life and your body, so you should be able to have that autonomy, but I think it's responsible to pause if a doctor says you're not in a rational place to make that type of choice.

I was in favor of this until I started reading Marta Russell. She lays out the history of using the concept of assisted dying to do things like get rid of people with disabilities, increase profits for hospitals, decrease funding for home nurses, convince people who are no longer productive that they shouldn't live anymore, etc etc. It seems like a good idea on paper, because bodily autonomy and stuff, but capitalist ghouls coerce people into it.
- Anything can be corrupted by capitalist ghouls. I wouldn’t let that fear stop me from doing the right thing. People shouldn’t be forced to suffer, and should be allowed to choose when to die.
  
  Anything can be corrupted by capitalist ghouls.
  People shouldn’t be forced to suffer
  Can you really not see that capitalist "ghouls" (they're just people) have already corrupted society enough, that they are the very reason people are suffering in the first place, and that making those who are suffering kill themselves off the "reasonable" solution, instead of ending the suffering enforced on them by capitalists, is very actively playing along with said capitalists, rather than the ones whose suffering you claim to be concerned with?
- May I ask were you live? I live in Sweden and would personally trust our medical system not to abuse such tools but depending on were you are I do understand that you might be worried.
  Anyways I don't really see it as a problem with assisted death but with the system using it
- Guess everyone should suffer because there is the possibility of abuse that we already know about and could take steps to avoid.
- In Oregon, you have to be able to administer it to yourself. It’s not something someone else does to you.
  Some people get it as an insurance policy of sorts. So it’s an option during end of life care, but not necessarily one they take.
  I am curious about what happens with the med if left unused. Like, do people tuck it away like spare antibiotic eye drops?
  
  It's done with a medico in attendance, who then takes the apparatus and spare media on leaving.
- Then you have let the capitalists win. They do not want people to have autonomy over their bodies because they still pay tax and consume products.
  A big proponent of capitalist propaganda is to induce the fear of the government. I can assure you that governments are so large and so hampered by rules that this very creative scenario where the government forces everyone to die is hilariously out of the realms of reality.
  Governments exist off of taxes. To kill their own tax base for no reason goes against their whole modus operandi. Just think about the positions that are being dispensed to you and by whom and why they might want you to receive a message like this next time.

Canada currently has assisted dying (referred to as MAID — Medical Assistance In Dying). The issue that I see with it, in Canada, is that it is a conflict of interest; Canada has public healthcare, so all patients are seen as a net drain on the system. Because of this, It is in the government's best interest to reduce the cost of healthcare by lessening the number of patients in hospitals. In my view, it is, therefore, in the Canadian government's best interest to encourage assisted dying over treatment to the absolute limits of what is ethically or legally allowed.
- It's actually really really hard to have access MAID. Multiple doctors needs to give consent and they have no financial interest to do so. I've read an article about this and even if it was easier to access MAID, the overall savings would be negligible.
  
  I wasn't making a claim regarding how easy or difficult it is to get MAID; I was only stating that it is a conflict of interest for a public healthcare system to provide it.

Yeah, it's not like it's done on a whim. As long as there is someone on staff that is comfortable administering it, I have no problem with it. I wouldn't want it to be forced as an option if there is no one on staff comfortable doing it. But transferring to a place that does offer it should be an option for those cases.

For sure. When your own body becomes a prison, you should have a say on whether you want out.

Already a thing here in NL.

I am in favor, and we already did introduce it here.
I think it might have been 2018 when we voted on it for the state of Colorado.
A doctor can now administer suicide drugs if a patient is terminally ill or has a condition that makes their life hell.

Of course I am completely in favor of assisted suicide. Not necessarily just for terminally ill patients but those who have absolutely zero quality of life and only experience life as a series of horrible painful stressors.
It's every human being's right to choose when to end their own life. And after all, death is just the cracking of the outer shell and release into the world you always wanted to live in - it's a freeing of the spirit within and a necessary part of one's life cycle.
There's always going to be some problem around people changing their mind but, I think most people opting for such a procedure would never change their mind about it. You'd have to have them sign release and total consent forms, and I can already see this thing getting balled up in wads of red tape that will make it virtually impossible to carry out.

Of course.

Yes, I think this is absolutely okay. However, I do think that it should be periodically reviewed, say, every five years and reaffirmed that this is actually what you want.

