Terry Pratchett Considers Assisted Suicide 838
cHALiTO writes "Beloved science fiction and fantasy writer Terry Pratchett has terminal early-onset Alzheimer's. He's determined to have the option of choosing the time and place of his death, rather than enduring the potentially horrific drawn-out death that Alzheimer's sometimes brings. But Britain bans assisted suicide, and Pratchett is campaigning to have the law changed. As part of this, he has visited Switzerland's Dignitas clinic, an assisted suicide facility, with a BBC camera crew, as part of a documentary that will include Britain's first televised suicide. Pratchett took home Dignitas's assisted suicide consent forms."
Every person's right (Score:5, Insightful)
Last Wishes (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were in his situation, I'd do about the same thing. I'd fill out the forms to be carried out in a few months. That way if he stopped progressing he could just do whatever, but if he kept progressing he may not be lucid so they could do their thing.
We'll miss you, Terry, but you have the power over your own life and I respect that.
Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
pterry (Score:5, Insightful)
I was deeply saddened by the news last year when i heard of his illness. Terry Pratchett is still one of my favorite authors and i wish him a lot of time left.
But i have to confess that i understand his reactions 100%. Rotting away with Alzheimer is my personal worst nightmare. Though i am not allowed to vote in the UK, i will give his initiative my full support whereever i can.
I believe that, if you have don't have the right to end your own life, you are not free at all. My life belongs to me, but to no goverment, to no society and to no god.
Yours, Martin
Re:Every person's right (Score:4, Insightful)
It is every person's right to decide how they die. Not the governments.
Its the UK, a different culture. There they believe its the governments right to totally control how you live... death is just the endgame, and not surprisingly, the govt wants to stay in charge right till the end.
The situation in the USA is weirder, with religious whackos trying to write their gods words into law, kind of an "American Taliban" thing.
Neither side understands each other.
Re:Britain's first televised suicide. (Score:4, Insightful)
Good for him (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as a libertarian:
Unless the government is claiming ownership of your body (which apparently the UK government is), you should be able to terminate yourself any time you want - especially if you're faced with a terminal illness. By not allowing him to commit suicide the government is basically making Mr. Pratchett the property of the queen. What year is this? 1772?
"The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law." - Judge Mansfield, Queen's Bench.
Re:Every person's right (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Every person's right (Score:3, Insightful)
As opposed to right now, where they decide that no one has that right? You could make that same argument against every protection in the bill of rights, and it would make just a little sense.
it de-facto places the 'guardian' ( often the state) of a person in the place of deciding if they 'would want' to live.
Nonsense. Someone deciding if someone else lives or dies is not suicide, by definition.
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as a libertarian:
Unless the government is claiming ownership of your body (which apparently the UK government is), you should be able to terminate yourself any time you want
Nice try, but speaking as a libertarian worshipper of the free-market I would counter that you can't have a free market contractual obligation if one of the participants is bonkers crazy. And the assumption made by the doctors is anyone planning to off themselves is bonkers crazy. Furthermore that bonkers crazy dude, while perfectly sane, paid into the medical-industrial complex to receive mental health treatment when he's bonkers, just as he paid into the system to receive treatment for any other illness such as broken leg, so they need to uphold the contract and "treat" him. Much as a business contract is invalid if one of the signatories is bonkers crazy, a lunatic can't formally legally decide to off themselves.
Most of the people trying to off themselves are, in fact, bonkers, which makes this pretty complicated. I suppose a legal competency hearing would probably be required for a judge to make a judgement that the dude is not, in fact, bonkers crazy.
The place this needs fixing is in the mental health profession, not the contract upholding laws, etc. The other problem is the UK is horrifically infested with do-gooderism types of unnecessary laws, so you'd need to remove some clutter. The primary problem is the docs, not the lawyers/politicians.
Re:Good for him (Score:4, Insightful)
>>assumption made by the doctors is anyone planning to off themselves is bonkers crazy.
Assumption?
Law is based upon proof, not assumption. Law is also based upon the assumption that everyone is 100% sane, and capable of making rational decisions, unless otherwise proved in a court of law. The anti-suicide UK law assumes that everyone is 0% sane, contrary to ~1000 years of precedent. The UK law is an irrational law and should be overturned by a judge, the same way Judge Mansfield overturned the irrationality of slavery.
Re:Every person's right (Score:4, Insightful)
I would respectfully point out that giving the government the authority to forbid and even punish suicides and those who would assist them takes the rights away from the individual in the first place. The government already has the right to kill you through legal means, and it has the right to forbid you to end your own life if you are in a position you find to be a 'fate worse than death'. Neither political party seems to be interested in fostering or supporting individual rights, but rather want to take rights away. The concept that suicide is an unforgivable sin comes from an attempt to control the lives of people who have no hope; that we continue to foster this method of keeping slaves from escaping into death hints at a very distasteful framework supporting our society.
Re:Well shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Alzheimer's is the result of tau protein brain plaques crushing neurons to death. Tau proteins seem to form around foreign particles in the brain. It is quite plausible that this process is some form of very primitive "immune" response that evolved in single-cell lifeforms or some sort of colony (a jellyfish would probably benefit from toxic chemicals being engulfed even if it meant part of the colony being destroyed).
This leads to two questions:
1) How did the foreign bodies get into the brain in the first place?
2) Would it be more harmful or less to deactivate the immune response?
It may be that solving (1) would be sufficient. It is certainly necessary, especially if (2) shows that removing the response would actually lead to a worse condition due to toxic buildup. (1) is certainly sufficient for some forms of Alzheimers, such as that caused by aluminum toxicity.
