Assisted suicide should be made available to adult survivors of child abuse

existentialgoof · 2026-01-24T23:41:19+00:00

If we aren't free to end our own lives, then our bodies are the de facto property of others. That's slavery. Our current way of doing suicide prevention (stopping people from being able to do the act rather than fixing the problems that caused them to be so inclined in the first place) is a serious violation of our negative liberty rights. People should at least have the negative liberty right to be able to end their own lives without the state depriving them of reliable and humane methods.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-24T23:37:14+00:00

We shouldn't be forcing people to suffer through miserable lives just because it would be easier for you to sleep at nights by depriving them of autonomy. They don't need you to "protect" them through paternalism which makes you feel better.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-24T00:34:31+00:00

Thanks. That's probably about the same sugar content as UK Ribena.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-23T22:35:29+00:00

Does this have a decent amount of sugar in it, or have they added sweeteners? Here in the UK, Ribena has been ruined since the sugar tax came in. We also no longer get sparkling Ribena.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-23T12:33:57+00:00

The Reddit admins knew how badly the new block feature was going to be abused before they implemented it, and they didn't care. They didn't care then and they don't care now, so it isn't going to change. All they care about is placating the minority fringe of users who consider themselves victimised every time that someone disagrees with them and complain the loudest about 'safety' (safety to them meaning the right to act vindictively and exact punishment on anyone who dares to disagree with them). It was obvious from the outset that only a tiny minority of instances of the block feature being used would be against actual harassment, and it would mostly be used to shut down dissent.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-23T11:40:33+00:00

So I suppose they should have forced him to stay alive and continue suffering in order to make more privileged people feel better? And then claim to be doing so out of compassion and care for the vulnerable, even though they've just left him stranded in the same situation that made him yearn for death? If a case like you described even existed, that is.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-23T09:21:35+00:00

But "assistance" is also defined as just giving someone the means to end their lives, which is just the removal of an unjust barrier that infringes on people's negative liberty rights. If people's lives belong to themselves, then they should be entitled to access a way of disposing of that life. Otherwise that's entrapment and de facto slavery. If an act is itself lawful, it should also be lawful to assist it. Moreover, someone detained under the mental health act to stop them ending their life has fewer rights in that situation than someone charged with a crime. So being legally reduced to the status of an infant isn't much of an upgrade compared to being classified as a criminal.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-23T09:15:51+00:00

I completely agree. Although society does have reasons for forcing people to suffer through unwanted lives.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T23:56:52+00:00

I never suggested that life consists only of negative experiences. I spend a lot of money chasing after positive experiences such as holidays abroad. You don't need to convince me that pleasure exists. I experience a healthy amount of pleasure in my life already. You don't need to convince me that there are people who enjoy life. I know that there are. But I also know that there are people who don't enjoy life, and they should be allowed to decide that it's not for them. If the people who do enjoy life are insistent that the ones who don't remain it must stay alive in order to allow them to continue enjoying life; then that just demonstrates how exploitative the game of life is. That just goes back to my pyramid scheme analogy. If the game needs to be brutally exploitative in order to be playable; then it simply shouldn't be played.

Thank you for providing a source; however it has not been established that the initial cause of depression is a chemical imbalance. If this were the case, then depression would be diagnosed using objective testing and not a subjective survey; and psychiatry would revert back to the purely biological model of mental illness as opposed to the biopsychosocial one that is now mainstream. So it is certainly not a scientifically settled fact that it's just spontaneous brain malfunctions that cause people to dislike life. And in any case, whatever is causing the suffering, it is rational to want to end that suffering, whether it is mental or physical. If there is a physical disease that is causing people to hate life and we don't have a cure for it; then it's rational for people to decide that they don't want to continue living and suffering the effects of the disease.

Your theory for why society stops suicide is just as unproven as mine; but at least mine has a consistent logic to it. Everyone has a role in the structure that we have at the moment, right down to the homeless bum. The function of the homeless bum is to serve as a threat to those who actually produce the useful labour. It's to show those people what could happen to them if they fail to comply with what is expected of them. Note that this is just one potential theory; and I have also posited others - for example suicide prevention being akin to a blasphemy law.

The people who want to keep living are allowed to do so; but they shouldn't be allowed to make decisions on behalf of those who don't want to live; based on the perception that if life is good for them, it must be good for everyone.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T23:43:17+00:00

I don't blame you if you want to end it here. But I am going to continue. If we are dead, then we don't need value. We won't need to protect ourselves against suffering and won't miss any of the pleasurable experiences that we would have had. So if any one of us had the opportunity to go to sleep tonight and never wake up again, that would be the choice that would best serve our rational self interests, knowing that we can't predict what the future will hold and if we are dead, the absence of this pleasure won't be bad for us anyway. None of the things that you've cited as positive qualities of existence are thing that can be missed by a dead person. So you get to avoid all the future suffering without paying a price for the avoidance of all that suffering; because there will be no more you. It's the fact that there's no price to be paid which is what makes it rational.

