When assisted suicide is just banal (Erin)

Very perceptive, Erin.

One thing that bothers me about this entire scene is the suicide's involvement of other people in this process. We all commented about that in the train incident in Texas, how unrelated third parties like the train crew had been impacted by this event.

If you, prospective suicide, really think you are doing the right thing for whatever reason, why do you need society's help and approval? Lethal substances are really not all that difficult to obtain. There is copious information on this topic available both in book form and on the internet. This very wealthy and prominent Englishman could very well have managed this on his own, without wimping out and hiring a "clinic" to do the work for him.

No, as you allude to, Erin, there is something else going on here. This whole business is an attempt to make behavior which society has always sought to discourage socially acceptable. Furthermore, this tactic seems to be succeeding. Given the nature of the behavior we're discussing (self destruction) I cannot think this a healthy development.

I certainly agree with the above reply that forcing an unwilling third party to be a part of your suicide is insane. There are plenty of ways to kill yourself without needing to involve someone else.

However, I can see wanting to end your life in a clinic with your family and friends well aware of why you want this, as opposed to the police finding your body by a stream with a bullet wound to the head. The clinic would have the added "benefit" of... I guess professionals would be the term, to administer the drugs. I can see where someone would be nervous they may slip with a gun (or whatever they are using) and only critically wound themselves.

And, in the case of this English couple, if they had gone the gun route, there is no guarantee that it wouldn't be ruled a murder-suicide even if a note was left behind. I wouldn't want that thought as a burden on my children.

The silence is deafening aspect is what irks me also, but not necessarily from a religious POV, merely a human POV: "but what I can't understand are those who wish to reconcile euthanasia with" music, "particularly" a life of music. Permit me to indulge in an anagogical reading of the last act of the composer's magnum opus that I shall dub "the foreshortened" (not the usual "unfinished")

1__an opening allegro - Man's ascent to his calling, awakening desire
2__a slow movement - Man's struggle with his calling, persisting in desire
3__a minuet or scherzo - Man's folly exposed by his fellowmen, object of desire revealed
4__an allegro or rondo - Man's consummates his desire

The vagaries of self-absorption resound in the first and second movements, however they fail to keep audience's attention, who start drifting out of the auditorium prefering the usual narrative of life death redemption hope found elsewhere. A certain discordance in the third movement, with a severely abbreviated development of harmonies as the horn section loose their lung capacity and the catgut rots in the strings section. The usual divinely entertaining dance of chastened incomplete introspection of the protagonist redeemed by the solicitous liberality of fraternity is reduced to a coda of the percussion section echoing a clang of cymbals that fail to evoke a lacrimosa tempo expected if this is to be considered the requiem of the piece. There is no fourth movement, the audience having long left, the orchestra does too, as I said it's dubbed "the foreshortened." Did the composer ever find peace? Did his wife? In their lonely dance with death, where were the "solicitous liberality of fraternity" that in classical convention redeem the tragic narrative and raise the spirits, so raucously in fact that in some cases they can even raise the rafters (one thinks of the beloved London Prom season)? The composer and his wife are to be pitied, we are the ones who should hang our heads in shame...

"if you see man as nothing more than an accumulation of carbon who is every moment gathering pain as he heads inexorably toward oblivion, then the lack of outcry at the news of someone's act of euthanasia probably pleases you"

Erin, this seems like a false association on your part. A person does not need believe in the supernatural to have concerns with euthanasia and how the sick and infirm are treated.

Of course "creating a society" in which people have access to physician assisted suicide is "bound to have an impact." Creating a society in which people DON'T have access also has an impact. The impact is that people suffering from terminal illnesses and in unending pain have to suffer more because they lack access to doctors able to help them end their lives on their own terms. Or they have to do it all surreptitiously.

Since Christianity doesn't mind shame, self-loathing and forcing people to be surreptitious about things Christians don't like, the whole "having to do it all surreptitiously" thing doesn't bother them.

But it bothers the rest of us who have to live in this world with Christians. If Christians don't want physician assisted suicide, they need not partake. The same goes with various sex acts, pornography, liquor. And if their religion is so ineffectual that it can't serve as a meaningful bulwark in a more liberal culture (read: fallen world), then what's the point of Christianity in the first place?

The problem with Christians of the sort here at Crunchy Con is that they're not just intent on protecting themselves and their families from things they don't like. They feel this urge to protect all the rest of us who don't agree with them.

Many Mormons, god love them, have been able to hold onto positively wacky beliefs (a good deal wackier than garden variety Christianity) and habits all without the benefit of a society that puts their laws into practice. Christians should take note.

Atheists do seem to be more supportive of euthanasia, but a part of me finds that perplexing. If this is the only life you get wouldn't you want to "drink it to the last drop" so to speak? Take every moment, even the crummy ones, that you can so long as there's a chance you can touch other lives in some way.

That said if it's something destroying the brain I can see an atheist going for it.

To me some kind of Universalist religiosity would fit euthanasia better. (A Unitarian reverend named George Exoo does many assisted-suicides. That I get, sort-of) There's no Hell and God wants us to avoid pain, something like that.

Well, John E, if it makes you forget whether the shotgun was loaded ...

For the record, Buddhism has a problem with the kind of usually-botched half-hearted "suicide attempts" that are really a cry for help. It results in some rather sticky rebirths. On the other hand, if a person can calmly and rationally say "OK, this is enough" there is not thought to be a karmic after-effect. The Buddhist monks who burned themselves to death during the vietnam war are still revered throughout the Buddhist world.