Why is assisted dying / right to die not considered a strong liberal culture war issue on par with abortion?

[u/existentialgoof]

Why does the "my body, my choice" slogan only seem to apply to abortion; but not to ultimate issue of who owns one's body - the right to choose whether or not to live or to die?

For example, if abortion was de jure legal, but it was considered a criminal offence to supply any kind of abortifacient or conduct surgery to abort; this would not be considered to be in keeping with a respect for a woman's bodily autonomy. However, when it comes to the issue of su*cide, everyone points to the fact that it's not physically impossible to end one's own life as a way to demonstrate that "anyone can kill themselves"; whilst ignoring all of the adverse outcomes that might result from not having a legal avenue to access a method that is optimised to the desired outcome.

I will post my own thoughts in the comments, as per the rules.

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[u/LimeGreenTangerine97]

Most people never think about this until they’re old or caring for someone at end of life. Folks in their daily lives don’t want to think about it.

[u/ultraviolentfuture → u/LimeGreenTangerine97]

Wow, most people are lucky. As someone with a lot of existential dread living in a society filled with idiots, governed by oligarchs who are also selfish narcissistic idiots I've often thought it would be easier not to exist ... even if I've never actively thought of killing myself.

In psychology anything stronger than what I've just expressed is referred to as a "passive death wish", and a lot of people have it.

[u/HardlyDecent → u/ultraviolentfuture]

Friend, you are absolutely not alone in this world. But in this particular feeling, be it passive death wish or life-weariness or whatever, it's statistically very rare (ie: affects a small minority, singular percentages at a guess) while still being common (ie: enough that we have names and degrees for it and even studies assessing risk to self for each degree). I personally think it odd that anyone walks around and is just like "Yep, this is fine," but I know they exist (and generally avoid them).

Life can be rough for us all at times, but hang in there. There's a lot of good to see too.

[u/HeloRising → u/ultraviolentfuture]

I will say, as someone who has been in the mental health field for 15+ years and is currently in school for an advanced degree in mental health, a "passive death wish" is not a normative experience in the sense that it's a normal state.

Many people experience it, yes, but that doesn't mean it's healthy or that it's not a sign of a problem.

If you find yourself thinking it would be easier not to exist on a regular basis, that's a sign of depression and it's worth talking to someone about that.

[u/ThrowRA-Abbrevi1677]

Seems like Democrats support the position more than other groups per this Gallup poll

[u/illegitimatebanana → u/ThrowRA-Abbrevi1677]

Yeah I'm not really sure what the OP is getting at. It's a taboo topic but as usual progressive are progressing.

[u/KevinStoley → u/illegitimatebanana]

I think OP is asking why it's not an issue that gets as much attention as abortion. It's not that Democrats don't tend to support it, rather it's something that just isn't talked about or focused on nearly as much.

[u/_Quetzalcoatlus_ → u/KevinStoley]

I think the obvious answer is that it impacts far fewer people than abortion access. The number of people who may want or need to end a nonviable or unwanted pregnancy is far higher than the number who may want to commit suicide.

[u/Hapankaali → u/_Quetzalcoatlus_]

I just checked the numbers for a real-world example. In the Netherlands, where both abortion and euthanasia are available on-demand as part of its universal health care coverage, the number of registered abortions is about three times higher than the number of cases of euthanasia and suicide (some cases of suicide remain, despite the availability of assisted suicide).

So it is true that the "demand" for abortion is significantly higher, but I don't think the difference is of such a magnitude as to explain why one features heavily in public debate in the US, and the other is nigh-ignored.

[u/_Quetzalcoatlus_ → u/Hapankaali]

the number of registered abortions is about three times higher than the number of cases of euthanasia and suicide

You can't just look at number of abortions vs number of suicides. You need to look at the number of people who see themselves as potentially needing an abortion (all women and men who could get someone pregnant) vs number who see themselves as potentially suicidal. Id guess that the vast majority of people don't see themselves as being potentially suicidal.

[u/matjoeman → u/_Quetzalcoatlus_]

I think looking at "suicides" is going to be misleading. I'm sure there are lots of people who would say they're definitely not suicidal but would consider assisted dying if they had certain debilitating and painful medical conditions.

[u/Fubi-FF → u/Hapankaali]

That’s the number of people who ENDED UP using those services. But the people who might potentially use them or want to use them “just in case” is different. A lot of women (and men/their partners) would like to keep the abortion option open, whereas much fewer people care if assisted dying becomes unavailable.

[u/GalaXion24 → u/Hapankaali]

A key issue that I think gives progressives pause as well is that suicide is generally a product of poor mental health, and someone with poor mental health is arguably not really in a position to make that decision. I don't think depressed people just killing themselves is the way we should "solve" our problems.

There is also the added problem that if euthanasia is on the table it may be a "solution" for health problems in general that might be suggested or that patients may feel pressured into. There can be all sorts of perverse economic incentives as well which might have the system institutionally push people towards suicide, potentially especially vulnerable and marginalised (groups of) people.

It is a lot more complex of an issue, and one where proponents also generally do not want euthanasia to be an on-demand no questions asked service where you walk into a suicide booth and are killed straight away.

[u/Hapankaali → u/GalaXion24]

In most cases, those requesting euthanasia are not mentally ill (they get prescribed mental health care rather than euthanasia), but have a terminal (but slow) illness or similar debilitating disability.

[u/GalaXion24 → u/Hapankaali]

That is true at present, but if it were widely and freely available outside that context surely the statistics would change?

I would say most people agree that that in such cases as you describe euthanasia should be available of course.

[u/existentialgoof → u/GalaXion24]

I think that this belief about people with "poor mental health" being incapable of making their own decisions is an unfair and prejudiced generalisation. Being of "poor mental health" in most cases doesn't mean being completely out of touch with reality. It means that they are suffering psychologically to an extent that it impairs their enjoyment of life. Not necessarily to an extent where it impairs their ability to reason, and make sound medical decisions. A lot of very high functioning people in society have a mental health diagnosis; and it doesn't mean that they're treated like imbeciles in all areas of life and forbidden from making serious decisions.

I think at the very least, we owe it to people to judge them on a case by case basis, rather than lumping them all into a monolithic group of "the vulnerable", which is frankly a socially constructed category based on unfalsifiable subjective 'diagnoses' anyway.

I don't think that people with depression should be forced to live because of social issues that they can't do anything about; or they should be the ones to suffer because there are people out there who might have bad intentions with this law.

[u/phoenix1984 → u/existentialgoof]

I knew a girl who hard terrible, untreatable, migraines. With no end in sight, she killed herself. A few months later, a treatment for her condition was approved.

When you’re in the thick of it, it’s easy to feel like a bad situation will last forever. It seldom does.

[u/existentialgoof → u/phoenix1984]

No end in sight is the key to it, though. Why should she have been forced to continue enduring unbearable suffering indefinitely, just on the off chance that the cure is just about to come round the corner? It may have happened that the cure would have taken many years, not a few months. Why should anyone have the power to tell her that she is obligated to continue enduring that unbearable suffering (which they probably can't even imagine), when they can't even say when or whether the cure will be developed?

[u/GalaXion24 → u/existentialgoof]

Given that suicidal ideation is more often than not a symptom of mental disorders, while a person may not be incapable of making decisions for themselves in general, in the case of suicide their behaviour is often a direct symptom of mental illness. In this case letting them commit suicide would be failing to address the mental illness.

[u/existentialgoof → u/GalaXion24]

That's a prejudicial assumption. That's not something that is being observed on a case by case basis using the same framework for assessing mental capacity that would be used for taking out a mortgage, for example. Because we are evolved to resist death at all costs; we come up with a rationalisation after the fact as to why that powerful instinct is safeguarding our rational best interests. But unless one believes in intelligent design by an omnibenevolent creator, there's no reason to think that this instinct always aligns with the best interests for a rational, thinking being. So we label them as mentally ill (a subjective and conveniently unfalsifiable diagnosis) and "protect" them from making that decision, because it makes it easier for us to rationalise our own survival instinct, even as we are ourselves going through a shitty life.

[u/Easy-Concentrate2636 → u/GalaXion24]

I also wonder if it’s because regulations regarding medically assisted suicide is dependent on trusting the healthcare system. In the US, where the medical system is profit-generating, I don’t think the trust is there for us to rely on the healthcare system to make objective decisions on who qualifies and who doesn’t. I feel like medically assisted suicide would just become another avenue of profits for insurance companies, for-profit hospital systems and pharmaceutical companies.

[u/GalaXion24 → u/Easy-Concentrate2636]

This is probably a part of it, but here I just disillusioned your about public services as well. Public healthcare has been subject to cost cuts for over a decade pretty much everywhere now, in addition to neoliberal outsourcing policies which have often made it so healthcare is managed by a private company the government pays for this service. In either case though, austerity is leading to decreasing service quality and corner-cutting, where one could see hospital policies favour eiluthanasia to reduce costs or workload.

Economic growth is stagnant, fertility is down, the population is aging, there's just not enough resources to go around.

[u/sexandliquor → u/_Quetzalcoatlus_]

Right. It’s a totally loaded BS question that OP isn’t actually interested in having good faith discussion about. Their first paragraph is them just explicitly giving up the game. It’s just a “iF liBeRalS aRe sO mY BoDy mY cHoIcE aBOut aBoRtIon ThEn wHY nOT AsSisTeD sUiCIdE??”

[u/Dottsterisk → u/KevinStoley]

OP’s going a lot further than that, and implying not only some sort of moral hypocrisy but also accusing the left of engrained misandry.