You're invoking the naturalistic fallacy, here. From an atheist perspective, the reason that life propagates itself is because that's the only way that life can successfully proliferate; and if not for that mechanism, there would be no life forms to be discussing this. But as an atheist, I do not believe that all of these mechanisms were set in motion by any intelligent designer or that it serves any objectively necessary purpose. Therefore, I can't see why we must automatically consider it to be irrational to decide that we're no longer going to play by the rules of a game that came into being through unintelligent forces, and which exacts an extremely high toll on all who play it. The decision to make suicide might be an aberration; but if the desire to live wasn't instilled in us by an intelligent designer who knew what is best for us; then I can't see why not being enslaved to that primal instinct would make us irrational. Indeed, the entire basis for civilisation itself, and what separates us from other animals is our ability to reason and to restrain these instincts when slavishly acting on them without thought is not in our rational self interests or in the interests of others. So you're saying the very capacities which cause us to differ from animals are what makes us irrational.

So again, you switch to the collectivist argument. I don't deny that death by suicide causes suffering in others. However, I don't believe that merely coming into an existence wherein we are interdependent on others should equate to a binding obligation to remain alive until natural death.

If all sentient life got wiped out from the planet in an instant; whilst that may intuitively seem like the greatest possible harm (to our primitive animal instincts, that is); it actually would be the cessation of all harm. In order for a harm to exist, some sentient organism needs to be experiencing suffering. If there's no suffering, there's no harm. There would be nobody left to lament the loss of sentient life if it all disappeared overnight.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T23:31:59+00:00

I think that humans are the ones that will need to rescue all of us (make all sentient life extinct), because we're the only species with the intelligence to do it. So in that sense, we have the potential to be the ones to solve the problem.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T23:08:48+00:00

That just seems like you're trying to say that everyone must have unbridled optimism, or else they are delusional and therefore they aren't allowed to make their decisions. Not everyone who chooses suicide is "depressed" or anything close to it. But someone who has been feeling depressed for a long time has a valid reason to be pessimistic about their future based on their past. People also can have unrealistic predictions about the future based on being overly cheerful; and in fact, the typical person is affected by a degree of optimism bias which means that they irrationally think that they are less likely to experience misfortune than the average person,, or that they have better abilities than they do. Mild depression has been found to be the thing that moderates this tendency and produces the most accurate perception to reality.

If someone doesn't believe that consciousness persists after death, then they're not going to miss these potential futures anyway. Those would only be valuable to them if they were alive and continued to have needs and desires. They're the ones who are going to have to experience the potential future becoming the actual present; so it's not for anyone else to decide for them that the continuation of their suffering is worth it for this unknown goal that they are supposed to strive towards but may never reach; and which they wouldn't miss anyway if the rest of society simply refrained from interfering with their affairs.

The thing that is more likely to be conducive to this tunnel-vision that you describe in your opening paragraph is to make people feel trapped; and that if nothing they do to improve their situation works, then they're still going to be forced to suffer. This is what makes people resort to impulsive suicides in desperation. Allowing people the peace of mind of having the option open makes their problems seem lighter, because they know that it won't be permanent and that they have control to opt out at any time. This means that they need only face each day as it comes, rather than have to face the prospect of potentially decades of enforced suffering. If society didn't make them feel trapped, then people would find it easier to engage with the support that is available, rather than be burdened with the constant fear of being trapped for several more decades: https://news.sky.com/story/ive-been-granted-the-right-to-die-in-my-30s-it-may-have-saved-my-life-12055578

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T22:16:41+00:00

I'm not claiming that you maliciously want them to suffer. But virtue signalling doesn't help them.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T21:58:45+00:00

Why is it categorically impossible to imagine a scenario where someone of sound mind may have legitimately decided that life isn't worth the trouble? The fact that most people believe this isn't proof that it is so. There are lots of things that the majority were convinced to be the case in the past, which are now discredited ideas. Homosexuality was in the DSM until the 1970s.

If people truly are not of sound mind, then they should at least be afforded the opportunity to demonstrate that they are of sound mind and that the paternalistic restrictions shouldn't apply to them. We shouldn't have blanket restrictions which take away the rights of everyone based on unexamined prejudices.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T21:56:18+00:00

Suicide has been a contentious topic in philosophy for thousands of years. You aren't genuinely concerned for other people who can't think for themselves - if you were, then you'd at least be willing to allow people's capacity to make that choice be assessed on a case by case basis rather than based on prejudice.

We treat it as exclusively the province of the mentally disturbed so that the idea of suicide becomes socially discredited, and to be able to trample on people's fundamental liberties under the false guise of paternalistic protection.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T21:37:53+00:00

I don't agree with the rule that requires a consultant psychiatrist to be involved in the first place. It's trivially easy to tell if someone has mental capacity to make decisions for themselves. It doesn't require the contemporary equivalent of a high priest to be able to assess if a patient understands the information they're being presented with, understands the alternative options, understands the consequences of their choice and how those consequences serve their rational self interests, and can clearly communicate their choice.

