Dutch man chooses to get euthanised due to his alcohol addiction

[Celista]

Yes, I do. Mental healthcare actually.

The law requires the treatment to have a positive effect AND be within a reasonable timeframe.
It also has the requirement that the result is balanced compared to the treatment.
Getting a shock-treatment every day so in 10 years you might show one smile is not considered a treatment.

But hey, if you want your personal morals to stand in the way of the wishes of the patient: Go ahead.
Just try to ruin the healthcare in your own country and stay away from here.

If you work in mental health care then you know there are other treatments for depression than electroshock therapy. Treatment modalities that are too numerous to list.

Thank you for proving my point by reacting emotionally instead of putting forth a cogent argument. You can stay in YOUR own country, I guess it should make you ponder that, for all of the problems with the US health care system, at least we don't throw up our hands and say "I can't help you, I'm going to sign off on your physician-assisted suicide" for non-fatal diseases like mental health disorders.

[Ryme]

I'm entirely on the side of having a legalised form of euthanasia, so I respect his choice here even if I think it might not have been necessary.

[Bathory]

If he wanted an out and it could be provided who the fuck cares if you think its bad or not. You aren't the person that wanted it.

Thread ended right here imo.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

[COLOR="#800000"]

My other concern is that your grandchildren may want your house and fortune and decide to put you down legally.

It has to be approved by two doctors acting independently who interview both the patient and their immediate family before saying it can happen or not. You can't just say "I think he should be put down" and they do it.

[Celista]

And after 21 tries two doctors decided he couldn't be reasonably helped anymore.

Wow, why would that be?
Could it be that someone claimed our society ánd healthcare failed?
Or that our doctors are stupid and foolish?

And no, you are right. You don't throw your hands in the air.
You ignore the problems, you don't deal with them. No wonder your suicide-rate is 50% higher; great mental health care. Thumbs up!
I will remember that the next time someone opens a thread to bash my country and its euthanasia laws.

Treating addiction is a lifelong process, that is what USUALLY happens when people go through addiction treatment. You're still reacting emotionally because you're taking my criticism of euthanasia for non-fatal diseases as an attack on your country. Clearly this will go nowhere and you have nothing to back up your argument, you are being overtly hostile for no discernible reason.

Calm down and return to the argument when you have less emotion and more substance.

[Nitros14]

The alternative is him killing himself and his family coming home to his corpse. Is that really better?

So many people feel they have the right to interfere in what he does with his body in private because they don't like it.

"No there's a chance you might get 'better', you don't get to end it you have to suffer until I'm convinced there's no possible chance you'll not want to kill yourself."

[Deleted]

His life, his decision.

/thread

I mean, if he wanted to end his life he would always have found some way. It's not like Euthanasia is the only way to actively end your life. And while I understand that some people might think that we at least should not help people like him doing it, it's still their life - and thus, ultimately, their decision alone.

[endersblade]

Wait wait wait...you're against the idea of someone who DOESN'T WANT TO LIVE using a LEGAL and SAFE way to kill himself? Can I have what you're smoking?

If someone doesn't want to live, for ANY REASON AT ALL, who the FUCK are you to tell them they have to? This is worse than being anti-abortion - at least in this situation, the one dying is doing it willingly, and you're saying they aren't allowed to make that decision as a fucking legal adult?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Can't say I agree with doing it because of alcoholism. I just feel bad for the family now.

[Celista]

I take it as an attack because you attack our doctors in general. Because you attacked our society, claiming we (and our health care) failed them.

I didn't attack your doctors or society. Grow up. Map is irrelevant, depressive disorders are multifactorial in nature, including 50% being related to heritability.

I don't have time to have what is honestly a discussion beneath me if you're linking Wikipedia maps.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I agree. I do not mind Euthanasia if you have a Terminal illness.
But killing yourself due to an addiction is not good.
He could have found better Rehab centres, gone away to a dry country..become Muslim even . Most do not drink Alcohol.

Sounded like he was relatively young too, as the Journalist author quotes "My little Brother".

What a waste.

... Wtf? You ARE aware that alcoholism isn't something that's easily done away with, right? Even my own dad who's the strongest person I've ever known suffers from the condition. He beat it by hitting rock bottom and being forced to abstain alcohol. He's still an alcoholist, just that he's sober.

My mom on the other hand used to drink excessively to self-medicate, yet the day she found out WHY she felt the way she did (anxiety) and that alcohol was making it worse in the long run, she just stopped drinking clean from one day to the other. She's NOT an alcoholic.

Either way, his life and his decision. Better it be done this way than him taking his own life for his relatives to find him. I've been extremely vocal with everyone I know that if something ever happened to me which left me paralyzed from the neck down, perhaps unable to speak, I'd want to receive a lethal injection. Fuck staying alive just to spare the feelings of strangers. My family would be 100% behind me in such a situation which is all that matters.

[Grym]

If you don't allow him to do that he can easily just jump out of a building, jump into a train track, or wield a chainsaw in the shopping centre hoping police force to shoot him down.

If people want to die, it is best to let them, or they might take other measure to get themselves killed.

If I am in his situation and was refused euthanasia, I would have wield a samurai sword in a shopping centre, killing anyone in sight, and wait for special force to come and shoot me down. Or they can just let me get euthanised, their choice.

[Celista]

Okay


Both links show you one thing: Our mental health care is perfectly fine, it's one of the best in the world.
We treat people well and our doctors know what they are talking about.