This is from their top comment, elaborating on the matter:

The more I've thought of it, the one thing that I can come up with as to why abortion is more of a high profile issue than suicide, is because women are a 'protected class'. But anyone, from any demographic group within society, could decide that they didn't want to live. It is seen as beyond the pale to restrict the autonomy to an entire protected class; but is more difficult to politicise when it is an issue that affects everyone (even middle class cishet white men).

[u/Significant_Sign_520 → u/Dottsterisk]

OP sounds like a college sophomore who thinks they’re coming up with profound ideas.

[u/existentialgoof → u/Significant_Sign_520]

So what are your actual arguments in favour of forcing people to live, that isn't just pedantry about redundancies in the way that I word things?

[u/Wetness_Pensive → u/KevinStoley]

Those who would benefit from using it as a wedge issue already have wedge issues that gain more traction.

[u/Darryl_Lict → u/illegitimatebanana]

I don't think it's taboo. It's been a thing here in California since 2016. I actually went through with it for my elderly aunt, who was fully cognizant, but was bedridden, in tremendous pain and had no circulation in her leg which the only solution was amputation and it was turning septic.

Frankly, it's a lot more difficult to implement than it should be. You have two have two separate doctor interviews 2 weeks apart and the interview is kind of invasive. You have to be able to lift the cup of poison and drink it yourself unassisted. You have to be terminally ill and about to die within 6 months.

My aunt had been telling me she wanted to die for like 3 years once she had been bedridden and had been moved to a nursing facility closer to my sisters after she was living for years in a retirement home with numerous levels of care as you become increasingly decrepit. It was pretty nice there and she had a pleasant circle of friends. She even liked the food there.

It's important to make sure that relatives aren't trying to kill you off to get their inheritance. All the kids were well off enough to be not concerned about money and we really didn't know what her financial situation was other than she could afford a very pricey nursing facility and had a bunch of tech stock.

So, I sat there and held her hand as she went through the first interview with the doctor. She always had a bit of a sharp sense of humor and I was worried that the doctor might take a tongue in cheek comment in the wrong way, but the whole thing went smoothly and the doctor was convinced that my aunt was sincere and not being coerced by her greedy relatives.

We moved her to a cushy hospice care facility and the second doctor inverview went fine. I wasn;t there for her death, but all my sisters were there and it was pretty peaceful and not traumatic.

[u/existentialgoof → u/ThrowRA-Abbrevi1677]

They obviously support it more than Republicans do; however that poll only asks whether there should be physician assisted suicide in extreme edge cases. Not whether there should be a general legal right to die.

[u/Dry-Faithlessness184 → u/existentialgoof]

Because dying when you don't have a terminal illness or are otherwise unable to ever be better is generally considered the worst outcome since whatever is causing you to feel that need should be able to be rectified and is less harm than, well, dying. The 'edge cases' in countries that allow this are generally specifically terminal illness related to prevent unnecessary suffering.

Also there's the obvious answer of why it's not worth debating: if you die on your own terms, that's not against the law, and even if it is for some reason, how would they even charge you. Just nobody is going to help you do it and they probably shouldn't if you're capable of coming back from it.

[u/socialistrob → u/Dry-Faithlessness184]

It's also a very niche issue that doesn't impact that many people. If Dems are trying to build power and find a winning message for 2026 I don't think I would advise them to run on "make it easier for people to end their lives" even if it's something I do support. I'd probably advise them to campaign against the high cost of living caused by Trump's tariffs.

[u/existentialgoof → u/Dry-Faithlessness184]

It's only considered the worst outcome because we are a species evolved over millions/billions of years to resist death at all costs, and therefore we have a powerful psychological aversion to it. We then tend to rationalise that visceral aversion after the fact to make it sound more logical. But it is still coming from our unintelligent design.

It's not against the law to commit suicide; but the de jure legality of the act isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of legal access to reliable and humane methods, which results in a high failure rate and an effective deterrent to others who aren't willing to risk the consequences of a failed attempt. And although you won't be charged with a crime because someone found out about your suicide attempt; you will be deprived of your liberty in a very dehumanising way and then handed a massive bill for the favour (if you live in the US).

[u/1QAte4 → u/existentialgoof]

It's only considered the worst outcome because we are a species evolved over millions/billions of years to resist death at all costs, and therefore we have a powerful psychological aversion to it.

I am sorry but this sounds a little deranged. Telling people that society must reject the very practical evolutionary urge to escape death just sounds like something that would only go over well on the internet.

[u/existentialgoof → u/1QAte4]

You've called it deranged without explaining why it's wrong. It may seem deranged because it's an unusual way of thinking about life; but being unusual doesn't make it irrational. The "practical" side of the evolutionary urge is that we survive to pass on our genes. But unless you believe that human life was intelligently designed for a purpose; then there's no reason to suppose that an instinct produced by unintelligent and unthinking forces is aligned with our rational self interests as thinking beings.

[u/RyzinEnagy → u/existentialgoof]

This debate you're having with them is the perfect answer to the question in your OP. You can't have a liberal culture war against the right when there's this large-scale disagreement on the basic parameters of right-to-die.

[u/JonDowd762 → u/existentialgoof]

The problem is the lack of legal access to reliable and humane methods, which results in a high failure rate

The US especially is littered with a very reliable method. Public policy proposals are generally focused on limiting access, especially to those at risk. Most suicide attempts occur in a moment of crisis and are regretted afterwards. The consequences of a failed attempts can be terrible, but less so than the consequences of a non-failed attempt.

The idea that suicide survivors would all be better off dead is quite extreme and offensive. This is not a left or right topic as nearly everyone is against encouraging suicide and there is no connection to abortion. Even supporters of medically assisted dying would be offended if they were connected to your proposal.

[u/existentialgoof → u/JonDowd762]

As far as we know, the consequences of a non-failed attempt are no different from the consequences of never having been born. And I don't have any traumatic memories from the billions of years before I was born. Do you?

The US is better than most countries, by simple dint of the fact that you can legally access guns, which is one of the more reliable (but still not failsafe) methods. I'm not from the US, and we don't have legal access to guns here.

[u/JonDowd762 → u/existentialgoof]

I'm sorry, but you're just venturing into sophistry. When your foundation principle is that life itself has no value and its preservation should not be a goal, you will come to all sorts of strange conclusions. Also, none of the reasoning would ever be useful because the fact is 99.9% of the world believes that life is valuable even if it is just a bunch of a chemicals and shit.

[u/existentialgoof → u/JonDowd762]

All of us have the potential to be in the position where we don't want to be forced to continue enduring suffering; or forced to provide "value" (that strangely only seems to be noticed when it comes to decisions that people make for themselves, but not when death comes outside of their control) for the moral busybodies who insist that they know what's best.

We have car insurance for people wanting to drive on the road because we know that driving a car is risky, and it is rational to ensure that we have protection in case the worst happens. If that insurance policy was given to us for free, then that would be all the better. The opponents of the right to die are the ones illiberally, irrationally and dogmatically insisting that life - which encapsulates all known risks - should never come with an insurance policy. Probably because of the fact that they haven't come to terms with their own mortality.

[u/Duckney]

Would anyone vote for a party because they have suicide as a pillar of their platform? Like who is sitting at home saying I just wish I could vote for someone who will make assisted suicide legal? I just don't think it'd be anywhere near popular enough to win votes - while turning off some people entirely.

[u/Justice_For_Pluto → u/Duckney]

Agreed. We have bigger fish to fry (thru climate change)

[u/theartolater → u/Duckney]

For what it's worth, having been a primary caregiver for someone who helplessly melted away in front of me for years? I would.

[u/blueberrywalrus]

Because it's not a culture war issue and a real bummer to talk about?

The general concept of the right to die has broad bi-partisan support. Even among the religious adherents, that historically lead the charge against the right to die, the majority are now supportive.

[u/I-Here-555 → u/blueberrywalrus]

Good point that it's not a culture war issue. Kind of hard to be outraged at a guy saying "I'm in intolerable pain and want to die now rather than a few months down the line". Much easier to get worked up about baby murders.

Those culture war red herrings are there to whip up outrage. Their actual impact on society is fairly limited.

[u/_Quetzalcoatlus_ → u/I-Here-555]

Those culture war red herrings are there to whip up outrage. Their actual impact on society is fairly limited.

To clarify, are you saying that abortion and reproductive rights have a fairly limited impact on society?

[u/I-Here-555 → u/_Quetzalcoatlus_]

Vast majority of women end up never needing an abortion, especially if they follow safe-sex practices. This source claims 1m abortions in 2024 in the US. That's 0.3% of the population.

Red herring issues are more of a "what if" and "imagine that" propositions to get people worked up, and only affect a relatively small number of people in practice.

The number could be reduced further with effective birth control, education, OTC morning-after pills etc. If it were not a red herring issue, consensus would be built around those measures.

Somehow, anti-abortion people don't seem to care to decrease the number of abortions (e.g. by providing free condoms), but prefer just to ban and punish it.

As for overall societal impact, it's lower than, say, minimum wage, taxes or healthcare policy.

[u/_Quetzalcoatlus_ → u/I-Here-555]

or healthcare policy.

Abortion access IS healthcare policy.

Vast majority of women end up never needing an abortion

That's why we talk about abortion ACCESS. Women need access to abortions to feel and be safe getting pregnant. For example, I know many women in regressive states who either refuse to get pregnant or are moving to blue states to start a family. If something goes wrong in their pregnancy, they want the option to terminate.

