From a discussion on another thread. Please not euthanasia is not the same as assisted dying, and the strict and clear guidelines ensure that there is no outside pressure, and that it is only available when an illness is terminal.

Debbie Purdie would have, but instead she was forced to live in agony and not allowed to make the choice:

Debbie Purdy: Being allowed to die would help me to live

Debbie Purdy, in constant pain from MS, says last week’s proposals that GPs could help the terminally ill to die don’t go far enough


Euthanasia campaigner Debbie Purdy and her husband Omar Puente of Bradford, West Yorkshire. Photo: LORNE CAMPBELL/GUZELIAN






By Cole Moreton

7:30AM GMT 08 Jan 2012
39 Comments


We’re in the middle of a conversation when Debbie Purdy suddenly goes rigid. “Woah,” says her husband Omar, pulling her feet on to his lap and holding them tight. “It’s a bad one.”

Her face contorts and her back arches in her electric wheelchair. Then a few seconds later, it is over. “There,” she says wearily. “Where were we?”

Talking about the right to die, actually, in the wake of last week’s report by the Commission on Assisted Dying. But that’s not as grim as it sounds when you’re in the company of Debbie Purdy and Omar Puente.

Yes, she has multiple sclerosis and is in constant pain. Yes, she spends most of her days on the phone or computer at her specially adapted terraced house in Bradford campaigning for the medical profession to be allowed to help people like her kill themselves. But this feisty 49-year-old is full of wit and energy and – it must be said – life.

“I want to live for as long as I am able, actually,” she says, looking over at Omar, who is now massaging her feet. Their love story is a remarkable one, and it is visibly still unfolding. “Life is not a b----. I have so much to be grateful for. But I am in a lot of pain, there is a lot of suffering, and when the moment comes that I can no longer cope with all that, I want to be able to choose to end my life, knowing that the man I love will not go to prison for being there and helping me.”

Absolutely.

I've no wish to die, but I wouldn't want life as a burden on anyone else.

+1. That is all.

And why would you need Exit for that?

There are countless cheaper/free ways of taking your own life.

Isn't that the subject of this book where the main characters are Alex Woods and some old geezer?
"The Universe versus Alex Woods"

Edit: don't want to tell the story too much in case it's a spoiler for anyone who hasn't read it but would like to!

Such as?

Tom

But it is the preferable option to most other methods where someone has to "discover" your remains or be involved in your messy or violent end.

An assisted death is probably one suicide which leaves the least fall-out with family / witnesses. OK, so it costs, but so does everything else if you want to do it right.

Seriously?? Even a ten year-old could tell you several ways...

I know, you could go and lay down in front of a train. Or you could stop being a selfish drama queen and join exit. It only costs about Fr 70,-- per year.

Not if you are very old and frail, stuck in bed or in a wheel-chair at home, hospital or in an OAP home- stuck with MS, Motor Neurone or other terminal and debilitating disease.

Exit has very clear guidelines and procedures to ensure people have no doubt whatsoever, and that there are absolutely no outside pressures influencing the decision. Not wanting to 'be a burden' would not be sufficient at all.

Being a member of EXIT is also a good way to let your doctor, your close family and solicitor to know exactly how you feel, via a living will - so that it would be easier for close ones if ever you make that decision. Exit also gives great support for the family at the time. It is a choice, for some, and I agree not for all. I totally support the need and development of excellent palliative care. A choice.

When a member makes a request for assistance, a trained and unpaid volunteer will visit, and talk to the member on their own, to ensure there are no doubts and no outside pressures. They also check the medical condition with the doctor/s that the condition is terminal and/or totally debilitating and/or very painful, etc. Only when they are totally satisfied will they agree to go ahead- and make an appointment in a few days time- to allow the member to re-consider. On the day, the trained volunteer, some are doctors and nurses, some are not, will again discuss the whole thing with the member, ensure there is no hesitation or doubt, or outside pressures. Then, and only then, will they give the member the potion to take, and will stay with them to the end- where they want, their bed, favourite armchair, garden if totally private, etc- with the music requested, or being read their favourite poem- with or without family or friend/s.

A key relevant angle on the question is the growing possibility of putting a vulnerable person in the position of having to justify one's existence (either to others or to oneself -- often to oneself).

This could come out in a couple of ways.
1) Some might begin to wonder, altruistically, if maybe they are ones that the world would be better off without, and kill themselves off for love --
not something that I would want to see.
2) Some might perceive that the rest of the world thinks it better that they not exist, and kill themselves off for lack of love --
kind of like how some US Republicans hope that "self-deportation" would work.

From a social responsibility point of view, I would say that the larger and louder the movement grows, the more that people in vulnerable positions will start be put in this position, and the more that there will be talk about why "those" people aren't killing themselves off they way they should be, exacerbating the divide between the "justifiable" and the "unjustifiable" persons.

Since I hope that the world won't go in the direction of more people thinking that people's lives have to be justified or else they should be dead, especially since I wouldn't know when I might be on the wrong side of the equation ("First they came for the .... Then they came for the ...."), I would not join the bandwagon.

First of all IMO there is no way to do it right as suicide is never a solution to anything, it's IMO always a cop-out.

Apart from that anyone who is so forward thinking to join Exit would also have the necessary intelligence to plan it by himself without the need of Exit.

YES!

Some things get very hard when bed ridden.

I'd rather donate CHF 7000 per year to some charity that does good things than give 70 Francs to a business that sells death.

Somehow, I feel I will be the one who will have to tell you that it is not about intelligence. Done.

Please explain how choosing to end terminal cancer a few days early is a cop out. Have you ever seen anyone die from cancer?

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I was referring to the intelligence necessary to plan it in an ordered way rather than simply jumping in front of a train...

Yes. Have you?

And Exit would make no difference with that.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I was referring to the something else than intelligence necessary to understand suffering. If you don't have it, you don't have it. Don't force it. But other people do have it. And there is nothing you can do against it.

Was definitely a solution to constant pain for a very old friend of mine

So are many other things in life, including acting cocky on internet forums