Dying together: Why a happily married couple decided to stop living

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jjq2vynq7o

by blondie9x • 2 years ago

22 36 2 years ago

Simulacra• 2 years ago

I respect their decision. I only hope that I have this option when the time comes. Watching my father, wither away in agony, was absolutely awful. I don't want that for my family, and I think it's my human right to decide my exit.

hammyhavoc2• 2 years ago

Wishing you health, happiness and peace for a very long time to come. Look after yourself.

wiseowise• 2 years ago

Amazing. In absence of a cure, this is the most humane course of action. Dying together in a family circle with no pain and retaining dignity.

akudha• 2 years ago

Why don’t more countries enact laws like this? This makes perfect sense. I don’t want to live with conditions like dementia. I didn’t have a say in my birth, I sure as shit should have a say in my death.

toomuchtodo2• 2 years ago

Because humans have rigid mental models, tradition and cultural inertia, and broadly speaking, an unhealthy relationship with death. It comes for us all, but few want to deal with the anxiety and feelings about sudden loss of existence, not to mention system incentives to prevent a more optimal outcome for human participants.

melling6• 2 years ago

I don’t want to live with dementia either. I bet the 50 million people in the world with it would rather not have it either.

How about option B? Cure the disease!

The woman in the article is only 71. It’s crazy that in 2024 we have no idea how to slow the disease enough so she gets another 10 years of quality life.

redserk• 2 years ago

Curing a disease can easily take tens-to-hundreds of millions of dollars or more and up to decades of research.

For most individuals, this degree of personal financial and temporal expenditure isn’t available.

hnlmorg4• 2 years ago

Nobody suggested euthanasia is an ”alternative” to researching treatment.

The problem we have right now is that there isn’t a cure and we don’t know when research will provide one. Or if it even ever will.

trilbyglens2• 2 years ago

This is a pretty dumb argument.

TacticalCoder• 2 years ago

I don’t want to live with conditions like dementia.

My mom doesn't recognize me since ten years, she cannot move, she's thin as she had just been liberated from a WWII nazi concentration camp. She cannot talk, she cannot move. She shows no emotions at all.

And yet the doctor refuses, on the excuse that she's fed with a spoon and not a syringe, to sign the papers allowing to euthanize her.

There's of course money involved too: the elder care home she's in gets a hefty rent each month. And so does the doctor.

I am very angry at this entire system. There's also, of course, a whole issue of legal paperwork / signatures, etc. that are problematic.

For, I'm sorry to say it: an empty shell. My mom is long gone. Let her body go.

Just fuck these insane laws and rules. It's a totally rotten system.

memen4• 2 years ago

There's of course money involved too: the elder care home she's in gets a hefty rent each month. And so does the doctor.

Leaving this out might make your argument stronger. At least in Europe, there is no shortage of elder people that can be cared for. Most of these elder care homes have long waiting lists, and normal doctors have waiting lists as well. I think it would be more fair to say that it is an incredibly difficult decision to make as an 'outsider', and combined with how the law works with respect to death and liability, procedures and strictness with regards to euthanasia are not that strange.

hammyhavoc2• 2 years ago

Thinking of you and yours. Wishing you peace, health and happiness for as long as possible. I'm so sorry.

almatabata2• 2 years ago

With the deterioration of the health care system in a lot countries people are afraid that these laws will be used to "fix" the healthcare system. Instead of helping people chose their end this gives administrations the possibilities of saving costs by pressuring patients into euthanasia programs.

If the systems worked great people might not have as much aversion to it.

Add to that the Abrahamic religions fighting against it as they consider killing yourself or helping somebody to die as a sin.

I think this makes politicians afraid of touching for fear of losing the next election. The topic probably loses them more votes currently than it gains.

windows2020• 2 years ago

Interesting that abortion is legal in ~37 states and this in ~10.

yawpitch4• 2 years ago

Kind of incomparable issues, though the number for both should be ~50 by now (~52 if America had ever been remotely sensible about DC and PR).

almatabata2• 2 years ago

You cannot compare aborting a fetus which we do not yet classify as a full fledged human being with helping an adult commit suicide. If we did consider it a human being we would ban abortion as well. And technically we do not allow abortion in the last month except in exceptional cases.

Note as well that assisted suicide opens a bigger can of worms than abortion. For example unborn babies do not have accumulated wealth that you can inherit. The mother has no monetary incentive to abort the child. Parents however do often have accumulated wealth and unscrupulous kids have the incentive of finishing them off sooner.

ejang0• 2 years ago

"He’s 70, and sits in the swivel driving-seat of the van, one leg bent underneath him in the only position that eases his continuous back pain. His wife, Els, is 71 and has dementia. Now, she struggles to formulate her sentences."

seventytwo• 2 years ago

There’s a big difference between something like this and the case of blinding, transient, despair-driven suicidality that we typically think of.

I’d agree that in the transient case, intervention should take place. But in a case like this where it’s planned and reviewed with a doctor, I don’t see any ethical problems.

trilbyglens2• 2 years ago

In places with legal euthanasia multiple doctors need to sign off, as well as family. It's very controlled and not the sort of thing that happens without good reason.

Dying together: Why a happily married couple decided to stop living

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