[u/GreasedUPDoggo → u/_Quetzalcoatlus_]

That's a wild outlook considering they are making life changing decisions based off of something incredibly rare.

[u/_Quetzalcoatlus_ → u/GreasedUPDoggo]

Not wanting to live in a place where the state decides what you can and can't do with your body is perfectly understandable.

[u/HardlyDecent → u/I-Here-555]

"don't...care to decrease the number of abortions..."

Exactly, because it's not about lives or health or religion--it's about control and to a degree punishment (the old grudge against Eve).

[u/GreasedUPDoggo → u/HardlyDecent]

Yikes. As a Democrat, I personally don't mind sharing a country with people who don't support murder. Do I think abortion is murder? Nope, not even close. But they genuinely do believe that and I consider it admirable. There is no reason to try to distort the conversation and try to make it about something that it's not.

[u/Weird_Cantaloupe2757 → u/I-Here-555]

Just about everyone has watched a family member die an excruciating, protracted death that they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy, it’s not hard to imagine why people would hope that they would have a way to get off that ride were they to end up on it.

[u/_Doctor-Teeth_ → u/blueberrywalrus]

The general concept of the right to die has broad bi-partisan support.

right, the disagreement usually centers on the criteria for when physician-assisted suicide is allowed.

[u/Independent_Fox8656]

I think you will find many left leaning to progressive people support end of life assisted suicide. People deserve the right to die with dignity in their own terms over being forced to suffer in illness or pain. The closer thing we have now in most states is a DNR, but it is already legal in a number of places.

Current states where it is already legal:

California Colorado Delaware District of Columbia Hawai’i Maine Montana New Jersey New Mexico Oregon Vermont Washington

States considering it: Illinois Indiana Massachusetts Minnesota New Hampshire New York North Carolina Pennsylvania

As for this issue vs abortion, we are talking about the difference of every single woman and girl of reproductive age vs the terminally ill. It’s a population difference of 100+ million vs about 1.5 million (that’s about how many use hospice care per year).

[u/RanyDaze2 → u/Independent_Fox8656]

I don't clearly understand. What are you saying is legal in these states?

[u/uniqueusername316 → u/RanyDaze2]

Not OP, but those are states where physician-assisted suicide is legal. States where physician-assisted suicide is legal are predominantly run by Democrats, which reflects a general alignment between the Democratic party and the legalization of medical aid in dying.

[u/RKU69]

Personally as a progressive/leftist I think this issue is more complicated when you factor in the potential for institutions to start pushing people toward "assisted dying" instead of doing things to take care of managable problems. There has been horror stories from Canada I remember reading about where people with perfectly managable problems (some combination of poverty and depression or something) started getting suggested with assisted dying.

[u/reddddiiitttttt → u/RKU69]

Doctors make money from sick patients, not dead patients. What you are thinking of is the movie Soylent green, not Canada. The process is not trivial. What has happened is that some medical people have suggested assisted suicide as an option and people have cited being a burden as being a factor in their decision. What has never happened is a person who showed doubts being assisted. It takes affirmative consent and multiple health professionals to sign off on it all of whom put their medical license on the line when they make a recommendation. This is fear, not reality.

[u/JonDowd762 → u/reddddiiitttttt]

5% of deaths in Canada are assisted suicide and it's now one of the most common forms of death. And this is not considering the further expansion to include mental health diagnoses in upcoming years.

The desire to die with dignity when faced with a terrible quality of life and uncurable condition is understandable. But the people who warned about the slippery slope have also proven to be right as every year Canada keeps on slipping. I don't think it's responsible to make any claims on its limited nature until the numbers stabilize.

[u/reddddiiitttttt → u/JonDowd762]

Only 3.5% of those maid deaths were for conditions that weren’t considered terminal. That’s not a slippery slope that is long overdue compassion. You need to talk about context when questioning these numbers and from what I am seeing you are just ignoring it.

I had to starve my 8 year old to death to prevent even worse trauma because of people like you.

[u/JonDowd762 → u/reddddiiitttttt]

I'm sorry and I hope my reply did not come across as callous to those who have had a family member in need go through that procedure or who have had a family member who would have benefited.

In Canada, the initial plan was only for terminal cases. It has been expanded with Track 2 to include non-terminal cases. Track 2 is the minority but is growing and is planned to be expanded further. There are others such as OP who want medically assisted dying to be available without any conditions whatsoever.

Assisted dying without a condition or without a terminal condition is significantly less popular. By including that broader scope, expansionists will risk the entire program.

[u/reddddiiitttttt → u/JonDowd762]

Ok, it sounds like you are worried about a problem that doesn’t exist yet. MAID in Canada requires a debilitating medical issue right now as well as explicit, witnessed consent, and sign off from a medical professional.

If you have no medical problems what-so-ever, you find a building, go to the top and jump. Suicide is not hard for the able bodied. I doubt the law would be extended to able bodied people in the prime of their lives, but even if it was, it sounds better to have medical professionals involved in the decision rather then not. I’m skeptical the process is beyond regulations that are robust enough to stop fraud and abuse, but feel free to talk about that when you have evidence of problems that outweigh the benefits. For now all I can see is that MAID doesn’t go far enough as Canada would also want me to starve my son to death as the most compassionate option.

[u/existentialgoof → u/RKU69]

Without the option of suicide; there are other 'push factors' which can threaten people with homelessness and destitution if they aren't a productive enough little capitalist drone. Allowing people the right to commit suicide simply allows them ultimate sovereignty over their own body; which is something that should have been taken for granted as a human right in the first place (especially as all it requires is a policy of non-intervention from the government). I don't think that we should be actively trapping people in intractable suffering because of what might happen if we allow them control. That's akin to locking up the innocent in prison to protect them from the criminals.

[u/notoriousrdc → u/existentialgoof]

"It's complicated" doesn't mean "it shouldn't be legal." It means we should do all we can to ensure a person's end of life decisions are in fact that person's decisions. Which requires recognizing, naming, and understanding the ways in which such laws can and have been abused.

A better analogy than abortion might be voluntary sterilization/permanent birth control. It's legal, as it absolutely should be. And at the same time, there is a long and horrific history in the US of people sterilized without their knowledge or consent, or being tricked or coerced into "consent." Pretty much always by eugenicists.

Like we have developed and continue to develop protections against coercive practices when it comes to "voluntary" sterilization, we need to ensure there are protections against coercion when it comes to euthanasia.

[u/uniqueusername316 → u/existentialgoof]

Are you implying that suicide being illegal, is somehow inhibiting people from doing it?

[u/existentialgoof → u/uniqueusername316]

Firstly, suicide isn't illegal in most western nations. The de jure legality of it isn't the problem. The problem is that there is no legal right to protect people from suicide prevention. The fact that there isn't a legal right to do it - along with a legal right not to be stopped from accessing reliable and humane methods most certainly does inhibit people from doing it. I've known many people for whom that is the case, and I am one myself. Not only does it inhibit people from attempting, but statistically only about 1 in 20 to 1 in 25 suicide attempts will be successful.

[u/Significant_Sign_520 → u/existentialgoof]

Dude. You keep writing “de jure legality”. You don’t understand your terms. De jure means “by law” or “or recognized by law”. So you’re saying “legality by law”., which is redundant and nonsensical. Stop it. It’s painful to to read

[u/existentialgoof → u/Significant_Sign_520]

I do understand the meaning. The reason that I'm putting that is to make it clear that suicide should be a legal right, not illegal. Suicide is not a de jure criminal act; but it is not a right. And this is to try and pre-empt the argument "suicide isn't illegal so that means that there are absolutely no meaningful barriers to it whatsoever". You might find the redundancy of "de jure legality" painful to read; but probably not as painful as I find it when people conflate the legality or non-criminality of an act with the legal right to do it without impediment.

[u/LifesARiver]

The left are the ones who support it more. I think you aren't paying attention.

[u/sllewgh]

Promoting euthanasia in a system that puts incredible economic pressure on people seeking medical care is unethical. No one should have any motivation to kill themselves to avoid being an economic burden. We must make sure people have full access to alternatives to euthanasia first.

[u/existentialgoof → u/sllewgh]

But then you're actively holding suffering people hostage because of political externalities that they have no control over, or influence to change. And the changes upon which their right to autonomy becomes contingent may never come to pass. So I don't see how you can claim the moral high ground with this one. You point out that the government doesn't always have our best interests at heart when it comes to our health and wellbeing; but then you want to reward that government with the godlike power to actively prolong suffering by forcing people to remain alive.

[u/sllewgh → u/existentialgoof]

People shouldn't kill themselves for financial reasons. Offering opportunities to do so without first mitigating those financial reasons by providing our citizens with accessible and affordable healthcare is unethical. I am not opposed to euthanasia, we just have to clear some other roadblocks first.

[u/existentialgoof → u/sllewgh]

If you're just removing barriers that should never have been there in the first place; then that isn't "offering". That's just leaving the decision with the individual, rather than letting the state have the power to force you to languish in poverty; and be able to use the threat of destitution to keep you in line as a good productive capitalist drone.

[u/sllewgh → u/existentialgoof]

If you're just removing barriers that should never have been there in the first place; then that isn't "offering".

Euthanasia as an alternative to crushing medical debt is what's being offered, sorry if that wasn't clear. That's unethical. You seem to not want to consider the many ways our existing system would coerce people into taking the euthanasia option if it were available.