Re:Well shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't say that. It's false hope.
Right. I prefer to go with the real hope, which is: If we* keep busting our asses like we are, then maybe in 50 years we will laugh at Alzheimers. Or at least be able to do something about it. We need hope to pursue this cause, but we can't act like it's a foregone conclusion.
* I mean "we" as in "humanity".
Re:Well damn... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I'd prefer it if the stem cell researchers could find a way to reverse the damage and bring him up to full health. It's not an either-or situation. Every day TP is alive and well, there is a chance (however microscopic) of a breakthrough. However, I also respect the fact that you've got to draw the line somewhere and I respect where he's drawn his. The only question that remains is whether the US (the country capable of funding R&D at the necessary rate) will actually back stem cell research enough to save him and countless others. Not just from Alzheimers but from any death that results from a relatively small number of cells that cannot be repaired by the body unaided.
Re:Good for him (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Every person's right (Score:5, Insightful)
The charter of Human Rights states that the right to life is inalienable. The UK, like any EU member state, is bound to it. Adding exceptions to a basic human right is extremely dangerous.
Re:Suicide (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is to say we already have socialized medicine in the US, it's just very badly managed. Putting in a proper system of socialized medicine would be much better and cheaper. The only other choice is letting people die in the streets.
Re:Not much else to say. (Score:5, Insightful)
The starting point for these evils is the liberal and materialistic view that man is the owner of his life; that he is free to choose the moment and manner of his death. Those who hold this view define suicide as “the last liberty of life.”
Free will my friend. Your religion my decide that my suicide is a sin; that does NOT deprive me of the right to commit that final sin. That right and decision is mine alone. Even if you prove correct, and i have indeed stolen that life from your God, judgment is his. It is not yours, not the Church's and most certainly not the State's.
If we adopt a law holding that a person has the right to kill himself, soon we will also adopt euthanasia; because if the individual has the right to say when his life is no longer worth living, soon society will claim this right as well.
Wait what? This is a pretty egregious logic fail - even for a religious organization. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are nearly diametrically opposed. One leaves the final decision in my hands; the other in the hands of society. Stating that there is a connection between the two is not sufficient to prove that connection.
Sorry, I stopped reading once I realized that the remainder of that "article" is based on both conflating the two actions, and upon the false premise that under your religion I do not have free will to sin or not.
Re:Terry is a coward (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Every person's right (Score:4, Insightful)
They can still draft you and send you on a suicide mission.
Re:Britain's first televised suicide. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the now "civilized world" death used to be much more common and intimate - the above poster provided several examples. Children got diseases and died, women died in child birth. Moving down the hierarchy a bit, people used to kill and eat their own animals. Death was an integral part of life.
Recently we have pushed death away. Our food comes wrapped in plastic packages. Death happens in hospitals or nursing homes. Child mortality rates have fallen. We consider dealing with death "barbaric" or "primitive" or something for doctors or some such.
Medical treatment has advanced to the point where we can keep people alive far beyond what would generally be called a worthwhile life; our brains and bodies wear out and degrade, but we can keep alive through drugs & treatments.
The problem with suicide is that people often make the choice to take their own life when things are bad but may generally be expected to improve - jilted by a lover, bankruptcy, some other traumatic experience. Society has some obligation to keep people from making permanent decisions "in the heat of the moment".
I fall in the camp of if a person's situation cannot be reasonably expected to improve - incurable disease that will turn agonizing or incapacitating, then let them choose to check out before they become too miserable. When that point is is hard to determine. If you are diagnosed with Alzheimer's or AIDs should society allow you to check out immediately?
Tough questions. I wish Mr. Pratchett well.
Re:Well damn... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a funny fact about assisted suicide. If Alzheimer/cancer/similar incurable painful disease would be monitored by a veterinarian without putting the animal down, he would be sued for animal torture. And lose.
It's quite telling when our current "general" code of ethics is against torturing animals in this way, but not against torturing humans in the same way.
Re:Every person's right (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it's not just the religious whackos that want to tell you how to live. The "progressives" do as well -- to the point that as a liberal, I can't tell the real difference between the neo-fascist, religious whackos on the right from the neo-fascist, Progressive control-freaks on the left.
Yes, sure, I know they have different positions, but they both want to tell me how to live my life.
Re:Every person's right (Score:4, Insightful)
"Right to life"
A right doesnt have to exercised or claimed in order to be valid.
I have free speech rights, that doesnt mean i have to go around making a noise... I can choose to be quiet and still have the right to speak freely.
Giving a person the right to die doesnâ(TM)t take away their right to life.
Re:Well damn... (Score:5, Insightful)
It basically shows that our laws are written by religions. Putting an animal down when its terminally ill is seen as merciful, because we don't want it to suffer needlessly.
However, people aren't allowed to commit suicide in the same circumstances to avoid needless suffering, and there's only one possible reason: religious proscriptions against suicide. And also because humans are seen as completely different from animals, a viewpoint which again is rooted in religion.
It would be nice if the first-world nations (and maybe others too) would pour some more funding into research to combat these diseases. You'd think that maybe some of these greedy leaders would be interested in more treatments and cures for old-age diseases, considering most of them aren't that far away from old age themselves and thus have a significant chance of acquiring these diseases themselves.
Re:Every person's right (Score:4, Insightful)
I would have missed a pretty big chunk of it if she had committed suicide while she was still lucid.
That's a very selfish statement.
Re:Alzheimer's is horrifying (Score:5, Insightful)