I am sure links and facts are beneath you, you prefer to use random digs at our system and society.

Apparently your education system is lacking since you are a mental health care professional and are trying to argue that the prevalence of disorders with 50% heritability such as depressive disorders are somehow indicative of the quality of your health care system.

Here's a mini genetics lesson: the genetic map of your country is not the same as the US.
Here's a map-reading lesson that further disseminates your argument: Finland has a high rate of depressive disorders yet is consistently ranked as one of the leading health care systems in the world.

I'm done with your pro-nationalist conversation that is mired in emotional rhetoric and no logical substance, I have better things to do with my time. Have a nice day.

[Deleted]

Remember, the guy asked for euthanasia because he saw no way of improvement of the quality of his life. TWO doctors agreed that there was no way the quality of his life could be improved. If any of those two thought that there was a way to improve it, he'd not be euthanized.

[Celista]

1. The link was about the DALY, not just prevalence.
2. A part of mental health care includes the prevention.
3. 5.2% of our population has had a depression in the last year, 6.7% in the US. Yet the DALY is almost twice as high for depressive disorders.

But I guess some minor flaming is more your style.

Listen, if you don't understand the basics of depressive disorders that influence their prevalence (which you clearly do not, by trying to contribute 100% of a disease's prevalence on the perceived quality of one's health care system), then you are wasting my time with this conversation.

- - - Updated - - -

Remember, the guy asked for euthanasia because he saw no way of improvement of the quality of his life. TWO doctors agreed that there was no way the quality of his life could be improved. If any of those two thought that there was a way to improve it, he'd not be euthanized.

You can find two doctors that will give you enough plastic surgery to look like a walking mutant in most Western countries, that does not mean that doctors are infallible.

[nextormento]

I think it's weird that people focus on what the patient desires. They want to die, so what?. The question around euthanasia is not letting them die or not, but being the administering party, and under which circumstances.
Much like abortion, the alternative to not providing it is generally worse: they can suicide at any moment, with little to no dignity for themselves, or closure for their families.
This is often met with vague appeals to
-morality: but we're killing people!.
-utopia: we should have better tools (artificial wombs, in case of abortion, or some yet to be developed treatment in case of euthanasia).

There are differences in both debates. But people who position themselves differently on these two things amaze me: because they frequently use the counterargument for the other debate.

[Deleted]

Even if those doctors fuck up (there still was an option or something), you'd still have that nice law in place that will get them in jail, as they just killed a person. Those doctors know they're screwed really bad if they fuck up, so they don't fuck up!

Any of those doctors can say "Nope, I'm not doing it" and it won't happen either. AFAIK, they can back out as well. You have to go through a lot of hoops to get euthanized. This time someone managed to get it for a depression/addiction. And still, if getting into rehab 21 times didn't work out, what will?

[Celista]

I think it's weird that people focus on what the patient desires. They want to die, so what?. The question around euthanasia is not letting them die or not, but being the administering party, and under which circumstances.
Much like abortion, the alternative to not providing it is generally worse: they can suicide at any moment, with little to no dignity for themselves, or closure for their families.
This is often met with vague appeals to
-morality: but we're killing people!.
-utopia: we should have better tools (artificial wombs, in case of abortion, or some yet to be developed treatment in case of euthanasia).

There are differences in both debates. But people who position themselves differently on these two things amaze me: because they frequently use the counterargument for the other debate.

This was a more intelligent post than most of the thread, but suicide is in nearly half of all suicide cases thought to be a compulsive act. So I think it is speculative as to whether euthanasia would be a better alternative to suicide, those who are determined to commit suicide will do so anyway. And many of them will not wait for euthanasia approval, due to suicide's impulsive/compulsive nature for so many cases.

I think there are social consequences to normalizing suicide, including physician-assisted suicide. I met a psychologist who wrote a whole graduate paper on cutting behaviors at a high school on the north shore of Chicago, it became cool and acceptable to do and therefore became somewhat of an epidemic there, with self-inflicted injuries at a much higher rate than the national average + at other local high schools.

Separate argument, legalization of an act tends to increase the likelihood of an individual to engage in that act.

[Deleted]

They way I see it, is that it should only be used as a last resort. This is also they way the 'euthanasia law' is worded. One should only administer this if all other options have been exhausted. In this case, the person, and two doctors agreed that this had been the case. And more importantly, the inspection panel agreed that it was the case.

You can't challenge how the law works. If the panel found that they could have tried something else, the doctor would go to jail, as he murdered someone.

I agree that they tried to treat the symptom (alcoholism) instead of the cause (depression). Would it ease your mind that the person in question got their good death for his depression, instead of the addiction?

Still, going into rehab 21 times and having it NOT work, isn't something to take lightly. It's most likely a sign, that this one cannot be fixed. But I'm not a doctor, nor a lawyer, I just happen to have studied this subject for Ethics.

[Orange Joe]

I agree. I do not mind Euthanasia if you have a Terminal illness.
But killing yourself due to an addiction is not good.
He could have found better Rehab centres, gone away to a dry country..become Muslim even . Most do not drink Alcohol.

Sounded like he was relatively young too, as the Journalist author quotes "My little Brother".

What a waste.

Or he could have done it in a much more gruesome manor, leaving his body for his family to find. Yes...., clearly that is the much better option here.