Assisted Suicide Quotes

“Think of all those ages through which men have had the courage to die, and then remember that we have actually fallen to talking about having the courage to live.”
― G.K. Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw

“Lots of my dying patients say they grow in bounds and leaps, and finish all the unfinished business. But assisting a suicide is cheating them of these lessons, like taking a student out of school before final exams. That's not love, it's projecting your own unfinished business”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“We must be willing to accept the bitter truth that, in the end, we may have to become a burden to those who love us. But it is necessary that we face this also. The full acceptance of our abjection and uselessness is the virtue that can make us and others rich in the grace of God. It takes heroic charity and humility to let others sustain us when we are absolutely incapable of sustaining ourselves. We cannot suffer well unless we see Christ everywhere, both in suffering and in the charity of those who come to the aid of our affliction.”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

“A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it should be endured.”
― Andrew Coyne

“I lived my whole life following others’ wishes. Let me follow my own wish in my death.”
― Shon Mehta, The Timingila

“The experience of death is going to get more and more painful, contrary to what many people believe. The forthcoming euthanasia will make it more rather than less painful because it will put the emphasis on personal decision in a way which was blissfully alien to the whole problem of dying in former times. It will make death even more subjectively intolerable, for people will feel responsible for their own deaths and morally obligated to rid their relatives of their unwanted presence. Euthanasia will further intensify all the problems its advocates think it will solve.”
― René Girard

“For us, it was never about death. It was about life. Knowing that there was a way out, and that his suffering was not going to become unendurable, was the one thing that allowed Mr. Peterson to go on living, much longer than he would have otherwise wanted. It was the weeks leading up to our pact that were shrouded in darkness and despair; after its inception, life became a meaningful prospect once more.”
― Gavin Extence, The Universe Versus Alex Woods

“Yolandi, the central character in the book "All My Puny Sorrows" says that “the core of the argument for it [assisted suicide] is maximizing individual autonomy and minimizing human suffering” (p. 222).”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“I don't mind a bit being labelled a suicide.”
― Al Purdy

“The deaths of writers aren’t special deaths; they just happen to be described deaths. I think of Flaubert lying on his sofa, struck down – who can tell at this distance? – by epilepsy, apoplexy or syphilis, or perhaps some malign axis of the three. Yet Zola called it une belle mort – to be crushed like an insect beneath a giant finger. I think of Bouilhet in his final delirium, feverishly composing a new play in his head and declaring that it must be read to Gustave. I think of the slow decline of Jules de Goncourt: first stumbling over his consonants, the c’s turning to t’s in his mouth; then being unable to remember the titles of his own books; then the haggard mask of imbecility (his brother’s phrase) slipping over his face; then the deathbed visions and panics, and all night long the rasping breaths that sounded (his brother’s words again) like a saw cutting through wet wood. I think of Maupassant slowly disintegrating from the same disease, transported in a strait-jacket to the Passy sanatorium of Dr Blanche, who kept the Paris salons entertained with news of his celebrated client; Baudelaire dying just as inexorably, deprived of speech, arguing with Nadar about the existence of God by pointing mutely at the sunset; Rimbaud, his right leg amputated, slowly losing all feeling in the limbs that remained, and repudiating, amputating his own genius –‘Merde pour la poésie’; Daudet ‘vaulting from forty-five to sixty-five’, his joints collapsing, able to become bright and witty for an evening by giving himself five morphine injections in a row, tempted by suicide –But one doesn’t have the right.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels wearied of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life. Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim is: From self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten my life when its longer duration is likely to bring more evil than satisfaction. It is asked then simply whether this principle founded on self-love can become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a system of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life would contradict itself, and therefore could not exist as a system of nature; hence that maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature, and consequently would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty.”
― Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals

“That fall it was the most talked about book in America, because the pundits could not fathom why a book giving guidance on suicide could be in such huge demand. What, they asked, had happened to America?
 
The simple answer was perhaps contained in my response on ABC-TV’s Nightline program when Barbara Walters asked me: 'Why is it a best-seller, Mr. Humphry?' My reply was: 'Because everybody dies, and nearly every person wonders, however privately, what form that death will take. They’re looking to Final Exit for options.”
― Derek Humphry, Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying

“The helium drives oxygen from the brain, causing rapid brain death and leaves no traces.”
― Derek Humphry, Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying

“However much the drink is loaded with sweeteners, patients say it still tastes awful. Usually observers have noticed that the patients are so desperate to die that they ignore the nasty tasting drink. The Oregon dosage is:
 
Seconal capsules reduced to powder - 9 grams
& Pure water - 4 ounces

– OR –
 
Liquid Nembutal - 9 grams
& Add water to suit”
― Derek Humphry, Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying

“If you have not already done so, sign a Living Will and have it witnessed, but not by anybody who is going to gain from the Last Will and Testament dealing with your estate. A Living Will, which has nothing to do with property or money, is an advance declaration of your wish not to be connected to life-support equipment if it is judged that you are hopelessly and terminally ill.”
― Derek Humphry, Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying

“First, it is not a crime in America to watch somebody kill themselves and do nothing to stop it. (It may be in some other countries, but this is untested and thus unclear.) Therefore, a person can give the dying patient the absolutely essential gift of being present at the deathbed because (a) nobody should have to die alone; and (b) the presence of a caring friend reduces the chance of the self-deliverance being botched. In nearly every case in which I hear of a failed self-deliverance, the dying person has acted alone.”
― Derek Humphry, Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying

“There is a growing moral view that patients should take charge of their own ends now that more sophisticated means of suicide – as described in this book – are available.”
― Derek Humphry, Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying

“EXIT’s justification was that until a law permitting voluntary euthanasia was passed (which would place responsibility to help primarily on physi­cians), people had no alternative but to take their dying into their own hands.”
― Derek Humphry, Let Me Die Before I Wake: Hemlock's Book of Self-Deliverance for the Dying

“There must be a way that African governments can consider legalising Assisted Suicide. A Right to Die should be as acceptable as the Right to Live. People shouldn't be held hostages in their own bodies.”
― Mitta Xinindlu

“A Right to Die should be as acceptable as the Right to Live. People shouldn't be held hostages in their own bodies.”
― Mitta Xinindlu

“African Governments should legalise Assisted Suicide. A Right to Die should be as acceptable as the Right to Live. People shouldn't be held hostages in their own bodies.”
― Mitta Xinindlu