@Hitting40 Said
I don't class euthanasia as suicide. Although technically it could well be. I see both as completely different.
Euthanasia is relieving someone of the emotional and physical pain of a often long drawn out inevitable death. The family are involved and most cases in support of the persons decision. There is no other option other than death as the outcome. Whether or not the person is assisted in their passing or not. Conditions are terminal there is no cure.
Suicide is relieving yourself of the emotional and sometimes physical pain of a short term, curable situation or condition. If in the right mind the problem or illness can be rectified. As with most cases which are mental trauma or illness a person can gain treatment or help and live a long often normal happy life. They simply can't live in that moment but if the moment is allowed to pass, things can change and improvement can be found.
I have had involvement with both situations. I have seen families and patients gain relief from euthanasia. Comfort knowing the person is out of pain, inevitable pain which would of consumed them anyway.Euthanasia is more often than not a very selfless act. Families put their own pain of losing someone aside to help that person and the person themselves wants to save their families the heartache of seeing them wither away suffering.
Suicide is very selfish the person has no concern for what the act will do to there families. They see themselves and that moment. The families are angry and hurt at themselves and the person who committed the act. The right of grieving is often overshadowed by the situation itself and guilt heartache a feeling of failure.
I have seen first hand a family crumble and lose everything from the effects of a suicide.
This family went from a happy loving home to nothing in a year.
Mum was a stay at home mum, dad had a good well paid job, they lived in a nice house in a nice area. Went on days out every weekend. The kids had good grades at school. One child was 17 and sitting A-levels, a typical A* student the other was eleven and just moving up to senior school, with great grades.
On moving up to the senior school the eleven year started to get bullied. He told his parents they did all the right things contacted the school etc. The school spoke to the other children involved. Unbeknow to the parents and the school this just made the situation worse and he was bullied more and threatened not to tell tales again, so he kept it quiet. The parents had been contemplating moving schools but thought as the situation was sorted out they would leave him in this school, so as not to teach him to run from his problems, to face them and deal with them as a family, as they thought they had.
He was only there three months and one day his mum went to his room to tell him dinner was ready after he'd returned from school. He was hanging from the back of his bedroom door by his bed sheets.
Within a year that family went from the ideal life to losing a child, their other child was on drugs and had dropped out of school. The father lost his job because of drinking and not turning in and the mother was in and out of mental health hospitals. They lost there home, their life and both children, as the daughter was nothing of her former self.
They all blamed themselves for the sons death, the guilt overshadowed everything. As they believed it was their fault. Their fault they hadn't changed schools, their fault they hadn't known it continued etc...
That eleven year old couldn't live in that moment so he killed himself, not only taking his own life but the life of his whole family. If he'd had the chance to see past that moment he would of been able to see he had the power to change that moment and live on having a happy and long life. He had a temporary problem that could be solved but couldn't see that and took the permanent solution.
Now i know this is a bad example because he was only a child but this is how suicide affects people/families.
Suicide is a selfish permanent solution to a temporary problem.
whereas euthanasia is a unselfish permanent solution to a permanent problem.
They are miles apart, in my opinion.
For the most part- but is it possible that certain suicides can be an act of self euthanasia?