Scott Adams on Doctor-Assisted Suicide

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Scott Adams, The "Dilbert" cartoonist, was always a bit of an anti-government libertarian, but when his father was suffering terminal illness, he really unleashed this side of himself last month on his blog, when doctor-assisted suicide was denied him. It is a very provocatively written post that I thought was worth sharing.

~ ~ ~

I hope my father dies soon.

And while I'm at it, I might want you to die a painful death too.

I'm entirely serious on both counts.

My father, age 86, is on the final approach to the long dirt nap (to use his own phrase). His mind is 98% gone, and all he has left is hours or possibly months of hideous unpleasantness in a hospital bed. I'll spare you the details, but it's as close to a living Hell as you can get.

If my dad were a cat, we would have put him to sleep long ago. And not once would we have looked back and thought too soon.

Because it's not too soon. It's far too late. His smallish estate pays about $8,000 per month to keep him in this state of perpetual suffering. Rarely has money been so poorly spent.

I'd like to proactively end his suffering and let him go out with some dignity. But my government says I can't make that decision. Neither can his doctors. So, for all practical purposes, the government is torturing my father until he dies.

I'm a patriotic guy by nature. I love my country. But the government? Well, we just broke up.

And let me say this next part as clearly as I can.

If you're a politician who has ever voted against doctor-assisted suicide, or you would vote against it in the future, I hate your fucking guts and I would like you to die a long, horrible death. I would be happy to kill you personally and watch you bleed out. I won't do that, because I fear the consequences. But I'd enjoy it, because you motherfuckers are responsible for torturing my father. Now it's personal.

I know that many of my fellow citizens have legitimate concerns about doctor-assisted suicide. One can certainly imagine greedy heirs speeding up the demise of grandma to get the inheritance. That would be a strong argument if doctor-assisted suicide wasn't already working elsewhere with little problems, or if good things in general (such as hospitals and the police) never came with their own risks.

I'm okay with any citizen who opposes doctor-assisted suicide on moral or practical grounds. But if you have acted on that thought, such as basing a vote on it, I would like you to die a slow, horrible death too. You and the government are accomplices in the torturing of my father, and there's a good chance you'll someday be accomplices in torturing me to death too.

I might feel differently in a few years, but at the moment my emotions are a bit raw. If I could push a magic button and send every politician who opposes doctor-assisted suicide into a painful death spiral that lasts for months, I'd press it. And I wouldn't feel a bit of guilt because sometimes you have to get rid of the bad guys to make the world a better place. We do it in defensive wars and the police do it daily. This would be another one of those situations.

I don't want anyone to misconstrue this post as satire or exaggeration. So I'll reiterate. If you have acted, or plan to act, in a way that keeps doctor-assisted suicide illegal, I see you as an accomplice in torturing my father, and perhaps me as well someday. I want you to die a painful death, and soon. And I'd be happy to tell you the same thing to your face.

Note to my government: I'll keep paying my taxes and doing whatever I need to do to stay out of jail, but don't ask me for anything else. We're done now.


[Update: My father passed a few hours after I wrote this.]

-- Scott Adams, November 23, 2013

Comments

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

The 'morphine button for pain' is legal euthanasia in the US. Worked for my grandpa in a coma.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Good old "managing their pain".

[yelena-r0ssini.livejournal.com]

Legit. "Comfort care" is absolutely a thing, and it works.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

These days, it's rare I don't consider having a contingency plan to get shipped off to Switzerland if I become some sort of terminal.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Your masters haven't promised you cryogenic freezing til they cure whatever ails you? You should seek new overlords...

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I like the first comment to that post.

~ ~ ~

Scott,
Some 40 years ago my father was in a coma and the doctors wanted to put him on life support. That is, until I told them that no one would be responsible to pay the bill. My father died shortly after that in peace and dignity.

I'm sorry that your father suffered so. It is cruel to deny us death.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Now it's personal.

I wish he didn't have to taste it himself to attain such realizations.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

At least it is consistent with his general philosophy,
in contrast to those Republicans who suddenly discover
gay rights when they learn that a loved one is gay.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I'd rather people learn late than never learn at all.

[usekh.livejournal.com]

That is my worry with my illness, that by the time life is not worth living, I won't be able to do anything about it. And as it is illegal here I couldn't ask family or friends to help.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

So sad that someone has to walk a mile (or several) in someone's shoes to see what things look like from the other side.

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

I agree with Mr. Adams. People who are terminally ill, suffering, with no or even very little reasonable hope for respite, should be allowed to end their own lives. No one is going through what they are but them- it is a cruelty to tell them, "nope, sorry. You have to suffer because we say so"

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Do you believe that this is only the case for the terminally ill?

