Right to kill yourself..

[mrmcfister]

Fascinating.Loads of do gooders trying to tell us what to do getting their nickers in twist cos they're frightened of letting people decide their own destiny and not some crappy painful death.Delighted this was on mainstream TV .Good that some parts of the world are more enlightened on these issues and people can get there.The Dignitas staff are very dignified and kind to people in a nasty situation.

[sparky]

Always an emotional topic but we have dual standards.
It is considered inhumane to keep a seriously ill or badly injured animal that is in pain alive.
However a person meeting the same criteria must be stuffed full of painkillers and everything possible done to keep them alive even when they have no quality of life or recovery prospects. A person who is mentally fine so can make a rational and informed decision is not legally allowed to choose to end their life under any circumstance.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Well said Turan. Dying with dignity means not telling the whole country over and over again.

[jimslip]

I know someone who has Alzheimers. He used to be a "big cheese". A maker and breaker in International property. The last time I saw him he was wheeling a woman around and around in circles, whilst soiling himself, languishing in a rest home. His memory has been in effect, wiped clean.

I know if someone, years ago, could have shown him a video of himself and how he'd be in the future, he would have killed himself or certainly had a good go at it, no question and some hand-wringing, nannying, do gooder trying to stop him, would have found themselves being thrown out of a window!

I've heard of old couples making suicide pacts to end their lives and who can blame them? The future that awaits them is either being beaten to death by scum or languishing in a home being abused and neglected.

People who wish to get out should be allowed to do so. It is their right. Safeguards can be put in place to protect them against family ghouls.

[wayne]

Alzheimers and all the forms of demntia are horrible disease and while the body may continue what was exsisently the person dies and this process is a long drawn out painful experience and far worse for the persons loved ones as they then have experience of being beraveaved twice.

[one eyed jack]

Not being horrible but if you put a gu to your head and blow your brains out thenres not much anyone can do about that but sweep you up on a stretcher andput you in a hole then is there?

Dignitas is the nice way to go and I agree,if thats who a person wants to end their last days they should have that right to do so but failing that, may as well leave a mess on the floor for some poor sap to clean up when it couldve been done oderly and with dignity

[jimslip]

The problem with suicide, certainly for people with early dementia and Alzheimers, is that the diseases seem to erode the part of the brain that recognises, "Self" and so at the very time you should be considering suicide, is the very time that the ability to consider such a course of action starts to be erradicated from your mind.

So by the time you need to top yourself, the desire and need is gone. You are as happy as a sand boy, whilst you take a dump in the middle of a crowded street.

That's why you need to get someone else to pull the trigger before it's too late!

If you don't, you are then doomed to being a kind of Zombie, kept alive as long as possible, so the care home can continue getting their ?1000 a week in fees.

It is truly an awful way to go.

PS Luckily they are close to being able to reverse this awful diseaseif it's caught early enough.