Posted on 12/28/2007 12:12:40 PM PST by wagglebee
It's not an issue on too many Oklahomans' radars, but outside the Sooner State, there is a gradually unfolding philosophical shift where euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are concerned.
On the larger world stage, Ozzy and Sharon Osborne, of Black Sabbath and reality TV-fame, recently brought certain European countries' more liberal approaches to end-of-life decisions to light with a visit to Switzerland.
They traveled there in October to scout out and show their support for Dignitas, a so-called "death apartment" where physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia were performed.
It's not exactly clear how they would notice, but the couple said they planned to make an appointment with the clinic if Ozzy ever came down with Alzheimer's disease.
(Their visit was cut short, incidentally, upon discovering that Dignitas had just been evicted from the building after repeated complaints by other tenants of the large number of coffins cluttering the side of the street outside).
Closer to home, Oregon is recognizing its 10-year anniversary this year as the only state in the nation in which physician-assisted suicide is legal.
This is largely due to the efforts of Compassion and Choices, an Oregon-based nonprofit group that provides end-of-life counseling and advocates, through litigation and legislative lobbying, patients' rights to choose their own manner of dying.
The word "suicide" was intentionally left out of the group's description because it takes particular offense to the use of the word to describe what it supports, regardless of the "physician-assisted"-prefix.
"Suicide is when somebody, usually irrationally, takes their life, but these people want to live. They love life, but they're already dying," said Mike Beard, media relations director for Compassion and Choices.
"Physician-assisted dying" more accurately described the practice established in the Death with Dignity Act, the law passed in Oregon in 1997, he said.
In the decade since the act took effect, the law "has worked extremely well," Beard said.
It's his group's goal that the rest of the nation's laws concerning to end-of-life rights would someday mirror Oregon's.
"There are, at any moment in time, tens of thousands of people who are in extraordinary amounts of pain and they have no options for how they can exit this life with peace and with grace, and we think we ought to afford people at the end of this life with a certain amount of dignity," said Beard.
He said the Death with Dignity Act was now so much a part of the fabric of Oregon's law and medical culture that he sees no possibility of it ever being repealed.
So, their attention is focused outward, to other states. Compassion and Choices has 45,000 members and 52 different local chapters across the nation.
But none in Oklahoma, Beard said.
That might be because, like Oregon, Oklahoma is unique in the nation, but for the opposite reason: because an opposing ethic is already woven into the fabric of the state's laws and medical culture.
"We're unique in the U.S. There's a statute on the books that makes a presumption that, if a patient can't speak, physicians are to provide them with therapy," Dr. Curtis E. Harris told UTW.
While that statutory presumption wouldn't technically conflict with Oregon's Death with Dignity Act (more on that later), the philosophies behind the two laws do represent the two opposing sides of the debate, as the doctor explains.
Fighting Death
Harris is Chief of Endocrinology at the Chickasaw Nation Carl Albert Diabetes Care Center in Ada.
He wears several other hats as well, including Adjunct Professor of Law, specializing in medical law, at the Oklahoma City University School of Law.
He also serves on the state Medical Licensure Board, and has been a regular commentator on medical ethics on National Public Radio.
Harris is also a member of the little-known Nightingale Alliance, the mission of which is "to promote compassionate, medical, emotional and social care at the end of life, allowing each individual to be treated with respect until natural death occurs, and to oppose the life-ending acts of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia," according to www.nightingalealliance.org.
The Nightingale Alliance has existed for six years.
Barbara Lions, director of the Nightingale Alliance, said the organization came about as a response to a series of meetings from people across the country to legalize assisted suicide.
"It's mostly an information source. It doesn't lobby in the Legislature," she said.
Harris said he was asked to join the Nightingale Alliance because he had become so recognized for having started another group with similar goals.
"I founded the American Academy of Medical Ethics, which is about 8,000 physicians scattered throughout the southwest who wanted to return to the original Hippocratic tradition, to counter some of the principals advanced by Jack Kevorkian," he told UTW.
Of course, "Jack Kevorkian," a.k.a. "Dr. Death," is a household name across the country and beyond for having become the public face of physician-assisted suicide.
Hippocrates, though, might not be so familiar a name, save for doctors and "Jeopardy" buffs.