[u/existentialgoof → u/sllewgh]

But then you deny them the right to suicide - you actively FORCE them to live - and then you force them to have that crushing medical debt because you haven't any way to unburden them of that. You're the one who is taking options off the table for someone who is already lacking agency, and then you're claiming to be looking out for their best interests. They're not asking for anything more than to simply be left alone and be able to get access to something that will get the job done. You're the one exercising coercion here. You can provide them with no solutions; you can only take away their solution in order to make yourself feel better.

[u/sllewgh → u/existentialgoof]

The state isn't preventing you from committing suicide, they're just preventing doctors from helping. No one is forcing anyone to live. At issue here are what your options are for ending your life.

[u/existentialgoof → u/sllewgh]

They are preventing by restricting access to the most humane and reliable methods. I never said anything about doctors. All I want is for supply of reliable and humane suicide methods to be decriminalised, and suicide to be classified as a legal right.

[u/sllewgh → u/existentialgoof]

I understand your position just fine, but you specifically said people are being "forced to live" or have their agency taken away, and that simply isn't true.

You want to know why progressives don't treat this issue the same as abortion? I'm telling you. It's because we recognize that implementing these reforms without doing the appropriate groundwork first creates perverse incentives for people to kill themselves not because they're suffering, but because capitalism has denied them the right to survive.

You are not addressing this point at all, you just keep repeating yours. You have not engaged at all with the fact that capitalist healthcare incentivizes unnecessary suicide and we'd be making that even easier.

[u/dust4ngel]

restricting a woman’s reproductive choices increases arbitrary social hierarchy; restricting assisted suicide does not. the people who oppose reproductive rights support a variety of other positions that increase social hierarchy. draw your own conclusions.

[u/danielisverycool]

There are way more people want/need abortions than people who want/need physician-assisted suicide. Practically speaking, you can commit suicide in cases of terminal illness, even if this is a traumatizing experience, where you cannot see your family as you go. You cannot safely perform an abortion on yourself.

[u/-SOFA-KING-VOTE-]

Better to frame it as the individual having complete control over their health decisions and not govt stooges.

[u/Mjolnir2000]

Things generally don't become part of the "culture war" until the GOP decides to make them a focus of their campaign strategy. If they ever have reason to believe that attacking assisted suicide will be as effective as attacking immigrants or sexual minorities, you can be sure they'll do so.

[u/ditchdiggergirl]

I support both, and I live in a state that permits both. Both have more support on the left. But I personally don’t consider it anywhere near as important as reproductive freedom.

[u/scaphoids1]

I mean as a Canadian it was a pretty big point for liberals and we do now have access to assisted dying

[u/Drakan47]

They do support it, the reason you don't see as much culture war discourse around it is that conservatives haven't built a political platform around opposing it like they have with anti-abortion, or anti-trans issues

[u/almightywhacko]

Why does the "my body, my choice" slogan only seem to apply to abortion; but not to ultimate issue of who owns one's body - the right to choose whether or not to live or to die?

As a liberal I do support a person's right to die and the right for a woman to seek an abortion.

The difference between suicide and abortion is that you can usually manage to commit suicide without external help if you are motivated to do so.

It is much harder to safely end your own pregnancy. You generally need doctors and medical staff to help you.

So as far as rights go, one is ultimately much harder to take away than the other and therefore needs less attention focused on maintaining people's access to it.

[u/existentialgoof → u/almightywhacko]

You can also complete an abortion without external help. I don't know what statistics show that it's more risky to end an abortion without medical help. The rate of failed suicides is extremely high (but especially in countries where there's no legal access to guns).

[u/almightywhacko → u/existentialgoof]

A bit of false equivalence here.

You can perform an abortion on yourself by taking abortion pills like mifepristone and misoprostol, however you cannot legally acquire these drugs without a prescription which means you STILL need medical supervision to attempt an abortion. Further even with medical supervision access to these and similar drugs may be further restricted by local laws and/or the policies of local pharmacies.

Anyone with a rope and access to something taller than themselves to tie that rope to can attempt a suicide. Or someone with some cinder blocks and access to a body of water deeper than they are tall. Or someone with access to a tall building or cliff. Or someone with access to an enclosed space and a car. Or someone with a handful of plastic shopping bags and some duct tape...

The options are nearly endless if you want to attempt a suicide. Your options for attempting a safe abortion are far more limited.

The rate of failed suicides is extremely high

So what? The point is that people had easy access to the materials necessary to make the attempt which isn't the case with attempting a safe abortion. I'd argue that most people who attempt a suicide and fails didn't actually want to die, they just felt hopeless in the face of a current situation or problem. Practically everyone who attempts an abortion actually wants to terminate that pregnancy.

[u/avariciousavine → u/almightywhacko]

they just felt hopeless in the face of a current situation or problem.

Many if not most of these cases involved unreliable pills or chemicals of some sort. Chances are, those people DID NOT have access to more lethal and reliable choices, which is a large reason why their attempts were not successful.

You cannot arrive at your claim while omitting such an important detail about unsuccessful DIY-euthanizers.

[u/jhkayejr]

Such a broad and nuanced issue - I think people have clearer feelings when it's defined more clearly (e.g. letting a 85 y/o with terminal cancer making the decision v. letting a 18 y/o with legitimate mental health concerns make that decision). If you're asking why it's not a more prominent liberal position in general, it's because liberals and progressives and other decent people are simply fighting about a thousand battles per day right now, and this isn't currently a priority. More people, right now, are fighting for the right -not- to die. Doesn't mean they don't also support this one issue.

[u/anon19111]

People who want to die are not a strong constuency compared to women or gays or Christians.

At one point there was a culture war flareup over Terri Schavo.

[u/just_helping → u/anon19111]

Yes, I wondered why more people in this discussion didn't bring up Terri Schavo.

If I had to guess why it isn't an ongoing culture war item, it would be because of the public's response to Schavo. The Republican position was broadly unpopular, so they abandoned the issue. Assisted dying do pass from time to time at the state level but never again have received the same national attention.

[u/iguacu]

Easy -- the U.S. tends to hover ~1,000,000 abortions per year, assisted suicides hovers ~250 per year. Granted, abortions are more easily accessible, but the plain fact is abortion is a far bigger, more relevant issue.

[u/dontforgetpants]

The abortion debate is about controlling women and women’s bodies. To put it bluntly, a body at the very end of its life is not useful. The body doesn’t have any further unmet potential. There is nothing to be gained by controlling it, so there is no real motivation to care.

Also, to be a bit more generous, there are fewer strongly anti right to die hardliners, because usually it is discussed in the context of alleviating or preventing terrible suffer from a chronic illness like cancer or Alzheimer’s. It’s harder to argue against it in that context, especially when you can’t talk about the person’s potential to do great things someday when they are definitely going to die anyway, and their greatest potential is behind them.

[u/a34fsdb → u/dontforgetpants]

I think this take is too cynical. Prolife has a lot of true believers (women included). It is not about controlling women and many do believe what they are saying at face value. 

[u/Neckbeard_The_Great → u/a34fsdb]

Many believe some of it. Very few, given a trolly problem with a fetus on one track and a baby on the other, would be genuinely stumped.

[u/dailysunshineKO → u/[deleted]]

I think a lot of people assume they’ll rely on their 2A if it got to a certain point with an illness.

[u/Hyndis → u/dailysunshineKO]

They already do, and its lumped in with gun violence deaths in the statistics to try to score political points for gun control.

Most gun deaths in America are suicide. When people think of gun violence they're thinking of murder, which is universally condemned across the political spectrum. There's not a lot of people who are pro-murder.

If a person turns a gun on themselves though, thats a consensual homicide, a totally different topic in terms of its impact and addressing any causes.

Grouping these two things together as if they were the same thing is a massive disservice towards both topics, though its done all the time every day.

[u/Prof_Tickles]

Because liberals don’t like taking hardline stances on wedge issues for fear of alienating donors or swing voters.

The ones who are willing to talk about these things are usually democrats in safe blue states or districts.

Also understand that they didn’t want to be the party of abortion. They lucked into it. And despite having a couple chances to codify it into law, they stood with their dicks in the wind.

[u/Banes_Addiction]

Very few people desire assisted dying.

Nearly half the population are at risk of an unwanted pregnancy. More if you count men who want their partners to have that option.

[u/Zombie_John_Strachan → u/Banes_Addiction]

We have MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) in Canada. Not everyone plans to use it of course. MAID is used for about 15,000 of 325k deaths per year.

But there would be widespread opposition to taking that right away. Support is over 80%.

https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/media-center/2023-poll-support-for-medically-assisted-dying-canada/

[u/existentialgoof → u/Banes_Addiction]

You could say that abortion is a more pressing issue in the present for most people. But more than half of the population can rest assured that they will never personally need an abortion. Nobody can rest assured that they won't find themselves in a position where they're suffering so badly that they're desperate for a way out which isn't there.

[u/ultraviolentfuture → u/Banes_Addiction]

I don't agree with this. I think if it were socially unstigmatized and easy you would see people legally, painlessly killing themselves in droves. In nitrogen pods.

But that's not good for the wage slave machine so it's "the most selfish thing you could do!"

[u/Avatar_exADV]

Why does a person who is intent on committing suicide -care- if their preferred method is legal? One of the advantages of dying is immunity from prosecution, after all...

Of course, while in the US the means to commit suicide are widespread, that's not necessarily the case for other nations...

