How Do You Spell That?

What's selfish about sparing friends and family from having to watch you slowly degrade over time as some debilitating crap eats away at you for years? I'm not necessarily saying HST was the poster-child for assisted-suicide, but for you to cast all suicides as "selfish ways of dealing with [your] problems" shows you to be extremely naive.

I'd rather go out quickly on my own terms as well, than spend years in pain. If you want to keep struggling to deal with day-to-day pain and crap like that, that's your choice, but please don't pretend that the choices you make for yourself are the ones that the rest of the world must make for themselves. :-)

#1. No one knows if he had "X" terminal disease. He was 65. Unless the years of drug abuse were catching up with him, he could have very easily lived until 80+.

#2. Suicide is selfish because you take away time from your family. You aren't around to deal with the grief and loss from someone who committed suicide, seeing as how you are dead. There are a number of people who can attest to this, when comparing long illness to suicide; the suicide is always the hardest.

#3. Imagine being six years old and walking into a room where your grandfather has blown his head off with all the obvious things that happen to a body when there's a large hole in the head. It isn't a pretty as Hollywood makes it out to be.

I respect people that want to go out on their own terms, and I do support assisted-suicide in cases where someone is unable to end their own lives due to disability. However, this wasn't the case with Hunter S. Thompson. He was in full control of his facilities, in fact so much so he was on the phone with his wife before he pulled the trigger.

In either case, I can think of few suicides that were noble or romantic; except in cases where one person's death saved others. In this case, he's hurt more lives that saved.

#1 - So what? If he wanted to go, it's his choice to go.

#2 - I call bullshit. Suicide is not, at all, "always" the hardest. There are plenty of people who hold their loved-ones' hands while they kill themselves (Oregon has a couple hundred or so now under their belts with their assisted-suicide law) and are happy that their loved-one got to choose their manner of passing rather than just wasting away over years and years. Again, maybe *you* would prefer to waste away, and maybe you'd prefer to see your loved ones wasting away rather than taking their own lives, but don't pretend that your decision is the one chosen by all people.

#3 - Judging from the interviews with the family, he'll be just fine. The entire family seems to be 100% supportive of HST's decision.

You seem to support assisted-suicide and paradoxically reject unassisted-suicide. It's ok for me to kill myself on my own terms if I'm not actually capable of doing it myself? Why do I have to wait until I need help before I make that choice?

He doesn't seem to have "hurt" anyone... have you even *read* the interviews? His family members have known this was coming for years, he told them all he'd kill himself as his means of passing, and they all seem genuinely content with the situation.

#1. No arugument there, but....

#2. I don't call bullshit. Someone decides to end their own life, that is their choice. but I don't have to support it. If it's someone I knew, I would do my damndest to stop them by whatever means necessary.

#3. Supportive???

"He wanted to leave on top of his game. I wish I could have been more supportive of his decision," she said. "It was a problem for us."

Now I call bullshit. His wife obviously wasn't content with the decision. Wanting to kill yourself is not a natural choice, it only arises from depression or hallucinogenic drugs. If someone is depressed, they can most likely be treated. The whole "going out at the top of his game" is a lame excuse. He wasn't at the top of his game. It's sad that he put his legacy before his family. What a lame asshole.

"Wanting to kill yourself [...] only arises from depression or hallucinogenic drugs"

That's horseshit. I don't have to be "depressed" or "on hallucinogenic drugs" to say "I don't want to live a life of pain".

"I don't want to live a life of pain"

That wouldn't be related to depression???

BTW, this is a bad week to ask me this question. We're facing this head on in my family.

-- I don't want to live a life of pain
- That wouldn't be related to depression???

Not at all. I can be "in pain" without being "depressed". I can simply say "I choose, me myself, that this life is not the life I want to live."

"I don't want to live without the use of my legs."
"I don't want to live with diminished vision."

There are any of a number of various things, people can CHOOSE on their own to say "I do not wish to deal with that", and it's not about "depression" but about "a lack of desire to live with some sort of condition they don't like".

Certainly *some* people commit suicide over depression, but there are also a large number of people for whom it is simply a means of assuring their own dignity, as opposed to dealing with the pain of wasting away, and forcing their loved ones to WATCH them waste away.

I'll say it right now up front -- If I'm diagnosed with some terminal disease, and given "NN months to live, but 2/3 of that will be in excruciating pain", expect me to go skydiving shortly thereafter, and half-way down, rip off the harness.

My solution isn't one for everyone, which is why I'm not about "forced euthanasia" or anything heinous like that, but don't presume to be on the high horse and say that just because YOU don't like that solution, and it may not be right for you or your loved ones that somehow those for whom it *IS* their preferred choice are lesser or weaker. They just choose differently than you.