Oddbean

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 Holy fuck this story is insane. 

Ps I was arguing with a smart liberal friend about these suicide programs and I found the ultimate winning argument is this. Basically he said that one can make a rational decision to kill themselves and I said it’s never rational. To prove this In American law we have the ability to detain you against your will if you are a danger to yourself or others. A lot of people in these suicide programs need compassionate detainment and treatment for a temporary period of time.

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 Give me a gram of Ibogaine, 2 tabs of LSD, a bible and carte blanche over them for 24 hours and I’ll save the bitch.

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 I used to think this way but people who are past a certain point are very hard to reach.  And there's lots of them.

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 me included

wait, what was the question?

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 It’s true. I’d at least feel like we’d really given it a fair shot with the above, but most who reach that point likely are beyond help.

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 So in the article, it mentions she had a rare bone infection in her skull, and that she was resistant to treatment due to immune issues. I kinda think that’s a justifiable reason, but curious if you still think it’s an irrational decision.

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 I think the way we do hospice care is sufficient for that type of thing. Hospice care can last months or even years and it’s very focused on palliative treatment and easing suffering. Often times hospice nurses will administer heavy doses of opiates in order to speed the transition of the patient towards death. Which feels distinctly different than assisted suicide while arriving at the same result. It’s very compassionate and the people that work in that sector do good work. It is sufficient imo, but I’m not an expert.

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 Oh ya, that’s interesting. I honestly don’t know anything about hospice, so I didn’t even consider that. The assisted suicide thing is very sticky, so was just curious to hear other opinions!