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Why Scott Adams Wished Death On His Dad
theodp writes " I hope my father dies soon," Dilbert creator Scott Adams wrote Saturday in a frustrated, angry, and poignant blog post. 'My father, age 86, is on the final approach to the long dirt nap (to use his own phrase). His mind is 98% gone, and all he has left is hours or possibly months of hideous unpleasantness in a hospital bed. I'll spare you the details, but it's as close to a living Hell as you can get. If my dad were a cat, we would have put him to sleep long ago. And not once would we have looked back and thought too soon. Because it's not too soon. It's far too late. His smallish estate pays about $8,000 per month to keep him in this state of perpetual suffering. Rarely has money been so poorly spent. I'd like to proactively end his suffering and let him go out with some dignity. But my government says I can't make that decision. Neither can his doctors. So, for all practical purposes, the government is torturing my father until he dies.' Adams also had harsh words for those who would oppose assisted suicide, 'I don't want anyone to misconstrue this post as satire or exaggeration. So I'll reiterate. If you have acted, or plan to act, in a way that keeps doctor-assisted suicide illegal, I see you as an accomplice in torturing my father, and perhaps me as well someday. I want you to die a painful death, and soon. And I'd be happy to tell you the same thing to your face.' His father passed a few hours after Adams wrote his screed. Challenged later by the SF Chronicle's Debra J. Saunders, an opponent of assisted suicide, Adams stood firm on his earlier words. So, can Adams succeed in convincing the U.S. where Dr. Jack failed?"
This is one of those things were I think it should be legal (free will) but only if the person left instructions stating so in their will. "I, So and So, being of sound mind, state that if I'm ever in a coma with less than 1% chance of coming out of it (by the doctor's judgements) do so hereby state that I wish to be 'put down'" or some such.
"I'm okay with any citizen who opposes doctor-assisted suicide on moral or practical grounds. But if you have acted on that thought, such as basing a vote on it, I would like you to die a slow, horrible death too."
"If you're a politician who has ever voted against doctor-assisted suicide, or you would vote against it in the future, I hate your fucking guts and I would like you to die a long, horrible death. I would be happy to kill you personally and watch you bleed out."
I'll attribute most of this to personal pain... but seriously, Scott needs to dial it back a notch. When you go into threats of killing someone, your political discourse has gone way too far.
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In that situation, I'll kill my wife or she will kill me. Otherwise I wouldn't have married her.
I am not sure what she'll do after but I am positive I'll commit suicide after killing her.
I've lived something close to what Mr. Adams describes and I now need such certainties to live in peace.
For the most part, while there are exceptions, active suicide is almost unnecessary for someone in a grossly debilitated state. As a physician, I both have a living will and my family is well-informed that if I ever lose the ability to function mentally, in a way that is not reversible, I am not to receive ANY life-prolonging treatment. That means no artificial hydration, no feeding, and no antibiotics. Many of my physician colleagues have made similar arrangements. That's why MDs are the group in the population with the lowest end-of-life cost. While a surrogate or healthcare proxy may not make a decision to end a life, they are certainly within their rights to do the abovementioned, unless a person's living will specifically forbids it. In general, this means a person will pass away within days. For the most part it allows the family time to fly in, and make peace with the inevitable.
Saunders's response was rather confusing, esp the closing "Me, I don't want to live in a world where one group of people decides when another group should die."
I guess it is not oppression as long as the choice you want is the one being mandated.
He was wishing that his father would be out of misery and is a proponent of assisted suicide. He saw his father suffer and become little more of a shell. The "wish" was as much for himself as for his father.
And, he's right...if it were an animal, we'd have "put it to sleep" to ease its suffering.
We get so caught up on religious dogma and how this would be murder or suicide that we forget the person is a human being being forced to live an existence they wouldn't choose for themselves.
The other week, my mother's partner or 13 years suffered a stroke and was on life support. Thankfully, in our state, they support the concept of a living will - it gave her the authorization to take him off of life support. She waited until confirmation by multiple doctors on his prognosis. It was difficult. He has zero higher brain function and was being kept alive artificially with zero probability of recovery. He was 86. She authorized the removal of the machines and feeding tubes...just IV and pain meds (seems he was experiencing pain at some level). In 3 days, he passed peacefully.
My mother is a religious and moral person - but, she feels it morally wrong to keep someone in that state, given their expressed wishes prior, alive for the sake of keeping them alive. If he had a soul, it passed when his brain function ceased. His body was just a shell. And, she felt he was in a better place.
Oregon has legal assistant suicide, the first in the nation to have these laws. You can plan and die peacefully in Oregon with your choice of a death cocktail.
I have 10 grams of coke hidden in my house. My dad suffered tremendously during his last weeks of life. I've seen it with my own eyes. If I'm ever in that situation, I've instructed my family to overdose me with the coke. They'll have plausible deniability (I was a junkie who wanted his dose). As for me, they say the first hit is better than an orgasm, and with 10 g, it'd also be my last, so I'd go in style.
Of course, if I'm conscious and able to, I'll do the coke myself if I have to...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
You don't know until you have gone through this yourself. I just did - twice within months, once for my Mother who died in home hospice and again for my Father about 5 months after she passed. I went through it alone, even though a sibling lived only 2 miles away from them. You can't imagine watching someone you love, someone you owe your whole world to waste away in this fashion. I was lucky enough that both were cognitive right up until the end; for me it was the only saving grace in all this that I could at least still communicate and interact with them up in until a day or two before each passed. I can't fathom the pain Adams went through in his situation. I understand fully why he said what he did and where it came from. To those who think they know better, be careful becuase karma has a way of administring harsh lessons of reality.
My name is Scott Adams. You didn't kill my father. Prepare to die.
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I think if it this way: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Euthanasia is a permanent solution to a permanent problem.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
Not so. My grandfather had an interesting thing happen, where his intestine started dying by inches. They tried excising the dying bits, but the rest kept dying too. So, palliative care.
They were quite frank about the fact that he was in enough pain that no painkiller they had would work on him. He was drugged into utter unconsciousness, yet still his face was spasming with pain. Yet when I suggested maybe they just up the dose, they said 'Any more would kill him.' 'Well, doctor,' I said, 'what are his chances?' 'None,' they said. 'He will die within a week. There's nothing we can do.' 'Exactly,' I said. And they looked at me like I was a monster, while they did everything they could to prolong his death. Not his life, his death.
Yet if I treated my dog that way, I'd be up on animal cruelty charges.
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