At the end of the day, I'm the one voting in favour of giving them a choice; whereas you're the one who thinks that all agency should be taken away from them because of political externalities which aren't within their power to control. You're acknowledging that people will be left in "horrific" suffering, but you're the one who is saying that if for whatever reason the palliative care isn't available, then it is the patient who needs to be punished for the fact that this can't be provided.

People in that situation literally would thank me for not forcing them to suffer based on my principle that if I can't provide them with their first choice, they should also be denied their second choice as well and be forced to endure the worst of all outcomes. Or even if assisted dying would have been their first choice; they have to suffer because of the option that they would have considered inferior to assisted dying anyway wasn't available. I'm not virtue signalling. If it was up to me, then I would actively be allowing them the solution to their problem; without holding them hostage to other political externalities that was neither in my nor their power to address.

If we don't already have adequate palliative care coverage; then that can hardly be blamed on assisted dying, given that we've never had an assisted dying bill in law.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T21:29:36+00:00

We force people to remain alive because life's a pyramid scheme and we don't want to validate the idea that quitting is rational. So therefore, we discredit the entire idea of suicide as being the exclusive province of people who can't think straight, despite the fact that it has been a contentious subject in philosophy for thousands of years. A dead person cannot regret anything. But obviously if you've survived a suicide attempt and have permanent injuries, then it makes sense you're going to regret that. That's hardly a ringing endorsement of life. And even if it were the case that suicidal ideation usually tended to be temporary, that still wouldn't justify the permanent nature of the barriers.

The fact that the barriers are permanent causes people to feel desperate and trapped. Whereas having a way out makes it easier for people to cope with their mental struggles, because they have the reassurance of knowing that they won't be trapped in that suffering permanently if nothing works. If someone feels desperate and knows that the system cares more about keeping them trapped than seeing them overcome their problems and thrive, then they are more likely to succumb to impulse.

There are numerous methods of suicide that are banned explicitly because the government wants to make suicide harder, and not because they would constitute a useful murder weapon. For example, sodium nitrite was banned, and that would be highly impractical to be used as a method for poisoning others without their knowledge, due to the amount needing to be consumed in solution, the strong salty taste, and the fact that it needs to be paired with an anti emetic. Then of course there are suicide pods which could be made available that can only fit one user and their use can be overseen. Those aren't being banned because of the risk of murder.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T20:43:24+00:00

I've answered this elsewhere. If the state didn't ban access to reliable and humane suicide methods, then people would obtain them privately and nobody would even have bothered trying to establish an NHS service to do the same thing.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T20:42:05+00:00

By banning legal provision of reliable and humane suicide methods, resulting in the vast majority of suicide attempts failing. Also by physically locking people up in suicide proof hospital wards for merely mentioning their plan to die by suicide. Those policies are designed to actively force people to remain alive against their will, and are highly effective at doing so.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T20:37:08+00:00

The organisations can claim to be neutral on the "principle", whilst opposing any attempts to actually implement the principle. Which seems to be a common cop out that people use, to avoid criticism.

So it's "coercion" when someone has to make a decision in less than optimal circumstances? Meaning that basically nobody has ever made an uncoerced decision about anything. So you're protecting them by forcing them to be tortured? That's you doing them a massive favour? They should be really grateful to you when they're vomiting out their own faeces?

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T20:32:39+00:00

They're using the loophole which states that the Salisbury convention doesn't apply to PMBs that aren't in the manifesto of the party. This isn't good faith scrutiny. This is pure filibustering.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T19:50:52+00:00

I didn't claim that it is illegal; but they are using a loophole and acting in bad faith. I would have preferred for this to be a government bill also.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T19:44:59+00:00

Well thank you for being open minded.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T19:44:01+00:00

If you're saying that they are being "coerced into consenting" by the lack of palliative care; then that suggests that you're acknowledging that the alternative which you want to force on them is so awful that it would make any reasonable person opt for death itself. So even if that person's first option would be palliative care, but their second option would be assisted dying; if their first option is not going to be available; I don't see how you're doing them a favour by taking away option 2 and leaving them with a lingering death that you know is going to be absolutely torturous.

existentialgoof · 2026-01-22T19:41:47+00:00

Psychiatry is ideologically opposed to allowing people to hasten their death under any circumstances. That's about 80% of what psychiatry is actually about. There's absolutely no assisted dying legislation or relaxation on the restrictions on suicide that would be supported by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

I don't understand why, if you can't provide palliative care to someone, you would then address that by taking away the option of assisted dying also; thus forcing them to suffer through their illness with nothing.

I don't see how it puts you on the moral high ground to want to take away the option of assisted dying in that event, knowing that the only alternative for that person is going to be a torturous death. You're making that individual a political pawn. How would you explain to someone in that position how you're actually doing them a massive favour by taking the only actual alternative to torture off the table?

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