I'm glad that no one has said no!

We all know things won't get better anytime soon.
Hope yall find what peace you can in this life.

We already have it in the Netherlands and I think it is a good thing. I know several people who chose for assisted dying when they were terminal and I think it protected them from a lot of unnecessary suffering.
There are some laws in place to prevent abuse. For example, there is a second, independent doctor assessing the situation to make sure conditions are really met and that someone is really terminal and deciding this from their own free will. The patient should be able to reconfirm that they really want to get euthanised before it happens. I think this is a good thing, but sometimes it is difficult when people with dementia clearly have stated and written down officially that they want assisted dying in certain circumstances, but they are not able to reconfirm because they lost their ability to understand.
In some cases you can have assisted dying when you suffer psychologically without any outlook of improvement (i.e. you have tried all treatments etc). However, there are waiting lists for those, which are quite long. My sister was on such a waiting list because she had anorexia. However, she died from starvation before she could be assessed. I am still a bit in doubt whether it would have been a good idea for her to get assisted dying. I still was hoping and thinking that there could be ways for her to get better.
Maybe the doctor assessing whether she would be approved for this would have thought the same, maybe not. She died anyway, so maybe I was wrong. In any case, I am not completely against euthanasia in case of psychological illness, as people can suffer from that equally as from physical ailments. However, you should be extremely careful and it should be extremely clear that there is no other solution at all anymore.
- a second, independent doctor assessing the situation
  This is like how olympic judges are part of a panel, and judges decide independently who receives a prize for best performance.
  
  That definitely plays a role. I think the independent doctor also should not have any relationship to the person who has requested assisted death at all. If I am correct, one reason for that is that they can then truly come to a fresh, objective conclusion based on facts. I think another reason is that some people might become quite close with their own doctor over the years and therefore it might be difficult for this doctor to tell them no, or yes. They might be too involved.

This would seem like the kind of question that sounds at first like a single question but causes a number of others to be unpacked. For example, would someone see a difference between simply pulling a plug, ceasing to feed someone, and administering a drug, or would this being politicized be too much of a fear...
A few things come to mind here as certainties for me. To start out, if a society for whatever reason greenlights the concept, definitely don't institutionalize/politicize it. The moment it even becomes a debate in the public sphere, pull the heck out, the concept is lost. I might not have the greatest relationship with life, but the same thoughtpath makes it hard to comprehend being all willy-nilly about it. In such a society, if anything, I'd say it should be by an individual's own breath that the candle is blown out, so to speak. Going by the same literary device, if the individual cannot produce the exhale to do that, shrug your shoulders. I would not put a dog down for this reason. By the same token, everyone should recognize the gravity of all this, which in most cases nobody does.
- Pulling the plug is like assisted suicide, but with a ton of suffering as the body fails slowly. Stopping a feeding tube is killing through starvation.
  Assisted suicide would reduce the pain and suffering in both cases by allowing for pain reduction and shortening the time span.
  
  It's difficult to explain sometimes, but it's not the pain that throws me off concept-wise, it's the personhood aspect of it, in the sense that if you're deemed a proxy and your obliged act in question is to be so absolute as to remove them from the world, then you must ask yourself, how absolute are you?

Pretty sure it already is here in some capacity...
Yep. https://www.uclahealth.org/patient-resources/support-information/advance-directive/california-end-life-option-act-eoloa
Not country wide, but I live in California so I could possibly benefit from this if I ever get super fucked up.

it also affects the life insurance industry. have a terminal illness with a couple months of agony left? if you end it early, they won't pay out.

I think in utopia it'd be great, but we don't live in utopia, and in the world we do live in, assisted suicide is just an easy out for ableist society to push us towards, because it's significantly easier to dispose of us from behind the alarmingly thin veil of "compassion" than it is to create a world where we don't struggle and suffer by default just for existing as ill or disabled people.
And it's so much easier mostly because the first step to creating an actually compassionate and inclusive world, is facing the fact that society and the individuals in it treats disabled people so badly and sees so little value in our lives, which is why so many abled people (including those making legislation, because disabled people sure aren't) would "rather die than be disabled" in the first place (or why so many disabled people have been denied treatment because their lives were deemed "not worth saving", which happens a lot more often than most people would be comfortable acknowledging), and that's simply not something most abled people are willing to do, never mind actually acting on these facts to change them.
This kind of legislation is closer to eugenics than it is disability rights.

