Euthanasia, Discussion and Debate

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Why is it right to force someone who's mentally ill to live? How do you even define "mentally ill"? How "mentally healthy" can you be, if you're suicidal?

I was just stating that if you have no mental illness than there is absolutely no reason why their decision should be brought into question. Now when mental illness is brought into it it gets a bit more complicated as with the questions you brought up. In the case of suicide the persons choice is still valid because honestly they truly do not want to live and living is nothing but a constant pain to them. With suicide most are still completely healthy in the mind, just depressed which would be no different from the case of someone being depressed about being a burden to their family due to their own injuries. They both understand the situation and that they just don't want to live anymore.

As I said though it's taking the discussion into a whole other ball park. WHich is good for discussion of course.

[Anh_Minh]

Depression is a form of mental illness, too. And it's treatable. Shouldn't we give that a chance, regardless of the patient's wishes, before helping them die?

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Depression is a form of mental illness, too. And it's treatable. Shouldn't we give that a chance, regardless of the patient's wishes, before helping them die?

I can you see where you're coming from and I agree that in most cases of suicidal thoughts in a patient the persons request probably shouldn't be adheard too. However I'm talking about the feelings of suicide due too an injury. Sorry if I didn't make that clear in the other post, my thoughts probably became befuddled. Anyways I'm saying what if someone is suffering great pain from a disease, where this no official cure and wants to kill themselves instead of taking treatment that may keep them alive longer, but they will still suffer from the pain. Then they are given the choice of wether to kill themselves and they understand the situation of their choice, should they not be able to allowed the right to death. Yes they had suicidal thoughts, but it rooted from the pain of their injury/disease.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

What the hell are you talking about? While legally, the decision may indeed lie with her parents, she managed to convince them.

And who are you to judge she's not qualified? Or how much pain she was in when she made her decision?

I am not personally judging if she is qualified or not (obviously it is hard to judge some random child seemingly half a world away from me), but the question has to be asked, especially to determine why she made her decision. Specifically, if it was a spur of the moment decision, then medical officials would give her opinion less creedence than a reasoned argument concerning her pains/traumas and her possibilities of betterment. To spin your question, Who are you to determine that she was mentally sound (normal) when she made her decision? This type of question, even if the answer is somewhat ambiguous, must be asked concerning these life and death decisions.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

And I'd like to point out, the decision she made is reversible: she can change her mind and agree to the transplant after all. (There's still the problem of finding a compatible donor, of course. From that point of view, she's wasting time.) But if she has a heart transplant, well, that's irreversible. What she sacrificed won't come back.

I was under the assumption that the heart transplant was a live-saving operation (If my assumption is incorrect, please tell me). Is her life not actually in danger? Is the heart transplant completely unneeded? I know that Hospitals like to milk their patients of their money, but would they really go through the trouble of an unneeded heart transplant just for the heck of it?

While she did currently make the decision not to undergo the operation due to the fact that she did not want to undergo the trauma of the operation or the potential recovery, the fact is that not taking the operation will greatly increase her likelihood of early (earlier) death. So, while her decision is reversible, I am guessing that her time limit to reverse her decision is fairly short and her future quality of life will go down the longer that she waits (obviously).

(As an aside to address the thread title; of the many reasons given against euthanasia, I only consider feasibility of implementation (cognitive stability of the patient), necessity (potential cures, etc), and consent under pressure (economic issues, etc) to be valid points of contention which must be solved before euthanasia can be legally supported.)

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by james0246

I am not personally judging if she is qualified or not (obviously it is hard to judge some random child seemingly half a world away from me), but the question has to be asked, especially to determine why she made her decision. Specifically, if it was a spur of the moment decision, then medical officials would give her opinion less creedence than a reasoned argument concerning her pains/traumas and her possibilities of betterment. To spin your question, Who are you to determine that she was mentally sound (normal) when she made her decision? This type of question, even if the answer is somewhat ambiguous, must be asked concerning these life and death decisions.

She was cogent enough to convince her parents to go to court if need be. And it's been going on for some time. So, no, I don't think it qualifies as "spur of the moment".

I was under the assumption that the heart transplant was a live-saving operation (If my assumption is incorrect, please tell me). Is her life not actually in danger? Is the heart transplant completely unneeded? I know that Hospitals like to milk their patients of their money, but would they really go through the trouble of an unneeded heart transplant just for the heck of it?

While she did currently make the decision not to undergo the operation due to the fact that she did not want to undergo the trauma of the operation or the potential recovery, the fact is that not taking the operation will greatly increase her likelihood of early (earlier) death. So, while her decision is reversible, I am guessing that her time limit to reverse her decision is fairly short and her future quality of life will go down the longer that she waits (obviously).

My understanding is that she still has a few years to live. A heart transplant would give her a few more years, but her quality of life would go down even if everything goes well, and that's what she fears.