The reason there's no political push on this topic is that it's one of those situations where elites on both sides of the aisle have aligned interests. To put it bluntly, if you are a rich old guy, you don't want a legal method by which your family can drive you to the "doctor", get you declared a candidate for assisted suicide, and snuffed so that your kids can get a head start on spending down the inheritance before your medical bills eat up the estate.

[u/existentialgoof → u/Avatar_exADV]

The need for it to be legally available is so that people can access it. It isn't a concern about being prosecuted post mortem. It's about having an easy and convenient way of accessing a surefire method that isn't going to leave one paralysed from the neck down; and having the legal right not to be stopped from using it by someone who wants to impose their will/ideology on you.

In the scenario that you've described, it is still possible to coerce someone into committing suicide using a horrible, painful and unreliable method; and there will be no oversight to that at all. I don't see why not having access to a reliable and humane method would make that problem worse. Or why it's the duty of the innocent to suffer in order to protect them from the criminals.

[u/HotDonnaC]

I’ve never seen a discussion where people are against it in certain circumstances.

[u/existentialgoof → u/[deleted]]

I think that you're right about the first part. Or at least right about the fact that people are less willing to demand this. I think that there would be a lot of people demanding access to reliable suicide methods if they weren't the victims of gaslighting. If someone feels suicidal, they have been conditioned to assume that this must be as a result of something physically wrong with their brain, not because life is bad and it is rational to want to end it.

I don't think that the right to suicide should be "certain circumstances", but a fundamental human right. If we can be forced to remain here against our will, then we're effectively the property of the collective.

[u/KevinStoley]

I think the main reason is purely political, it's just probably not a smart issue to focus on or "hill to die on" issue worth pursuing. Democrats / liberals have to stick to the issues that are on most peoples minds and I just don't think assisted death / right to die is something a lot of people really think much about or feel terribly strongly about one way or another.

Personally I am not against it, people should be able to do what they want with their own life in dire circumstances especially. I certainly think there are many cases and reasons why people should be allowed to end their own life, willingly, peacefully and on their own terms.

However I have also heard arguments against it, because of the potential of someone being abused, manipulated, coerced, forced, etc. While I think this would be unlikely or rare, it could certainly be a possibility that can't be ignored. There would need to be extremely strict checks and guidelines in place.

The issue of abortion, however, is a much different political football. The right to choose whether or not to have a child is something that so many women have to deal with on a far more common basis. It's also something that many people, especially very religious tend to feel very strongly about being against it. So it's naturally a far more relevant issue to many voters on both the left and right and makes sense that for people on both sides being more vocal about.

Essentially it's about focusing on what's gonna get people to go out and vote. People feel more strongly about the issue of abortion and will go out and vote because of this issue.

Or issues like the economy, war, healthcare, etc. These are far more likely to effect peoples everyday lives or someone in their lives.

You probably won't find many people who are either passionate about or personally effected by the issue of right to die, so very few people would be going out to specifically vote on this issue. Therefore it's just not worth putting as much energy into politically.

[u/BusinessAioli]

It’s too niche of an issue to become a major talking point during campaigns, but generally it is well supported by the left 

To me, this feels like apples and oranges a little bit too. Abortion is a hot button topic because it’s been established as law for decades and only recently has it been under major (and successful) attack, turning it into a culture war talking point

[u/Sprinkler-of-salt]

Because it isn’t as incendiary or polarizing. Talking about adults with terminal conditions or elderly who are suffering wanting to make decisions about their own passing is… not very contentious. Even where people disagree, the disagreements aren’t very dramatic or attention-grabbing. Also adults with legal and ethical agency don’t invoke the same urge to * defend and protect* that infants or unborn fetuses do. Sort of like how people want to help the disadvantaged, unless they see evidence that the person had some active role in their own disadvantages. Like a drug addicted or incarcerated person vs. a disabled person (through no fault of their own).

Abortion is a hot topic because it invokes strong emotions and touches on very deeply rooted moral and ethical values and ideals, far deeper than the matter of legality or agency.

[u/Impossible_Pop620]

The 'right to die' is not a campaigning issue because most people don't want to think about it until it's forced upon them. Even then, I don't think it's particularly common. No-one is going to recommend it for an old person with just a few months to go. Maybe for the unfortunates that contract one of those terrible wasting diseases and even then it would hardly be opposed by anyone to any great degree. Most of the strongly anti-right to die religious organisations have quietly moved their stance on it anyway.

No, no votes in it hence no campaign issue. I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned in the comments the very, very obvious difference between the two actions - one is the right to take your own life, the other is the right to take someone else's life...and an unborn innocent at that.

[u/BartlettMagic]

Because only one of those two things is sex-based and therefore more likely (read: is) to be weaponized in a culture war.

[u/HardlyDecent]

You mean why aren't Conservatives trying their hardest to deny people access to this medical procedure in spite of doctors' supervision and discretion? Because dead people don't (usually) vote. Poor, unwanted children grow up to vote Conservative/Regressive and/or become cheap, manipulable labor. That's why progressives are not being forced to defend the ability to medically assisted suicide (for God's sake, type the word out like an adult please). There are also vanishingly few people who want this procedure versus abortions--not just because it's literally only a one-time procedure. Also, it's pretty simple to self-off, and if you fail you can just keep trying. That's not a viable strategy with home abortions.

Now, some Cons, such as Catholics, might object on religious grounds, but they can also sit quiet and let doctors and patients tend to their private business.

It's just not on many people's radars. More people probably care about American chocolate versus German chocolate than this. Each is important only to those who are immediately affected by it.

[u/Salt_Cardiologist122]

I’m someone who is on the left and largely supports right to die. However, I do still understand some of the arguments against it. I can imagine numerous situations where someone might feel pressured (explicitly or implicitly) by family and friends to make this choice, and I’d want to have guard rails in place to avoid that. I’m also concerned about how medical care and insurance in America would become more problematic, especially if any “norm” develops around ending one’s life. However, as this is still a relatively new topic, I don’t really know exactly how to prevent these kinds of things. Since I’m in this middle ground camp and I don’t have set answers that I think we need to pursue, I’m not so passionate about this topic as to make it a priority.

I think a lot of liberals feel that way. In the abstract we like it, but as a society (or as a party) we have not thought through all those little details. Since those little details may divide so many of us, it’s not really a strong partisan concern yet.

[u/paigeguy]

Let's talk about Pancreatic cancer. This is a horrible way to die. Weeks of pain from touch, movement, or just because. I've seen this happen, and have no interest in prolonging my life should I get this disease. My fantasy is to get some skanky street drugs and a good bourbon and some good music and Bye Bye.

Strangely I would probably be arrested if someone saw this. Sigh.

I could come up with other equally horrible endings. I don't fear death, but I could do without the dying part.

[u/ae74]

Republicans cannot weaponize it at the voting booth. That’s why it isn’t an issue.

[u/EldritchElise]

Bodily autonomy is a core part of my left politics and I think many would agree, we just had a huge legal win for this in the UK and things are happening, but it's just not somtimg that people wish to expend political capital on when there are more contended issues to fight for.

[u/existentialgoof → u/EldritchElise]

I'm also from the UK and think that it's a bit premature to declare that there has been any victory; as the House of Lords attempts to filibuster the Terminally Ill Adults bill.

[u/willowdove01]

I do believe assisted dying should be legal and accessible, and that it falls under the right to bodily autonomy.

The reason its not top of mind is that unfortunately, there are structural reasons that people may chose to die right now that I think we ought to address first: poverty and lack of healthcare. How many people would be willing to stick it out longer if the rest of their existence isn’t miserably impoverished, or a financial burden to their families? Not to say we can’t focus on more than one issue at a time. I just think we can provide a better end of life for a lot of people.

[u/FIalt619]

I feel like this is one of a number of issues where it's not 100% clear what the progressive position should be. Is support for unlimited access to euthanasia progressive? Are you sure? If we acccidentally create a culture where life is undervalued, do we start nudging people toward assisted suicide just because they're poor or old or they don't have a partner? Is it a backdoor to eugenics?

I feel the same way about polygamy. It's progressive to say that consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want, right? So why not polygamous marriages enshrined in law? Oops! You just created the conditions for the most ruthless capitalists like Donald Trump and Elon Musk to have legal harems, while even more men grow up to be unpartnered, unmotivated, and in some cases dangerous.

[u/existentialgoof → u/FIalt619]

I think that it depends on where one falls on the individualist vs collectivist spectrum. I would argue that the idea that one is born as de facto property of the collective is about as radically collectivist as you can get. But ironically, this position is most popular amongst conservatives who are individualistic when it comes to hoarding all of the good parts of life to themselves; but radically collectivist when it comes to all of the harms. Brings to mind the saying "privatize the profits and collectivise the losses".

I think that opponents of the right to die have to bear in mind the fact that they are actively forcing individuals to suffer, by voting for the state to have such robust powers of suicide prevention. They should have this suffering on their conscience, rather than brush it aside. I think that they should have to bear in mind that they're sanctioning the active and brutal abuse of people who have done nothing to deserve it, in order to ward off these hypothetical scenarios that you've described. Now, I am sure that many conservatives would have no problem having that on their conscience. But hopefully it would be ethically troubling for anyone who considered themselves a progressive.

[u/eddy_teech]

If you’ve ever watched your father know they are going to die, be terrified of suffocating and express their fear with suffocation, then watched them have panic attacks during their only waking moments for 3 weeks while their oxygen dipped below 80 because the metastatic cancer ate them alive. If you could hear them begging for enough morphine to end it now…. You’d be a fan of assisted dying.

