Killing with consent: should it be legal?

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Well, reading the German Cannibal thread made me think, what do you think about killing someone because the victim simpy want it? Should it be legal? Or it should not? Some countries legalize euthanasia, but IIRC euthanasia is only allowed under certain medical circumstances.

If someone just wants to die, and she/he asks someone else (and maybe even pay for it) to do the job, should it be legalized or not?

[Elheru Aran]

No. If they want to die, they can just off themselves. Why get someone else in trouble? Even if it's legal, it's just asinine. The morality of suicide is another thing, but essentially, this is merely suicide by way of another person...

[Narsil]

What about someone who simply lacks the ability to kill themselves? Someone with paralysis who's tired of living with that condition for an example.

[Robert Walper]

What about someone who simply lacks the ability to kill themselves? Someone with paralysis who's tired of living with that condition for an example.

That's a definite yes. I'm already aware I would be utterly unwilling to live in such a state, and would consider others forcibly keeping me alive inhumane punishment.

[Lord Stormbringer]

There should never, ever be consentual murder. As the cannibal issue shows, the people that engage in it are psychotic and dangerous. There is no reason what so ever for society to condone, and by such tacitly encourage, such behaviour. These people are greviously disturbed and providing them with the legal means to carry out such behaviour puts the public at risk.

The German Cannibal killed some one he knew, or should have known, to be alive. How long before such a predator (and they are, consensual or not) is not or cannot satisfy himself with willing victims? How long before that behaviour spawns serial killers? The pathology of such people is no different. From the little bit there, the guy is no different than a Jeffery Dahmer. It would be insane to promote this sort of behaviour.

What about someone who simply lacks the ability to kill themselves? Someone with paralysis who's tired of living with that condition for an example.

Quite frankly, condoning it in any sort of legal manner is intolerable. I used to think different. Then I saw the number of murders that took place under the guise of mercy in places like the UK or the Netherlands. Both should have scandals brewing over their socialised health care system being littered with doctors that killed, often times against the express belief and will of the patients, in the name of mercy. One case involved a Catholic nun with a non-terminal case being murdered and the doctor saying he knew she wanted it but couldn't give up her religous beliefs. What's chilling is that neither has a scandal because both have been stonewalled by the fact that under their system the abusers are investigated by the people responsible for allowing it. A lovely side of socialised medicine. But enough of that tangent.

To allow active euthanasia, as opposed to turning off artificial life support when hope is gone and the patient wills it (in verifiable records), is opening the door for murder and even death camp programs. Both the Stalinist Soviets and Nazis ran death camps for the impaired and killed thousands. And of course there are countless horrors in the West of abuse of those with lower quality of life at the hands of indifferent or malevolent health care providers. And of course the lovely Doctor Kevorkian of late fame; he killed patients even in cases where they had last minute changes of heart. Lovely is it not?

Simply put, allowing others to take life and death into their hands is only opening up a floodgate of potential, probable, abuse. It's not a slippery slope fallacy, it's a verifiable and oft repeated consequence.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Well, actually I'm not defending the German cannibal though; I was just inspired by the case.

See, this is what I really got in mind.

Suppose I want to commit suicide. Naturally, I want to make it as quick and painless as possible. However, since I've never killed anyone before -let alone myself, there is a risk that the suicide won't go as smooth as I want to. IIRC, even blowing up my head with a gun still have the risk of me ended up as a vegetable in the hospital instead of being actually dead.

But suppose I can find someone with expertise to do it as I expect? Someone with medical expertise that can end my life smoothly as I intended? But then, even if I can find such person, and even she / he is willing to do it, the person would still go to jail. Naturally, I, as the person intending to die, don't want such thing to happen, because the person is actually doing me a favor by helping me excercising my right to die.

Now of course it needs to be tightly supervised by the authority. Maniacs like the German Cannibal should never be trusted to perform such thing; it should be performed by professionals, by people who are tightly supervised by the authority. Maybe people performing such 'service' should need a license of some sort? And professional ethic codes? There should also be a legal proof that the person is really willing to die, so serial killers cannot hide behind the 'consentual killing' laws. The execution may need to be supervised by people who are qualified to do so, like death penalty execution,


Well, those are the things I've got in mind. What do you guys think?

