Anyone should be able to read it here, with or without a NYT subscription.
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From John S Mill (aka ME!)
â[T]he only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even rightâ
The reality is that people can be in emotionally vulnerable states where they make decisions based on environmental cues rather than on any kind of transcendent reason.
We donât want to make an environment that encourages sad or injured people to kill themselves.
To me, this is the real challenge, particularly with respect to people with mental illness. I believe that the traditional view, where our divinely given reason tempers our more animal-like emotions, is incorrect. Rather, emotions seem likely to be critical to our ability to make rational decisions. Then how can we know that a person who is depressed, say, is thinking rationally, when by definition their emotions are not functioning properly? If this even might be true, it means we should be extremely careful when thinking about allowing people to die by suicide.
Yeah choice is a good thing.
I wouldnât want a bunch of people around me as I die. I hope that I get to say goodbye to my kids/grandkids. But to each their own.
I donât know that Iâd want people around me when I actually died, either. But being able to say goodbye shortly before pulling the plug would be nice, I think.
I can see that for some. I donât think Iâd like that though. I think for me it would be terribly awkward. And an awkward thing to put my kids/grandkids through as they would have to entertain people through their grief - twice.
If I knew I was dying, Iâd try to privately visit all those I wanted to say goodbye to. By the time itâs time to pull the plug, I donât want anyone feeling like they have to interact with me or anyone else. For my kids: Just hold my hand and when Iâm gone, do what feels right to you.
I saw the thread title and got excited about a MAS*H post. I am now a little bummed out.
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Henry : [pulling out Klingerâs file] Here we go. Father dying, right?
Klinger : Yes, sir.
Henry : [going through letters in Klingerâs file] Father dying, last year. Mother dying, last year. Mother and father dying. Mother, father, and older sister dying. Mother dying and older sister pregnant. Older sister dying and mother pregnant. Younger sister pregnant and older sister dying.
Hereâs an oldie but a goodie: half of the family dying, other half pregnant. [puts file down] Klinger, arenât you ashamed of yourself?
Klinger : Yes sir. I donât deserve to be in the Army.
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Waving at people from the coffin would be friggin awesome.
But more realistically, I would love to have a goodbye party. You could take your time, and give hugs, and share feelings, and tell secrets, and say last words, and do all the other stuff that we dream of doing instead of just just screaming in pain.
I agree many people would find that awkward. But ideally it would all get more normal.
Well, I care less about my passing away, but you know people are going to be crying or whatever, and that stresses me out.
Not to mention I donât like seeing emotions either way. I donât want them to feel like they need to feel sad or happy, and I donât want to see them feeling sad or happy.
Well, if youâre the kind of person that doesnât like weddings, you probably also wonât like premature funerals. 
Philosophically, why/why not? Are we trying to keep people alive so we feel better?
I guess that depends on your philosophical approach.
I think most of us have the experience that being alive is worth doing, so the burden of proof is probably on a philosophical system that claims it is not.
If you want to be utilitarian about it, I suppose you could say that keeping people alive contributes to happiness in the long term. We donât want to nudge people to kill themselves because they are feeling depressed as teenagers.
Or we could say that people themselves have intrinsic value. Again, we donât want them dying if we can help it.
Well, making it harder for people to kill themselves just makes their suicides a lot more painful.
This is giving me the same vibes as making abortions illegal, or making butt sex illegal, or making drugs illegal. Theyâre still going to happen.
Nobody wants to commit suicide for the fun of it.
My FIL was terminal and in increasing pain from Sept 2021 to his final breath.
He had made regular phone calls to his kids (including my wife as weâre several states away) and expressed his gratitude, love, and pride in each.
Once the doctor gave the okay for the termination-of-life prescription (takes 24 hours to get filled), all of the kids were under the impression that he was going to take it the day after the prescription was filled (and ready to be picked up).
We worked to get out for that one last good bye (for my wife) on the day it was to be filled. He took the stuff while were still 2 hours away (we made that distance in an hour, FWIW) and got there about 10 minutes before the attending RN pronounced him âgoneâ.
My best guess for my FIL motivation: Didnât want the kids* to have their last view of him alive as being in that state.
*My SIL (FILâs oldest daughter) was the one to help administer the prescription to him.
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Thereâs all kinds of evidence that if you remind people of suicide, or make suicide seem more honorable and less taboo people will partake in it more than otherwise (Freakonomics has done a bit on this). Suicidal thoughts are often a transient thing (unlike butt sex, also I told you all your threads are about poop stuff) which is where the analogy breaks down. If youâre a happy guy and you know youâre going to be happy for the entirety of your natural life but you knew for one week at some point in the middle youâre going to be super depressed making suicide easy and accepted for a young person would rob you of that remainder of your life, simply because of that moment of weakness and the ease of access/acceptance.
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Well, maybe just once.
if your butt sex involves poop, youâre doing it wrong
And youâre speaking this fromâŚan omniscient point of view? Canât you also argue this from an abortion POV, or drug POV, that if you do it just once itâll ruin your whole life?
Let people do what they want at the time they want to do it, itâs simple, as long as it doesnât harm anyone else.
I think there are some key differences.
Suicide involves ending a human life, irreversibly (obviously). That is not true of any of those other activities.
Making suicide might make things more painful for the person who has made the rational decision. But making it too easy endangers the people who are not acting rationally. These costs must be weighted against each other. In this case, Iâm in favor making it very hard to commit suicide.
As an example, I believe that school support groups for LGBTQ teenagers can significantly reduce suicide rates. This is obviously a good thing. We could also imagine the inverse of this, which would be groups that explain to these teens how to kill themselves, and tell them such a rational decision is theirs to make. This would obviously be a bad thing.
If we restrict ourselves to people who will die in the next 6 months, say, then I do think the calculus changes. It should probably be easier to commit suicide. Maybe we do want doctors explaining this option to patients. Even then, we have to be very careful that people do not feel pressured to die this way.
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fair
I can see what you mean about the abortion parallels, that maybe the state thinks youâll change your mind about wanting the kid when the kid is older. It is a bit like that, except in this case the thing being killed is far more developed. Itâs all philosophical though, how much should the state be allowed to nanny.