Comment by Merad
3 years ago
Even ignoring the fact that human euthanasia is illegal in most of the US, it's rarely that easy. Both of my paternal grandparents lived into their 90s but suffered from mental decline (different forms of dementia) and died as shells of their former selves. If you could have spoke to either of them at the end of their lives but with their full mental capacity, I suspect they would have said that they'd have preferred to die earlier rather than live through that decline... but in reality by the time anyone understood how severe their mental decline would become they were already well past the point that they could have consented to euthanasia.
In theory you could presumably have some kind of system where a person of sound mind could that said, in effect, "if my condition declines beyond _____ then I want to end it," but doing so would be an incredibly touchy subject even if euthanasia was legalized. Unfortunately there is a very real potential for such a directive to by abused by people motivated by greed (gimmie that inheritance) or who simply don't want to deal with an aging relative who needs more help but hasn't reached the point where their euthanasia directive should be triggered.
Assuming forethought one can set up a living trust. I have one. If I can no longer consent then a family member I designated can consent for me. It isn't without risk and requires a lot of trust.
> but doing so would be an incredibly touchy subject even if euthanasia was legalized.
It would, but the alternative is to make people live though this mental decline as we currently do. IMO it would be well worth the risks to be able to ameliorate the end of peoples lives.
My plan is to end my life well before I hit severe mental decline (not “if it gets worse”, with all the ambiguities that entails). If that cuts a few years off then a be it!
It really, really doesnt have to be that complex. If people are religious nuts to believe suicide would bring them to some religion's hell (it won't, since it doesn't exist even if their variant of god(s) would exist), there are tons of ways to pass out rather quickly and not fulfill that criteria, and not bother anybody with the process (various car/train jumpers or suicide-by-cop doers whom I consider utter selfish a-holes).
Walk out to a storm or blizzard not equipped for it. Go fight a bear or lion or crocodile. Go for a swim that you can't come back from. Do some high risk type of adventure that in high age is not even discussed. If you make it, great experience, move to next one.
The list is literally endless and can be done in some form even by quadriplegics. It allows you to plan goodbye and closures, wills etc. The fear and pain and suffering is concentrated into such a tiny sliver of time compared to dying discussed its uncomparable.
It just takes balls to accept that this is it, what mattered for you in life is over, and now its time to think about your closest ones and not yourself. Like a breakup, many will continue living in bad relationship since its a small amount of pain and evil every hour, every day. Instead of standing up and walking off to uncertainty and freedom.