As long as it is kept to terminally ill people. Here in Canada, it's being offered to people with life long health issues (Chronic pain etc.) But for us the slippery slope is it has been offered to people with mental health issues as well. I can't verify if it is an officially sanctioned offering, but people have come forward with stories of it being offered to them.

It does exist here.
I opposed its legalization... but supported its existence in practice. In fact, I need its existence... Medical technology has created a lot of complicated situations because we have the ability to keep people alive to carry on in suffering even when there is no hope of recovery.
It is the unspoken duty of a modern doctor to deliver a coup de grace when this point has been reached - I think even without asking permission. The old Greek or Mexican lady with a cross around her neck and the Priest coming to visit her and deliver communion can never assent to be euthanized.... She needs her doctor to read the situation and to send her off when recovery is impossible and only suffering remains.
When we make it a process that requires her consent & signature, we deny her a peaceful death...
And, when we legalize it, we open the door to some upsetting things, like the euthanization of people for merely mental health conditions. There's something profoundly ugly & disturbing about someone in their 20s being put to death by a doctor for their mental anguish. Yes, mental suffering is very real, and it should absolutely be addressed... But, just like in the case of prostitution, it is just not something the state can set a moral precedent of approving of it when it happens.

1000% yes

We have that in Canada. I think dying with dignity is important and why suffer in agony when you can plan it out if you're terminally ill?
But it made Canada show how poor its social supports are for this guy: https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2022/10/14/ontario-man-applying-for-medically-assisted-death-as-alternative-to-being-homeless-5953116/
When this news broke everyone came out of the woodwork to help him and he is no longer applying for MAID.
My coworker's husband has end stage COPD and has been in and out of hospital a lot lately. She says she felt pushed for him to accept MAID, but they didn't and he is doing somewhat better now. It's temporary obviously but I also understand not wanting to lose him. There have been other stories where some people feel the decision was made irresponsibly, this is a good article about it: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/22/the-death-treatment
I don't know what I think about MAID for mental health conditions. Not that I don't think they are debilitating, but I wonder how sound of mind someone who is suffering so much is in. I really don't know the answer to that.

No.
I used to think yes but canadas maid (I should have known by the abbreviation) program has been a crazy disaster and completely changed my mind.

No. It should never be legal. You will see an increase in people trying to get power of attorney over their spouse, or relative, so that they can advocate for assisted death, when that might not be what the patient actually wants. I don’t want to see abusive people having the power to legally murder other people.
- Thats not a take on the subject I'd seen before. Thanks for sharing your thoughts

No, for several reasons.
Death is final. There is no coming back from it.
A cure, or at least an effective treatment, might be just around the corner. HIV used to be a death sentence; it isn't any more (and from what I understand, carriers can now have unprotected sex without passing it on). I wonder how much medical research into treating HIV wouldn't have been possible without sufferers to try out potential treatments. Maybe it would still be a death sentence today if assisted suicide had allowed people to escape it.
There is no way to be 100% certain someone isn't being pressured to die. If they answer all the questions correctly, that only shows they know the right answers; it doesn't show they are being truthful.
Justifying assisted suicide on the basis of the worst cases is not sufficient. There will always be worst cases. Let's say we define a limited set of the worst cases; those are now effectively solved and everything else jumps up a level. There is now a new set of worst cases. How long before someone catching the common cold gets put to death? You may say this is ridiculous but the worst case justification means that the cold WILL eventually rise to the top, and there WILL be arguments like "giving evolution a helping hand", or "for the benefit of the species", and as we will by then be routinely applying AS there'll only be a low bar to jump.
If palliative care isn't producing sufficient quality of life, we can put people into a medically induced coma (IANAD so there may be good reasons we can't, but idk). There they stay until (a) a cure or treatment is available, or (b) they die naturally anyway.
Obviously this needs sensible public healthcare in place. Where medical treatment is expensive and life is cheap, this won't work. I'm in the UK where healthcare is provided by the state and we have the luxury of considering life to be priceless.
For those who say we euthanise animals - well society in general doesn't want to pay for their healthcare and doesn't consider their lives to be infinitely precious. Also there is the question of how much they understand what is happening to them; maybe the terror of being hooked up to a machine would make their QOL effectively non-existent anyway.