The ancient Greek is regarded as the Father of Medicine and formulated what is known as the Hippocratic Oath, variations of which are taken by doctors before embarking upon their careers.
The classical version, and others, contains a pledge to "neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor make a suggestion to this effect."
Harris explained that, not only was there a need to counter Kevorkian's influence, but another advocacy group--The Hemlock Society--was strenuously at work to change the pertinent laws in several other states, making them friendlier to principles Harris sees as consistent with Kevorkian's.
The Hemlock Society eventually changed its name to End-of-Life Choices and then merged with the similarly-purposed Compassion in Dying in 2004, becoming Compassion and Choices.
Harris said the Oklahoma Feeding and Hydration Act, which was passed in the early 1980s, sprang from a deep-seated medical ethic in the state that opposes anything but naturally occurring death, which would make any efforts at changing the state's laws an unwinnable, uphill struggle, which might explain why groups like Compassion and Choices have no significant presence in Oklahoma.
The law upholds the notion that a physician's role is to preserve life, never to end it, by creating the presumption that if a patient can't speak and hasn't previously indicated wishes to the contrary, they are to be kept alive by providing them with continued nourishment.
While Oregon's Death with Dignity Act lays out what Beard calls "really rigid standards and a fairly complicated process" by which terminally ill patients can receive a physician's assistance in dying, and does not create a statutory presumption in opposition to Oklahoma's Feeding and Hydration Act, Harris said it undermines that long-held notion established by Hippocrates in the 4th Century B.C.
"Prior to Hippocrates, the shamans, who were responsible for providing a type of medical care, would also administer poisons to end someone's life. Hippocrates changes all that, but we seem to be going back to that after 2,400 years," said Harris.
Accordingly, Lions said legalized assisted suicide or euthanasia would dramatically alter the medical profession.
That alteration, she said, would transform physicians' current roles as healers to the dual roles of healers and death-dealers.
That diversification of roles would inevitably lead to physicians bowing to "pressure to encourage people to choose death for financial reasons," said Lions.
The main victims, she said, would be women and minorities.
Minorities would be victimized because, well... dying is a lot cheaper than life-saving health care.
Lions said women would likely be victims because that was the case with Dr. Jack Kevorkian's "patients" or "victims," depending on how one views the issue.
"I have no idea why they were all women, but that's what happened," she said.
Harris said that "slippery slope" could be seen in the Netherlands, where euthanasia and assisted suicide were legalized decades ago after a highly publicized case in which a physician euthanized her mother at her own request because she was dying and expected to pass within a month or two.
The woman was convicted of murder, but due to an overwhelming amount of public sympathy, she was only sentenced to one day in prison, which she didn't serve, Harris recounted.
The incident swayed public opinion in favor of laws allowing euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands, which came about shortly thereafter, taking effect in 2002.
One Pill Makes You Stronger...
According to data collected two or three years ago by the Dutch government, Harris said 37 percent of all euthanasia operations in the nation were performed on competent, non-consenting adults.
If they're non-consenting, how is that not "murder?" he was asked.
"Because their law says it's not," answered Harris.
"Tolerance has become so great that this is acceptable in the Netherlands," he added.
Harris didn't recall the name of the study off the top of his head, however, and UTW wasn't able to locate it.
Regardless, that "slippery slope" might be apparent in a study conducted by the Royal Dutch Medical Association in 2005.
The study underscored the Dutch euthanasia law's lack of a specific definition of what physical or mental conditions must exist in a patient for euthanasia to be legally acceptable--only that a patient "must be suffering hopelessly and unbearably."
Jos Diikhuis, the emeritus professor of clinical psychology who led the study, said many doctors were approached by patients seeking euthanasia who did not have a classifiable disease.
"It is an illusion to suggest a patient's suffering can be unambiguously measured according to his illness," the report read.
Diikhuis and crew argued that the legal threshold for euthanasia should be "suffering through living" that could be judged "unbearable and hopeless."
Another subject of debate among the Dutch in the past several years has been euthanization of terminally ill children.
"There is no logical end," said Harris.
He said the worldwide movement toward euthanasia indicated a philosophical shift in people's definitions of life and the self.