Do you think that *everyone* should be allowed to end their own lives? I mean, it is, still, their life. Always has been, always will be theirs. Why do we, ever, healthy or not, lay claim to others life?

[oslo.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly in favor of "death with dignity," including under that umbrella doctor-assisted suicide, do-not-resuscitate orders and living wills, and the legal tools to enforce and protect people's decisions with respect to the ends of their lives and those of their loved ones. That said, I'm not too sympathetic for the "libertarians" who find themselves under the state's thumb on this issue, seeing as how they've allied themselves politically with the social conservatives that deny them this right.

Scott Adams says, "I wish you a slow, painful death" to precisely those politicians that, we're told time and time again by libertarians and libertarian-leaning conservatives, are at least right often enough on issues such as taxes and the size of government that, on balance, they're the better choice for political leadership. It makes perfect sense to vote for the party that wants to inflate government spending on defense, perpetuate the drug war, clamp down on abortion rights, and oppose "death with dignity," etc., etc., they say, because that same party at least claims to want to reduce taxes, cut "red tape," and reduce the size of scope of government. (None of which those politicians actually do, of course, but that's the line.) And then those conservatives will bemoan state interference with end-of-life issues like this. But that's the choice they've made! They gave up their right to die with dignity when they decided it was more important to them that less of their taxes end up helping the poor and working-class live with dignity.

Simply put, it's just more of the usual conservative entitlement mentality - like somehow they ought to be able to have everything they might possibly want, at any moment in time, and whenever they can't, it must be the government's fault. Nothing about Adams' screed, you might notice, mentions a single doctor who would help him or his father end his father's life, if only the law would let them. Nothing about it considers whether doctors, as a rule, would take on that awesome responsibility, absent a legal regime preventing them from doing so, or whether insurers would pay for end-of-life services (or, for that matter, life-prolonging care, in cases where "death with dignity" turns out to be the more fiscally-prudent decision for the insurer, regardless of patient preferences).

Like I said - this is certainly a discussion worth having; everyone deserves a death with dignity. But that discussion requires a more mature attitude towards the issue, and I would expect that anyone who favors reason to emotional appeals on such issues would have to agree.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

In this country, you don't win arguments with reason.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

are at least right often enough on issues such as taxes

In an imperfect world, they may decide it is best to go with whomever
will let them keep more of their money and wealth, which would better
enable them to take their destiny in their own hands, despite government.
Does the country ban abortion? Hey, that's okay, because I can afford to fly
abroad and have the operation elsewhere. Perhaps the interesting question here,
regarding Adams, is why he did not take his father abroad. He is certainly
rich enough to have done so.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

You can get the euthanasia drug pretty easy in Mexico and die at home.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

If someone gets the drug for you, though, it could lead to
legal jeopardy, no?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Its not really that easy. An outlier option at best.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Sorry Scott.

I'm not engaging with the topic directly at hand, because I have a more fundamental disagreement.

Suicide should be legal, for the terminally ill or not.

Fuck you jack, it's my life, and if I choose not to live it anymore, that's my god-damned decision. Ain't you breathing this air in this body of mine, it's me, and if *at any fucking point* I make a decision and decide I want to end it, that should be my god-damned right. Once we have established this, primary fact, the question of doctor assisted suicide is completely moot.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I imagine there must be some concern for young people
who simply become emotionally overwrought. How many
teenagers feel it is the end of the world if their girlfriend or
boyfriend doesn't want to be with them anymore? I have sometimes
thought that maybe there should be a floor of, say, thirty years of age
before one might be allowed an assisted suicide, notwithstanding
the terminally ill.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

My mother killed herself. I wish she hadn't however I now recognize it was her right. I did not always have this position. I had to mature into it.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Seems like a bad way to go about this all. It's pretty hyperbolic to accuse people of torture. Not letting people escape a painful situation is not the same thing as initiating the painful situation.

I support assisted suicide, but demonizing people for disagreeing and hoping them a painful death is unjustified. It's not allowed just because it's a political position we like.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

One does need to take Adams with a bit of reserve, as
he is given to being rhetorically aggressive. I don't know
if you know him at all, but I think he likes to be a bit of a
lightning rod. There is a bit of the shock jock in him, I dare say.

[yelena-r0ssini.livejournal.com]

I'd very much prefer that physician-assisted suicide were legal here. As is, I've made damn sure my advance directives are in order. As long as I'm not pregnant in Texas if/when I am beyond medical help, I've got a rock-solid DNR/DNI in place.