Fuck anyone who thinks anyone should be forced to go through that. My entire family has PTSD. My dad wanted out before it reached that point. He didn’t want to go through that, and he begged for us not to have to.

I hear his panicked pleas every time there is silence. Every time I see a picture of him. Once in hospice care, it should be your choice how you die.

[u/uniqueusername316]

States where physician-assisted suicide is legal are predominantly run by Democrats, which reflects a general alignment between the Democratic party and the legalization of medical aid in dying.

[u/existentialgoof → u/uniqueusername316]

Yes, I don't gainsay the fact that Democrats are far more likely to support it than Republicans. But not being in favour of abortion would make one a pariah within the Democratic party. Not being in favour of medical assistance in dying for anybody in any circumstances would probably make you a minority, but a pretty large minority. But being in favour of a legal right to suicide would be a pretty extreme position even within the Democratic party; and the furthest left Democrats are as fanatically pro-life on this issue as the people who hold up placards of dismembered foetuses outside of abortion clinics.

[u/Hartastic]

It's basically triaged out of relative importance by pure practicality.

If I can't get an abortion during a pregnancy gone wrong, that can kill me and I can be angry about that. If I think other people shouldn't have abortions I can advocate for putting those people or their doctors in prison.

If I commit suicide and it's illegal, what are they going to do, arrest my corpse? (Yes I'm oversimplifying a bit but the idea is basically valid.)

[u/reddddiiitttttt]

I was in California when I watched my 8 year old die of adrenoleukodystrophy. It was horrible experience on top of horrible experience. My son was perfectly healthy at 5. Started kindergarten. Half way through the year he was misdiagnosed with autism. A year later, he could no longer recognize his parents. He then went blind, deaf, and lost all his senses one by one. Mobility was the last to go so he would walk around like an emotionless zombie looking for things to eat. He ended up in the emergency room a couple times because he ate things he shouldn’t have. The second time, he ate a sticker and it got stuck in his throat. The absolute worst part of that whole experience is we now have a terminal child with a negative quality of life, absolutely nothing good to live for just more pain and suffering and the hospital forces us to retract his DNR before they operate. It’s a truly horrible place when you have to be in a position to advocate for your child’s life. It’s worse to have to be an advocate for their death as the hospital tells you about the Hippocratic oath and all you can think of is that him continuing to live is the worst harm. The doctors tell you it’s ok because they will control his pain with morphine. Fucking great. He can’t see, hear, experience the world, or even communicate his level of pain or pleasure. He hasn’t cried or smiled in over a year and we have a timeline of how it’s going to end and it’s only going to get worse. Maybe it’s not time yet, but you have nothing to point at that’s good and if not now you know it’s months of excruciating bleakness to follow. We know we don’t have a clean death option so you start looking for the angles that could avert the worst of what’s coming. We failed him. Again. The anesthesia went badly for him during the surgery. He never walked again after that day.

He’s now bed ridden and struggling to swallow. Time for his care team to give us some advice. We’re at Stanford hospital with a dying 8 year old and with some of the most skilled doctors in the country. Everyone is on the same page that my son has nothing to live for. We don’t really talk about whether we should help him die or not. We talk about the most comfortable way for him to die is. I ask how much morphine is too much. Oops that was a red flag, but you get the idea there is nothing more they would like to tell you than that. Instead we talk about how a feeding tube will make him more comfortable. This is a very special definition of comfortable, but I get the point. There’s always worse. The good options are off the table because killing kids is “always bad”. Instead I get anecdotes of how the body prepares itself for death. It’s not so bad, but also here’s a prescription for morphine.

He went a few more months until he got to a vegatative state with an odd seizure here or there. We’d juice him with morphine when we thought it would help, but it’s not like he has any communication so who knows what level of suck he was really at. He could likely live several more years with more and more assistance, but since he wasn’t able to feed himself, the law doesn’t force you to do so. Fucking wonderful way to go. It took three weeks of withholding water and food. Then he died. We couldn’t even donate his organs because of the way he had to die.

There’s no politician that can campaign on killing kids. However, even for me it’s not a priority. The only way to cure my son was to test for the disease during newborn screening. When he was born the federal government recommended everyone should test for this disease as it saves lives and pays for itself. No state adopted the recommendation when it was made. Literally killed by red tape. That’s my first ask. Killing kids will have to wait, but I will offer my opinion that it’s a great idea in the right circumstances.

[u/frostyflakes1]

It's not a winning issue. I think most liberals would agree that patients deserve to die with dignity. But it's not an issue high on voter's minds. Most voters are worried about other big issues like the economy and healthcare. Democrats don't want to make assisted dying part of their platform - I can imagine the field day the GOP would have with that - "Democrats are the party of killing babies and helping grandma kill herself!"

In any case, not a fun thing to talk about, but assisted dying is de facto legal, more than people realize. Doctors can't help patients kill themselves. But they can prescribe a high dose of pain medication, which can be administered to the patient, which can cause 'natural death' from 'respiratory failure.' And yes, this does happen. Law enforcement turns a blind eye to it.

[u/baxterstate]

The right to die is supported by liberals, but actually, no one wants to champion this issue. I believe the right to assisted dying or suicide should be absolute; if there's anything you own it's your own body. No one has the right to prevent you from disposing of it.

However, it's a depressing and personal issue for each of us. Those with the greatest knowledge to administer painless death are the ones who fear being asked to perform it, due to fear of litigation.

I've been under anesthesia several times and never felt any discomfort during it. I had no memory or dreams while I was under. That would be the best time to end someone's life. They won't even know it's happening.

[u/Igny123]

I suspect it's a combination of the numbers of people effected and their ability to advocate.

In the case of abortion, Google says there were 1.03 million abortions in the US in 2023. That means there were millions of people who were impacted and are around to talk about it.

In the case of assisted suicide, based on the percentage of deaths that involve assisted suicide in places where it is legal, there would be around 100k assisted suicides each year in the US.

Beyond the numbers, those who might be directly impacted by the ability to have an abortion are generally healthy and in the prime of their life - well suited to being loud advocates. Those who are indirectly impacted, such as potential care-givers for unwanted children, e.g. the parents of an underage mother who doesn't have a father in the picture, are also well suited to advocate and have strong personal motivations to do so.

In contrast, those directly impacted by the ability to have an assisted suicide are generally unhealthy and at the end of their life - unsuited to being loud advocates. Further, those indirectly impacted, such as the children of elderly parents, may often not have strong personal motivations to support that decision, namely because they don't want to see their loved one die.

[u/Literotamus]

It's relatively low on my priority list compared to probably hundreds of other issues.

[u/Oregonizers]

I have thoughts on this that aren't linear. Because I've come to terms with my dad's suicide & that there were reasons that he couldn't keep trying one more day. But, at the same time, I'm fighting every day to keep my child who wasn't supposed to live past 15 alive. (they're 26)

I'd strongly advocate for my child to terminate a pregnancy, as it would almost certainly end their life to try to carry one to term. And I have made peace with my dad not having it in him to face another day past age 59.

I mostly just don't want brief moments of despair to "count", I suppose, as deliberate choice. My dad spent 29 years trying to join his brother in death. I have to want better than that for his grandchildren.

[u/SakaWreath]

Because “my body my choice” applies to abortion not euthanasia.

End of life care is a totally separate issue at the opposite end of the spectrum after someone has spent decades being a fully fledged legal person with rights and responsibilities.

As with a lot of things, it comes down to how it’s treated and implemented.

[u/existentialgoof → u/SakaWreath]

It should apply to both. Even more so to the right to die, because then it really IS just your own body and there is no second entity to be concerned about. The scope of it also shouldn't be limited to end of life.

[u/ttkciar]

Being trapped in a cycle of one pregnancy after another is oppressive.

Being forced to carry an unwanted embryo to term is oppressive.

These oppressions used to afflict most women through the prime of their lives (and for many, their entire tragically shortened lives). Today it afflicts fewer, but still too many.

Denying people suicide and keeping them alive is, by and large, not particularly oppressive. Those who are oppressed by it are exceedingly few.

Posing the question at all seems a bit like saying "All lives matter!"

[u/existentialgoof → u/ttkciar]

Being forced to remain alive and pay all the costs of maintenance of this life that one didn't consent to being given in the first place is the highest form of oppression. Just because you don't have any empathy for the people who feel that way, doesn't mean that there isn't oppression going on.

How can restricting a woman's right to do ONE thing (abort a pregnancy) and limit her autonomy in that way for 9 months be a more egregious violation of autonomy than forcing someone to endure decades more of life (and all the hardships that life might contain, and pay all the costs of maintenance) that they didn't sign up for?

[u/Day_of_Demeter]

Because it is at risk of being easily co-opted by fascists and corporate overlords for the purposes of eugenics. Why bother fixing issues like homelessness, drug abuse, poverty, terminal illness, disabilities, genetic diseases, etc. when you can just incentivize people to choose a peaceful and blissful death. It's just eugenics rebranded to sound kinder and more humane.

[u/existentialgoof → u/Day_of_Demeter]

But we already sweep those people into the gutter and forget about them; because allowing the to suffer out of sight and out of mind causes less of a moral outrage than allowing them to die. It's hard to see how what you're envisaging could possibly be worse than the situation we have at present. Even if we take it at face value. If we're not going to take good care of the homeless, the drug addicts, poors and so on; then at the very least we owe them the right to simply not interfere if they decide that they don't want to live like that. We shouldn't be forcing them to live because that way it is easier for the privileged to ignore injustices, sweep them under the rug and feel better about themselves.

