this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
577 points (94.5% liked)

Asklemmy

43885 readers
822 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it's actually pretty popular.

Do you have some that's really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] renlok@lemmy.ml 58 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Assisted suicide is good for society and if legalised would help fix my countries broken healthcare system

[โ€“] xyproto@programming.dev 11 points 1 year ago

Watch out, rich old people with relatives.

[โ€“] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can respect someone's right to author their own last chapter, but the issue seems to be that along with the physical decline that can come with age or infirmity is often a mental decline that makes consent an extraordinarily sticky wicket.

[โ€“] renlok@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, well the decision would have to made before you no longer have capacity to make consent.

[โ€“] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

that's the glue on the wicket: if someone hasn't made the decision by the time they lose capacity are they doomed to suffer? also, how do we determine exactly how much loss of mental function has to occur before someone loses the capacity to make this decision? Who gets to decide? The government doesn't have an interest but is also going to have to try to make a one-size-fits-all determination of mental function that will almost certainly be at least a little bit wrong for every specific case. The family, assuming there is one, knows the individual more personally and can speak to what they would want but might also have an interest in killing someone off prematurely in order to get an inheritance or be rid of a financial burden.

[โ€“] renlok@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah or you'd risk families with bad intentions making the decision for them. Luckily the legal framework for capacity to make decisions is already well established it's used in healthcare regularly already.

[โ€“] KrimsonBun@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

depends on the way it's implemented but yeah in some cases that'd be nice

[โ€“] rab@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In Canada they have MAID program and it appears to just be used as an excuse not to help people. Curious your thoughts on this? https://beta.ctvnews.ca/national/politics/2022/12/2/1_6179325.amp.html

I used to be all for this program but I don't think it was implemented with good intentions. Instead of fixing the country they are just telling us to kill ourselves. They know that anyone who kills themselves is just going to be replaced by 10 immigrants anyway

[โ€“] renlok@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

This sounds like it's more of an issue with Veterans Affairs Canada being inappropriate and unhelpful. It's not an issues with the MAID program.

[โ€“] Dave@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I supported assisted suicide until I read your comment.

Get injured in the US, now I'll live the rest of my life with debt I can never repay and I'll never be able to spend money on what I want.

Or before the surgery, tell me how much it will cost. Then I can choose between a lifetime of debt or assisted suicide.

Then I can choose between a lifetime of debt or assisted suicide

As long as religious people run things, the US will never have a federal level assisted suicide law.