Assisted Suicide

Dr Philip Nitschke's "Euthanasia Machine", for assisted suicide, 1995.

Definitions

Assisted suicide is the provision of any or all of advice, equipment and physical assistance to enable someone who wishes to end their life to do so. Advice might include: instruction on suicide techniques, stories of suicides, philosophical or religious discussion on suicide, historical perspectives etc. Equipment might be any item that may assist in the suicide such as: a car, hosepipe, rope, drugs, bags etc. Physical assistance might include setting up suicide apparatus or manoeuvring a subject that is too weak to do such things for herself. It may even extend if necessary to committing the act that actually ends the other's life, something that some might consider murder.

Euthanasia means: "a quiet and easy death". It is a lovely word that has a variety of uses in today's society. It is also the term popularly used to describe the assisted suicide of the terminally and painfully ill. Unfortunately it has acquired a negative overtone due to being used as a euphemism for state sponsored murder both of people and animals. Nonetheless I shall continue to use it in the original sense.

General Morality

Assisted Suicide is different from murder because the subject WISHES to die.

The Church of Infinite Dimensions believes in the sanctity of all life, but this means quality life. The life that the Church reveres is life that expresses the richness of the true spirit of the Uru. An agu that has permanently lost consciousness or that struggles with drugged mind through a permanent grey mist of pain is not alive in the sense that the Church reveres. Because we have an infinite number of lives the Church has no objection to ending a life early, provided it is clear that there is nothing to be gained from prolonged torture.

If the quality of life for an agu drops permanently below the point at which life is worth living, then it is entitled to end its life, and is entitled to help from society to achieve this aim.

Preconditions For Assisted Suicide

The primary questions to consider when determining whether assisted suicide is appropriate are:

Whether the agu's life is not worth living.
Whether that state is permanent.
Whether the aga truly wishes to die.
Whether that wish is permanent.

When is a life not worth living?

Suffering pain and hardship, especially in the short, or even medium term, is not necessarily a bad thing. Coping with adversity forces the agu to reach deep inside itself to meet the challenge. Such a challenge may enable the agu to reach heights that it could never have otherwise. The resilience of the Uru and its courage and creativity under pressure are some of the characteristics most revered by the Church. That a life seems not worth living in the short term is certainly not sufficient cause to justify assisted suicide.

For a life to be truly not worth living it must be clear, not only that the condition is intolerable and permanent, but that aga is no longer able to learn from the pain of the condition and not going to develop internally in any positive way.

When does a person truly wish to die?

In order to qualify for suicide assistance a person must have explicitly stated that they wish to die, and this wish must be verifiable. They may have made the wish in the present tense, eg: "I wish to die now." or they may have made a wish for the future while they still could, eg "When I can no longer speak, I wish to die".

In order to ensure that this is the true and lasting wish of a sane mind, the subject must be examined by a trained person at a number of intervals of a period of time that may be weeks, months or even years, depending on the nature of the case.

Who makes the final judgment?

When the subject has held a genuine wish to die for the necessary period, depending on the situation, a small panel comprising family and friend representatives, the subject's doctor and psychologist and an ethnologist, convene to determine whether the subject's life is truly not worth living.

The Church believes in the freedom of the individual. It is important that the subject's wishes be respected, in this case the wish to die. Unless the panel have strong reason to believe that the subject's quality of life will significantly improve, the subject's wish should be granted.

How should death be effected?

The troubled agu should be assisted to terminate its life in the manner of its choosing. Generally the death should be reasonably quick and painless; a true euthanasia. Death by lethal injection at the bedside is the favoured means.

Categories Of The Disaffected

The Depressed

People who are in a state of mental misery that they feel they can't break out of are said to be depressed. Those who are in this state may often feel that life is not worth living and may wish to commit suicide. Depression is not incurable or insoluble and therefore is not grounds for Assisted Suicide.

The Disabled

There are many categories of the disabled, including: the blind, the deaf, the mentally retarded, spastics, paraplegics, quadriplegics etc. Each category has its own problems, methodologies and rationale which I will not go into here. The upshot is that since the disabling is permanent, if the subject really feels that life is intolerable there are grounds for Assisted Suicide.

The Pained

Those who are in severe and constant pain will find it difficult or impossible to enjoy life. The use of drugs to deaden the pain may produce side effects or alter the consciousness in such a way that it is still impossible to enjoy life. In such cases there are clear grounds for Assisted Suicide.

The Diseased

People with seriously debilitating diseases that are going to kill them anyway, may wish to end their life before the final indignities of the disease manifest. Most obviously this includes patients with untreatable cancers, patients with untreatable or drug resistant infections and patients whose defences are so weak that they must eventually succumb to some additional infection, such as some AIDS patients. Without reasonable hope of a miracle cure, such people have suitable grounds for Assisted Suicide.