[Robert Walper]

One problem I see KAN, is there are those who think no rational or healthly minded individual would commit suicide, thus any cooperation is only 'helping' mentally unstable/ill people to perform an irrational act. Many would even say immoral act.

*eyes Comrade Tortoise knowingly*

PS: Although for the record I voted no on the system as described in the OP.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

One problem I see KAN, is there are those who think no rational or healthly minded individual would commit suicide, thus any cooperation is only 'helping' mentally unstable/ill people to perform an irrational act. Many would even say immoral act.

See, that's always my biggest question: why it is so difficult for the society to acknowledge, let alone accepting the right to die? When are we going to see the society let people decide for themselves when and how are they going to die? Or maybe we would never such society exist?

Let's take abortion for perspective; there are more people (I think) can accept abortion than suicide, despite the fact that the aborted fetus cannot make decision itself, while people committing suicide are making their own deicision on their own life.

*eyes Comrade Tortoise knowingly*

Oh, you two, find a room!

[Comrade Tortoise]

What about someone who simply lacks the ability to kill themselves? Someone with paralysis who's tired of living with that condition for an example.

That is doctor assisted suicide, and is a completely different story than a creepy german with a cannibalistic death-wish

[Comrade Tortoise]

One problem I see KAN, is there are those who think no rational or healthly minded individual would commit suicide, thus any cooperation is only 'helping' mentally unstable/ill people to perform an irrational act. Many would even say immoral act.

*eyes Comrade Tortoise knowingly*

PS: Although for the record I voted no on the system as described in the OP.

You know damn well that is what I think.

Unless a person is terminally ill or in another comparable situation(such as being a quadruplegic and not wanting to live anymore... not to say that that is necessarily the way all such disabled individuals are) they are, amlost without exception in the "western world", mentally unstable and in need of therapy.

Cults, are mentally unbalancing by definition

And as you all know, I view religions and ideologies which mandate ritual suicide as BAD RELIGIONS/IDEOLOGIES

[Lord Stormbringer]

But suppose I can find someone with expertise to do it as I expect? Someone with medical expertise that can end my life smoothly as I intended? But then, even if I can find such person, and even she / he is willing to do it, the person would still go to jail. Naturally, I, as the person intending to die, don't want such thing to happen, because the person is actually doing me a favor by helping me excercising my right to die.

In theory, okay. Suicide is a stupid way to handle but it your "right."

In practice, those that help others die tend to be doing it for sick thrills or just to satiate a god complex. Look at Kevorkian or the NHS cases in Britian, coercion and out and out murder follow behind quite quickly. Both are cases were things got entirely out of hand and wound up in what can only be described as murder. Once you let people legally kill other people, despite the "assist" label it usually boils down to them killing you, then you're opening the door for sickos and predators.

The risks of it in any practical sense mean it's too great a danger.

One problem I see KAN, is there are those who think no rational or healthly minded individual would commit suicide, thus any cooperation is only 'helping' mentally unstable/ill people to perform an irrational act. Many would even say immoral act.

If the person is phsyically healthy, then there is probably something seriously wrong. Happy, healthy don't tend to committ suicide. Be it problems with their life or something like clinical depression, there is generally something wrong. And there are better ways to do it.

But if you're going to off yourself, well that's that. Not my life.

[Comrade Tortoise]

n practice, those that help others die tend to be doing it for sick thrills or just to satiate a god complex. Look at Kevorkian or the NHS cases in Britian, coercion and out and out murder follow behind quite quickly. Both are cases were things got entirely out of hand and wound up in what can only be described as murder. Once you let people legally kill other people, despite the "assist" label it usually boils down to them killing you, then you're opening the door for sickos and predators.

Well to be fair, I think Oregon handles the issue very well. The doctor never touches a needle. He prescribes a non-painful poison, which you then pick up from a pharmacy, and can take, or no take, at your lesure and discretion in your own home.

I figure if a person canot off themselves(for psychological, not physical reasons) then they dont really want to die.

[Lord Stormbringer]

Well to be fair, I think Oregon handles the issue very well. The doctor never touches a needle. He prescribes a non-painful poison, which you then pick up from a pharmacy, and can take, or no take, at your lesure and discretion in your own home.

Which still puts the onus of actually killing themself solely on the sucidal. It's at best assuring they have the means. That's not the doctor killing anyone as the sucidal is still the one that has to commit the act.