"Personal autonomy has been the mantra in the past half century; social obligation and 'no man is an island' isn't the way people think any more. Now, 'My freedom ends at your nose' is the way they think," said Harris.
"In 1750, if I killed myself, I'd be buried in a paupers' field with no marker, and any inheritance I left would go to the state," said the medical/legal guru.
"Since the late 1800s and early 1900s, though, with the development of psychology as a field of science, suicide was no longer regarded as a crime but as a disease--a symptom of depression," Harris continued.
"So, if someone commits suicide, it's a failure of medicine. But now, we have this odd swing--it's no longer an emotional disease, it's a choice," he added.
Harris said the conditions described by Beard of the tens of thousands of people in extraordinary amounts of pain with no hope of recovering to health, did not exist.
"If I ran across that person, you might be pushing my ethics, but I've never seen that person," he said.
"We can control pain. We can sedate them," he added.
Harris said it was fine for physicians to relieve suffering through anesthesia, though.
Beard, though, said that's essentially what Compassion and Choices advocates for patients who are dying anyway.
He said Oregon's law only allowed assisted suicide under the strictest of conditions.
They must be terminally ill and dying within six months, they must initiate written requests for medication for the purpose of ending their life, and they must be able to administer it to themselves, among numerous other conditions.
Since the law took effect in Oregon, Beard said the state's suicide rate had declined.
"When someone has the option of the Death with Dignity Act, they don't need to use a weapon or drive their car in to a bridge abutment--they don't have to use violence on themselves," he said.
"Most people who are dying in Oregon die peacefully in their own homes," Beard added.
Also, he said many people who obtain medication to end their lives don't wind up taking it.
"Psychologists say it's because it gives them some measure of control over their own lives," he said.
He also said that, like the Nightingale Alliance, Compassion and Choices did not support "Kevorkian-esque techniques," and they opposed euthanasia.
While his organization is largely occupied in lobbying to change laws to allow assisted dying, Beard said his group opposed both euthanasia and Kevorkian's practices "because they're both against the law."
When pressed for an explanation, he simply answered, "They're against the law, and there's no need."
Regarding the "slippery slope" argument, Beard said it has been "absolutely disproven" by the recently completed Battin Assisted Suicide Study, led by University of Utah bioethicist Margaret Battin, published in October's Journal of Medical Ethics.
The report studied data collected for the past 10 years in Oregon and the past 20 years in the Netherlands, and concluded that legalized assisted suicide does not result in more deaths among certain terminally ill patients.
The report came under immediate fire when it was released, though, because she didn't disclose that she was a member of the advisory board of the Death with Dignity National Center in Portland.
Alex Schadenberg, head of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, published an article on " www.lifenews.com in which he wrote that the study "at best, can be referred to as propaganda."
He also dismissed its conclusions about the non-existence of the "slippery slope" because the data analyzed--the annual reports from the Oregon Department of Human Services--did not include information pertaining to the decision-making process of the person seeking assisted dying.
Also, the report did not address the issues raised by Harris about the increased tolerance for euthanasia seen in the Netherlands.
To that, Beard said, "This isn't the Netherlands. I can't imagine that happening here."
Until I am in the position that I have terminal cancer and have constant pain 24/7, I cannot judge this story. I guess others have an easier time with pain and suffering.
So, unlimited euthanasia would be perfectly acceptable to you.
1Cr 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
I see nothing there denoting a greater penalty than for any other sin. Would those who see this as suicide = hell determine that a tattoo will also send one strait to hell by this verse?
however, we must give HOPE to people that do have devastating diagnosises ...my own mother died a slow death because there was nothing that could be done, supposedly....
in retrospect, I wish the doctors had tried something just to give my mom a sliver of hope, dim as it was, instead of just "you're going to die" and that's it...
Hospice was of no help...their attitude was you can't have IV's, don't eat, don't drink, and they were stingy with the meds as well..
my mom got to the point of not wanting to do anything because what was the point....
If we had to do it all over again......*sigh*...
Hope is a wonderful thing....it can carry you thru a lot of bad times...
“Hospice was of no help...their attitude was you can’t have IV’s, don’t eat, don’t drink, and they were stingy with the meds as well..”
Not to cause you further pain, but many hospices aren’t like this at all. The main hospice in my area is absolutely great by everything I’ve heard.