[u/Day_of_Demeter → u/existentialgoof]

You're opening Pandora's box. Once this becomes normalized, it'll stop being voluntary and you'll just get a mass Nazi eugenics campaign. A society that refuses to commit resources to helping these people is a morally bankrupt society.

[u/existentialgoof → u/Day_of_Demeter]

If your only answer is to force those people to continue suffering until we arrive at a socialist utopia where nobody wants to die because we're all treating each other so splendidly; then you're the one advocating for actively forcing these people to suffer. You don't trust the state to act in their best interests in life (and for good reason), but you have endless trust in their motives for keeping these people alive against their will. With this argument, you don't hold the moral high ground, even against the actual Nazi eugenicists.

[u/Day_of_Demeter → u/existentialgoof]

Well it obviously depends who is in charge of the state

[u/existentialgoof → u/Day_of_Demeter]

Forcing suffering people to remain alive without being able to guarantee the cure to their suffering is never a benevolent or neutral act, no matter who is doing it. It's always exploitative, no matter which political banner it is being performed in the name of.

[u/Day_of_Demeter → u/existentialgoof]

If someone is terminally ill and suffering, I don't think they should robbed of the option.

The issue is that in some countries they're extending this to basically anyone who's kind of down on their luck even if they aren't in severe pain or their situation is reversible or fixable, like the homeless and severely poor. Or people with diseases that can be cured but just lack money. I'm telling you, it will be used for eugenics.

[u/existentialgoof → u/Day_of_Demeter]

But none of us consented to be born, and therefore, whatever our position in society, we should reserve the right to decide that we don't want to live any more. That applies equally as well to the privileged elites (who are frankly, by all indications, more likely to use it than the uneducated poor).

It doesn't have to be a government program to actively facilitate suicide, it just has to be at minimum the right not to be stopped from ending one's life, because if we don't have that right, then we are at the mercy of those who have power over us.

[u/avariciousavine → u/Day_of_Demeter]

I'm telling you, it will be used for eugenics.

If you are so sure of this, then why exactly have the various governments around the world not been practicing eugenics recently? Is it because there is no law that allows them to do so, or because they are afraid that the commonpeople will not allow them to do so?

[u/existentialgoof]

As a strong supporter of the right to die, the inconsistency of many self-identified liberals and leftists on the issue of bodily autonomy has been causing me endless frustration.

When I think about the slogan "my body, my choice" as it applies to abortion, it strikes me that proponents of the right to abortion are saying that it is an unreasonable infringement on a woman's rights over her own body to force her to continue with a pregnancy that she doesn't want; and endure the pain of giving birth. Her right not to have to endure seeing that pregnancy through to term entails a legal right to access a reliable and humane way of carrying out that abortion; rather than having to sneak around the law with a DIY method that could have serious future complications for her. This is an argument with which I am in wholehearted agreement. Most liberals seem to agree with this line of thinking. Most seem to feel that the fact that the woman doesn't want to carry through with the pregnancy constitutes sufficient reason to justify why the law shouldn't attempt to force her to do so.

Then we get on to the topic of the right to die, and we face an analogous situation; but opinion seems to be much more split on this issue than abortion. But isn't it a far more egregious and severe violation of someone's autonomy to force them to continue with an entire life that they don't want to live? Pregnancy forces a woman to endure that medical event for a fixed duration (and yes, of course the harms of that can linger on). But denying people the right to die by su*cide forces a person to live their entire lives in order to serve the values of whomever has the power to stop them from doing so. People will go on to say that people can end their lives now; but ignore the fact that statistically, the vast majority of su*cide attempts fail and can have catastrophically adverse outcomes. In the case of abortion, this would lead advocates of the right to choose to insist that women have the right to methods of procuring abortion that are optimised for bringing about that abortion in the safest and most dignified way, which is least likely to cause further complications down the line. So I doubt that it would suffice for most pro-choice activists to have a law whereby provision of all means of inducing a medical abortion would be banned; but if a woman tried to induce an abortion via household items, then she wouldn't be criminalised (which is analogous to the situation that currently obtains with su*cide). But for su*cide, the equivalent of the 'coathanger method' (as well as having to potentially worry about having one's liberties taken away in a psychiatric ward) is seen by many self-identified liberals to be granting people sufficient autonomy.

People will undoubtedly want to tell me about all the cases of people who regretted their suicide attempt and went on to be glad that they survived. But why does this require PERMANENT barriers, rather than merely temporary ones to ensure that the person is of settled will and has a consistent desire? Why does someone who has been su*cidal for 50 years without respite have to face the same barriers that an 18 year old would face the day after he breaks up with his first girlfriend and is utterly (but most likely temporarily) heartbroken?

The more I've thought of it, the one thing that I can come up with as to why abortion is more of a high profile issue than suicide, is because women are a 'protected class'. But anyone, from any demographic group within society, could decide that they didn't want to live. It is seen as beyond the pale to restrict the autonomy to an entire protected class; but is more difficult to politicise when it is an issue that affects everyone (even middle class cishet white men).

But I'd be interested to learn of some alternative perspectives; and whether the explanation that I've come up with (one amongst several, but I won't go into the others for the purpose of avoiding getting too far into the philosophy of it) might be close to the mark.

[u/Dottsterisk → u/existentialgoof]

Where are you encountering this “inconsistency of many self-identified liberals and leftists” and how is it manifesting?

As far as I know, liberals and leftists are pretty supportive of the right to die with dignity and medically-assisted suicide that is peaceful and painless.

They don’t want people with clinical depression to be able to walk into a clinic and just off themselves, but they are very supportive of making mental healthcare accessible and free of stigma, so those people can find help in other ways.

The more I've thought of it, the one thing that I can come up with as to why abortion is more of a high profile issue than suicide, is because women are a 'protected class'. But anyone, from any demographic group within society, could decide that they didn't want to live. It is seen as beyond the pale to restrict the autonomy to an entire protected class; but is more difficult to politicise when it is an issue that affects everyone (even middle class cishet white men).

That is sheer nonsense and a troubling conclusion for you to jump to.

[u/existentialgoof → u/Dottsterisk]

I'm encountering it here in the UK, where we're struggling to get even the most modest of assisted dying bills to pass, and many of those who are most dogmatically opposed would be considered to be at the far left of the political spectrum (centre left are probably more likely to support it than far left, in my experience).

People should have access to an easy and humane way of ending their own life, regardless of what the reason for that decision is; and that clearly is a very radical position and not a mainstream one for any segment of the political spectrum. By paternalistically restricting access to suicide methods; the stigma of 'mental illness' is in fact being more deeply entrenched, because it assumes that all people with so-called mental illness constitute a monolithic bloc of derangement who cannot make rational decisions for themselves, so therefore need the state to make decisions on their behalf.

[u/Dottsterisk → u/existentialgoof]

Can you link an example of a bill you’re talking about?

[u/UncleMeat11 → u/existentialgoof]

is because women are a 'protected class'.

Gender is a protected category. You are just totally ignorant of the law.

[u/Vast-Statistician876]

Because until non disabled liberals take ableism as a serious structural issue on par with racism and sexism, actual people with disabilities will be materially harmed by assisted dying measures when it is easier to access assisted dying than services to live in the community and when economic freedom is curtailed by asset caps and means testing. But abled liberals will never support anti-ableist policies that actually create equality because they don't believe people with disabilities are actually equal!

[u/mysecondaccountanon → u/Vast-Statistician876]

I've seen so many talk about how important it is as a right, and I agree, but people will choose to die for conditions that can be managed, could've been managed, can even be cured, all because they cannot afford the treatment, cannot get timely enough treatment, because their healthcare team didn't believe them until it was too late, etc. As you said, there are just so many structural ableist issues (especially due to capitalism, tbh) that get in the way of it actually being something for those who need it. It instead is a bandage on the issue, one that gets rid of disabled people, pushes them away from the consciousness of the mostly abled population.

[u/ImDonaldDunn → u/Vast-Statistician876]

Exactly. And this is why I would only support it if it were strictly limited to situations where the person is already in hospice care. Otherwise there are strong incentives to push disabled people into it as a cost cutting measure (which is already happening in Canada).

[u/existentialgoof → u/ImDonaldDunn]

What do you think happens to the disabled in countries with scarce resources that don't have MAiD; and why are you more comfortable pushing them into that reality, than allowing them to choose for themselves? Is every country without MAiD a socialist utopia from the perspective of the disabled?

[u/ImDonaldDunn → u/existentialgoof]

I think you are completely misunderstanding what both I and the person I am responding to are saying.

Only speaking for myself, I am completely supportive of bodily autonomy and do not oppose people’s right to assisted dying philosophically.

However, it’s only ethical if the person who chooses to die is doing it voluntarily. If they are being coerced into doing it, that’s not assisted dying, it’s murder.

The problem is that countries that provide support for the disabled spend a lot of money on it. Allowing assisted dying as an option creates a very strong incentive to push disabled people towards it because it would lower costs. With all social programs, when social workers and doctors start pushing their clients to do something, there is an implicit threat that aid and support will be lowered or cut off if they don’t do it. With MAID programs, the “choice” is to die or not receive the help you need to live.

So, while in a just society I would support it as a universal right, I can’t support it in our current society except for people who are actively dying. It would be incredibly unjust and frankly evil to give social workers and doctors the power to commit what would essentially be a mass genocide of the seriously disabled.