“So, unlimited euthanasia would be perfectly acceptable to you.”
You enjoy putting words in people’s mouths, don’t you?
The Oregon law doesn’t allow for “unlimited” euthanasia.
I see nothing there that indicates you automatically go to hell if you commit suicide.
Okay then what limits do you think there should be?
I believe the logic is that suicide is an unforgivable sin simply because you can not ask for forgiveness for it after it happens - which leaves you going into eternity in a state of sin.
It may not be a greater sin than stealing office supplies (I'm not sure that there are different levels of sin), but it is definitely an unforgiven one.
I said I don’t have a problem with the way Oregon handles it. That’s pretty much all I have to say.
from CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS & RESEARCH MINISTRY www.carm.org
I thought this article might answer some questions posed.
If a Christian Commits Suicide,
Is He Still Forgiven?
This might seem like a perplexing question, but it does have an answer. Though the Christian who has committed suicide has committed a grave sin, he is still forgiven. But, in order to understand why a Christian who commits suicide is forgiven, we first need to understand what salvation is and what it is based upon.
Salvation is the state of being saved from God’s judgment upon the sinner. The only way to be saved is to trust Jesus for the forgiveness of one’s sins (John 14:6, Acts 4:12). All who do not trust Jesus alone, by faith (Rom. 5:1; Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:8-9) are not forgiven and go to hell when they die (Matt. 25:46; John 3:18). When Jesus forgives someone, He forgives all their sins and gives them eternal life and they shall never perish (John 10:28). He does not give them temporary eternal life — otherwise, it would not be eternal.
Salvation is not based upon what you do. In other words, you don’t have to obey any Law of God in order to become saved. This is because no one is saved by keeping the Law of God (Gal. 2:21; Rom. 3:24-28). But that does not mean that you can go and sin all you want. Rom. 6:1-3 expressly condemns such action. Instead, we are saved for the purpose of purity (1 Thess. 4:7). Our salvation is strictly by God’s: “By grace through faith you have been saved…” (Eph. 2:8). Other than acting by faith in trusting and accepting what Jesus did on the cross, you don’t do a thing (John 1:12-3) in order to become saved. Since you did not get your salvation by what you did, you can not lose it by what you do.
What about the unforgivable sin? Is that suicide? No. Suicide is not the unforgivable sin. Jesus spoke of the unforgivable sin in Matt. 12:22-32. The context is when the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of the devil. Therefore, suicide is not the unforgivable sin.
Is repentance necessary for salvation?
This is a good question and the answer is yes — and no. Now, before you throw stones, hear me out. Repentance is a necessary result of the saving work of God, not the cause of salvation. If repentance brought salvation, then salvation is by works; or rather, the ceasing of bad works. That isn’t how it works. God grants repentance to the Christian (2 Tim. 2:25). The Christian then turns from his sin; that is, he stops sinning. He is able to repent because he is saved, not to get saved.
In 1 John 1:9 it says, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Confession of sin and its natural result of repentance are necessary elements of the Christian’s life. But, what about the sins that we do not know we commit? If we do not confess them and do not repent of them, are we still saved? Of course we are! Otherwise, we would be forced to confess and repent of every single sin we ever commit. In effect, we’d be back under the Law, living by a rule of absolute repentance of every detail lest you be damned. This is bondage, not freedom. Jesus said His yoke was light, not hard (Matt. 11:27-30.
So, repentance is not the cause of salvation, but it is a result of salvation. The believer repents from his sins upon trusting in Christ and thereafter, continues to repent of further sins that the Lord reveals to him.
Back to the suicide issue.
Suicide is, in effect, self-murder. The unfortunate thing about it is that the one who commits it cannot repent of it. The damage is permanently done. We can see in the Bible that murderers have been redeemed (Moses, David, etc.), but they had opportunities to confess their sins and repent. With suicide, the person does not. But that does not mean the person is lost. Jesus bore all that person’s sins, including suicide. If Jesus bore that person’s sins on the cross 2000 years ago, and if suicide was not covered, then the Christian was never saved in the first place and the one sin of suicide is able to undo the entire work of the cross of Christ. This cannot be. Jesus either saves completely or he does not.
Is suicide always wrong?