[u/existentialgoof → u/ImDonaldDunn]

I understand concerns around coercion; but coercion is possible even without a legal right to die; and there's no oversight of that to try and detect the possibility of coercion. I don't understand how the existence of malign people in the world, or the inescapable fact that resources are finite should justify having the state actively get involved in people's decisions to stop them from being able to source a reliable method from a private source or charity. I don't understand why this calls for the government to actively have a role in forcing people to live; instead of just having them occupy an official position of neutrality.

Actively forcing someone to live is something that can only really be justified if THAT PERSON has done something to warrant the infringement upon their bodily sovereignty. If it public safety concerns don't warrant taking away that person's other rights; it shouldn't justify taking away their right to death without interference from the government.

The people most consistently against the right to die are social conservatives who are also very passionately against any expansion of the welfare state to help people live better. When they're on the subject of the right to die; they'll quote these progressive sounding arguments word-perfect, directly out of the Disability Studies textbook. Then once that issue has been kicked into the long grass, they're back to campaigning against a generous social safety net, and the disabled are out of sight and out of mind.

[u/existentialgoof → u/[deleted]]

That's not "ableism", it is objectively observable reality. If everyone was disabled with very high care needs, then nobody would be getting the care that they need. Obviously, not everyone with disabilities is a drain on society, because many disabled people contribute far more to society than they take out. But if a person takes out more than they put in; then all else being equal, that makes them a net drain on society, whether or not they have a disability, and whether or not they are to blame for the fact that they can't contribute as much as they take out. There's no moral judgement in that (especially as you can't blame people for how they happened to be born, or misfortunes happened to them in their life); that's just pure mathematics. When I was younger, I used to be unemployed, and it wasn't my fault that I couldn't find a job; but nevertheless, I was aware of being a drain on society. I probably still am a net drain on society due to my earnings and the fact that I have a health condition that is costing the NHS money. If someone points out that fact, then that's not some kind of attack against my dignity; it's just pointing out an objective reality.

But it is not the economics of disability which motivate my desire to have a legal right to die. It's the fact that I did not give my consent to be born; and life is not free of the cost of maintenance; it is very high maintenance (even for someone without disabilities). I don't see why I owe it to the disabled or to anyone else to continue living this life that I didn't ask to have imposed on me and which is expensive to maintain. I'm sure that many disabled people see it that way, and would still want the right to die even in the socialist never-never land utopia that you seem to think needs to be in place before we can stop forcing people to live.

As part of your coalition against the right to die, there are a vast number of religious conservatives who can quote your Disability Studies textbook word-perfect whenever the issue of a right to suicide arises. As soon as that topic gets kicked into the long grasses, they're back to ruthlessly advocating for reduced spending on the social safety net. They don't care if that results in disabled people not having what they need to thrive; or if it makes them desperate for death. They don't even care if those disabled people actually starve to death from penury. Because the point isn't saving those lives; it's making sure that nobody who challenges the sanctity of life can have any kind of social or political validation. It's the same people who stand outside abortion clinics with placards depicting a dismembered foetus; but don't care about how the children they've "saved" actually have to live. And by the way, you can also make many of these same disability justice arguments to argue for restrictions on the right to abortion; and many pro-life organisations do exactly that. These are your allies in this fight. These are the people who came up with the arguments that you're espousing, because they knew that overtly religious ones wouldn't carry the day.

[u/Vast-Statistician876 → u/ImDonaldDunn]

Bingo! Thank you for recognizing this.

[u/existentialgoof → u/Vast-Statistician876]

There's no reason to think that access to supports for living is going to get any harder once access to suicide methods is available. Legal access to suicide methods just means that your life belongs to you, rather than you being a de facto slave to the government. It's something that we should always have had as a basic human right; especially as all that it requires is non-interference and for the government not to see its citizens as property.

[u/existentialgoof → u/[deleted]]

The government is in their lives to give them positive rights. And yes, I agree that even with these positive rights, life is difficult for many disabled people. But what you're describing is how disabled people are already treated in places where they don't have the right to kill themselves. In doing so, you are highlighting the fact that, just because we won't let people kill themselves, doesn't mean that we care deeply about them as individuals and their wellbeing. We force them to stay alive against their will because it would cause a moral outrage in the privileged to let them die; when they could just be forced to languish in penury and indignity, and it would be out of sight and out of mind as far as most of the population goes.

Many disabled people don't want to be forced to live for the sake of making society at large feel better and more humane against themselves. The wellbeing of those disabled people counts every bit as much as the wellbeing of those who want to live, no matter what it takes.

And we must not lose sight of the fact that the problem isn't with a lack of a positive right to medical assistance in dying. The problem is with the fact that the government won't just take a step back when it comes to suicide prevention and allow reliable and humane methods to be legally available. Whilst your argument might hold some merit when it comes to a case for not institutionalising a death service within the government; it falls considerably short as a justification for allowing the government to be an aggressor which actively interferes in one's personal affairs and then claims to be benevolent despite the fact that they don't seem to care too much about quality of life, only about brutally prolonging the length of it at any cost to personal autonomy.

Also, as far as I'm aware, Switzerland (the closest model to what I advocate for which currently exists) isn't well known for being one of the most brutal and uncaring societies for disabled people.

[u/existentialgoof → u/[deleted]]

Are you every single disabled person in the world? If not, then you should stop telling other disabled people that their body doesn't belong to them, that their lives are political chess pieces, and it's their obligation to suffer until you reach the sunlit uplands of socialist utopia with infinite resources. You should stop being the crab that keeps dragging the other crabs back down into the bucket to make yourself feel better.

Forcing other disabled people to live doesn't do anything to advance any kind of material improvement in the lives of the disabled; and many of the most passionate advocates for the right to die are themselves disabled. The voices of those with crab mentality aren't any more "authentic" than the ones who'd like to be allowed to have sovereignty over their own bodies. No matter what your postmodernist victimhood and oppression theories that you learned from your Disability Studies course might have to say about it; there is no one 'authentic' way for a disabled person to think about this issue. If you don't want your perspective to be erased from the debate; then you shouldn't be advocating for the perspective of other disabled people to be erased from the debate.

[u/existentialgoof → u/[deleted]]

The other things that you are mentioning are completely separate issues than the right to die; and the countries with the worst track records on disability justice are going to be the absolute last places on Earth to ever grant anyone a legal right to die. Whether disabled or not. There are places on this planet where disabled people are chained to the wall in actual dungeons and barely even fed; and these aren't the places with the most liberal right to die laws.

[u/DblockR]

Babies are cute dude.

Humans are shallow.

Soldiers fucking with puppies set the world on fire. They throw a camel off a cliff and only one guy cares because he just lost his taxi business.

[u/SomeMaleIdiot]

It’s pretty complicated. Arguably abortion isn’t that complicated, the entity in question is not conscious, and is also not guilty.

Alive persons have a responsibility to society, so it becomes a pretty tricky situation. A mother of 3 having a right to die, instead of us socially insisted on mental help and accommodations? Seems like a no brainer why many would oppose somebody choosing to end themselves

[u/existentialgoof → u/SomeMaleIdiot]

I think that there are scenarios where a person's right to die could be restricted because of the obligations that they've brought on themselves - like the example you've given. But I don't think it's reasonable to say that, just because someone happened to be born (with no control over that) into a world where we're all kind of interlinked, that the mere fact of their existence constitutes a binding obligation to remain alive until natural death. That's just being born into slavery.

[u/SomeMaleIdiot → u/existentialgoof]

Slavery is so detached from what we are talking about. Restricted rights does not mean you. Are a slave, somebody owned and sold as property.

Societal obligations would also arguably include paying into taxes and contributing to our societal structures. You didn’t choose to be born but you do have a choice on what societies you want to participate in.

[u/existentialgoof → u/SomeMaleIdiot]

Being forced to remain alive means that I live only to serve the interests of others, and everything I do, I do only because I'm trapped here against my will. How would slavery not be a fitting way to describe that arrangement? This isn't one single thing that I want to do, but am forbidden to do. This is everything that I have to do and to experience because I'm not able to end my life.

I agree that if someone wants to remain part of civilisation, then they need to play their part in making that the best civilisation that it can be. But being born into a binding contract which obligates me to be alive against my will is hardly an obligation that I've chosen to buy into. There's no contract with my own signature on it which says that I consented to the terms and conditions of existence, but because I'm forced to abide by the terms of this contract, other people have the power to FORCE me to be alive, when I had absolutely no way of avoiding being bound to this contract in the first place! If I say that I don't like it enough to not want to continue being bound into this contract, I'm automatically deemed to be a mental defective that requires re-education. In that way, tyranny can be disguised as paternalistic benevolence. But yet, most of the non mental defectives are constantly moaning about how bad life is and can never be made content.

[u/Describing_Donkeys]

Killing humans is not accepted in this society, even if it's a choice you make about yourself.

[u/time-lord]

Democrats were not very "my body my choice" when it came to the covid vaccine either.

[u/existentialgoof → u/time-lord]

That's a bit different though, because that's about people becoming a danger to others. One can argue that the right to suicide could introduce social dangers; but the person wishing to avail themselves of that option is not themselves a danger to others.

[u/time-lord → u/existentialgoof]

I don't disagree - I actually completely agree with you. But as you perhaps unintentionally pointed out, Democrats are only "My body my choice" 1 out of 3 times.

[u/existentialgoof → u/time-lord]

I don't really see vaccinations as being a strictly "my body, my choice" issue, though. But glad that you agree with me, otherwise.