That I cannot answer because I cannot list every possible situation. But, it seems obvious that suicide is clearly wrong, though forgivable. However, there are general categories of suicide that we could briefly comment on:
Medically Assisted Suicide - I’ve never seen this as being acceptable. The doctor is supposed to save life, not destroy it. But, lately as destroying the lives of the unborn is more common place, destroying the lives of the sick has become the next logical step.
Suicide to prevent prolonged torture - Let’s say that someone was being tortured in an excruciating manner for an unbearably long period of time, is suicide an option? Perhaps. But if it were in this situation, why wouldn’t it be all right in the medically assisted context if the patient were also in excruciating pain for long periods of time? Quite honestly, I’m not sure how to answer that one.
Suicide due to depression - Of course, this is never a good reason for suicide. Seasons pass and so does depression. The one who is depressed needs to look to Jesus and get help. Depression is real and powerful and is best fought with help. Also, severe depression robs the mind of clear thinking. People in such states are in a real way, not in their right mind.
Suicide due to a chemical imbalance in the brain - The human brain is incredibly complex and the medical community is full of accounts of extraordinary behaviors by people whose “circuits got crossed.” I don’t see how a situation like this would make it justifiable. I think it simply would make it more explainable.
Accidental suicide - Sometimes people accidentally kill themselves. This could mean leaning over a balcony too far and falling to one’s death, or actually, purposefully taking a stupid risk like playing with a gun. Of course, with either, stupidity does not remove us from the grace of God. But then again, if it was an accident, it wouldn’t be suicide would it?
Conclusion
Is the Christian forgiven for suicide? Yes. But suicide is not an option. We do not have the right to take our own lives. That belongs to God.
Ozzie’s mind hasn’t been what it was before the Alamo incident.
The only "protection" built into the law is that the death-dealing doctor is protected from any liability.
Take a look at this if you want (a href=http://www.vcil.org/news/main/oregon-theory-practice.html>a different view of Oregon's "suicide successes."
I post this to you but it also concerns all the others who have posted to me doubting my sanity, theyÂ’re coming to take me a away he he haw haw ho ho I have a really good friend down at the health club, Jimmy is an avowed homosexual man and a workout friend. He is extremely smart and knowledgeable about many subjects. I state Jimmy’s lifestyle because many homosexuals have pulled away from fundamental Christianity. Also, Jimmy works with with my wife on various psychiatric studies she performs for the university. Sometimes we talk about various subjects and one of those is how he justifies his current lifestyle with his fundamentalist Christian upbringing. Jimmy likes to have this discussion because he knows that I disagree with his lifestyle. He tells me that he changed his beliefs and how he views Christianity when he met Bobby his partner. He states that he and Bobby believe in the new form of liberal Christianity taught at the All World Church of Science (Not real name but close) that started up several years ago. He tells me that the King James Bible I read is full of inaccuracies (Shiite actually) and is for mostly older narrow minded people truly ignorant of the religious beliefs now accepted in the world. I picked the following off the Internet for Jimmy and it closely resembles what I was taught as a boy in various Protestant churches about suicide. Of course Jimmy stated that the web site was the ranting of an ignorant hillbilly fundamentalist. I will post some of it here and you can make your own judgment: href=”http://www.behindthebadge.net/suicide/s92.html";>http://www.behindthebadge.net/suicide/s92.html Excerpt............... (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV) [19] Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; [20] you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17 NIV) [16] Don’t you know that you yourselves are Gods temple and that Gods Spirit lives in you? [17] If anyone destroys Gods temple, God will destroy him; for Gods temple is sacred, and you are that temple. (Psalm 39:4 NIV) Show me, O LORD, my lifes end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. (Psalm 139:15-16 NIV) [15] My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, [16] your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. “You might be asking what those two have to do with suicide, they don’t even talk about death. Yes they do. Both of them talk about God knowing how long your life will be. How does God know? He knows because it is up to Him to decide. When a person kills them self, they are playing god in their own life. They are taking the decision away from God. Now I ask you; is that a sin? Where exactly in the bible does it say that killing yourself is a sin? I know killing others is a sin, but I can’t find where it says killing yourself is. Killing someone else against their will is not the same as willingly giving up your own. I accepted Jesus (again) in my heart wed night, had a little peace until I read in the bible that God doesn’t take away problems, just gives hope and strength. Well, I am one giant problem and a thousand little ones. Hope and comfort just won’t cut it. Always had this fantasy of meeting God at the gate and convincing Him to just make me cease to exist, no heaven, no hell, just nothing. I found your website not too long ago, I was surfing the net for humor sites, wasting time until things were set to go. Then I found yours. Made me stop what I was doing. Isn’t that a riot? Bet you have helped a lot of people. Been reading the bible, but it just occurred to me that only murder of another person is a sin. I can’t find anywhere in the bible where is specifically says suicide is a sin, can you? Will wait for your answer. You said you accepted Christ again wed. evening. That is great, but what did you accept? Did you accept Him as Lord and Savior of your life? Or did you accept Him as genie in the sky who will take care of all your problems? You are right, God will not instantly do away with all your problems. Some He might do that with, but that is not what He offers us. He does offer hope and comfort, but much more than that. Part of your problem seems to be that you have no idea what life is suppose to be about. It is not about having fun and being comfortable, it is about having a relationship with God. Until you have that close relationship you will not be able to know what God’s purpose for your life is. I can’t tell you what it is, because I don’t know, but I do know that He has a purpose for you. Maybe that purpose is to clean toilets in the subway and witness to the homeless people there. Or maybe it is a much “nicer†purpose. I don’t know, but I know that if God did not have a purpose for your life, you would not take in another breath. See God is not powerless to kill you. He can take you life any time He wants to, so if you live another day, it is because God has ordained it. It is time you got your eyes off of yourself and onto Christ and see why He wants you on this earth. But make no mistake, you can claim the passages I quoted don’t mean anything, you can claim that God will welcome you into heaven even if you kill yourself, but you would only be fooling yourself. You cannot play God for a fool. He gave you life and it is up to Him when you die. If you make the decision with a clear mind to kill yourself, you have rejected Christ.” End of Excerpt......... Just the lowly opinions of a red state wannabe so FLAME AWAY if you so desire folks. Happy New Year to you and yours.
Just curious: why only the "emotionally aware"? So people somewhere on the austic/asperger's spectrum have no business killing themselves? Or people who would have a difficult time expressing their emotions (like, maybe 30% of us)? And do you know of any objective diagnostic tests proving a sufficient level of "emotional awareness" that would make it ethical to offer them a deliberate drug overdose?
And why in a "non-painful" way? What if somebody wanted to be beaten to death for artistic reasons, e.g. film noir?
Would you mind reposting that with PARAGRAPHS because it hurts my eyes just looking at it.
Catholic addition to the Bible? Verse, please.
In some ways, this article reminds me of the arguement for gun control as a means of preventing crime. By shutting off one means of suicide, you just move the problem elsewhere. Like the Archie Bunker comment "would you feel better if they were pushed out of windows??"
I recall reading on the CDC web site that more than half of all gun-related deaths are suicides and the majority of those suicides are people aged 50 and over. Accordingly, I'd be willing to bet that many of the suicides are related to intractable health problems. By closing people out of a physician-assisted venue, where they could receive counseling and help, instead they just walk out into their garage and eat their pistol, which gets the job done.
Maybe physician-assisted suicide is a solution looking for a problem.....
Various groups add concepts that the Bible does not explicitly say. Such as no alcohol, no dancing, et cetera. I’m thinking this is another such issue, where interpretations far exceed what the actual text declares.
Emotionally aware = someone who is by most accounts able to consciously make a decision. My aunt is bipolar, and cannot consciously think when she has episodes. Some people have such emotional disorders that they are not capable of making personal decisions. And yeah, I admit it would be hard to tell what point a person has enough self-awareness, but we do that for murderers, so I would think we could work out a similar system. Of course, err on the side of caution as much as possible.
And pain is generally not good. If a person, for whatever horrible reason, wants to commit suicide, it seems sort of reasonable to provide a easier way. It can’t be that pleasurable to die the way so many do. And if they have some horribly perverse love of pain, they can do it themselves.
Just a note: By no means do I support or look favorably upon suicide. I just don’t particularly see why people shouldn’t be able to choose to die in a decent manner. But I don’t care much about this issue, certainly not campaigning to institute such a system. Just expressing my own humble thoughts.
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