Faye Girsh is the Founder and the Past President of the Hemlock Society of San Diego. She was the President of the National Hemlock Society (Defunct) and the World Federation of RTD Societies (Extant). Currently, she is on the Advisory Board of the Final Exit Network and the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization. Here we talk about suffering and death.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Future generations, if they exist at all in a viable manner and with enough oxygen to think, may reflect with modest pity over the chief characteristic of the newest incarnation of the Technocratic Golden Age. To echo the remarks of late Glenn Gould, the Canadian pianist, about golden ages, there’s been quite a lot of them. We left off on the note of irrational reasons for suicide, in which Rational Suicide becomes interpreted, more properly, as Irrational Suicide or (Ir)Rational Suicide. When does suicide not make much sense to most people, most of the time?
Faye Girsh: When there is hope. For a cure, for better living conditions, for better relationships, for greater enjoyment of life. But it’s impossible to put ourselves into the minds of people who seem to feel their suffering is unbearable, permanent, and getting worse. We hate to see it in healthy people without visible or treatable causes of suffering.
Jacobsen: What mental health problems can feed into suicide as a public health issue rather than an end-of-life planned ceremony with proper ratiocination about it?
Girsh: Loneliness, the expense of being old and sick, expansion of mobility and communication aids, easier access to good long–term care. Mental illness and concussion-related brain injury. Continuous, irrational wars.
Jacobsen: Some fear mass suicides or increases in suicides if euthanasia, dying with dignity, rational suicide, physician-assisted suicide, and so on, become legal and accepted throughout cultures. Does this hold empirical weight? What does science tell us – the statistics?
Girsh: Certainly, the rate of assisted dying in those countries that make it legal shows an annual increase. But that is not mass suicide, merely a choice between methods of dying. In the U.S. it is really hard to get help to die for most people and our suicide rate is soaring. If those people had more peaceful ways to end their lives — and some oversight and help — it would lower the high suicide rate of people using violent and uncertain means. I don’t think there is good scientific data on this issue.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Faye.
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing. He authored/co-authored some e-books, free or low-cost. If you want to contact Scott: Scott.D.Jacobsen@Gmail.com.
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Canadian Atheist Associates: Godless Mom, Nice Mangoes, Sandwalk, Brainstorm Podcast, Left at the Valley, Life, the Universe & Everything Else, The Reality Check, Bad Science Watch, British Columbia Humanist Association, Dying With Dignity Canada, Canadian Secular Alliance, Centre for Inquiry Canada, Kelowna Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists Association.
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Other National/Local Resources: Association humaniste du Québec, Atheist Freethinkers, Central Ontario Humanist Association, Comox Valley Humanists, Grey Bruce Humanists, Halton-Peel Humanist Community, Hamilton Humanists, Humanist Association of London, Humanist Association of Ottawa, Humanist Association of Toronto, Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics of Manitoba, Ontario Humanist Society, Secular Connextions Seculaire, Secular Humanists in Calgary, Society of Free Thinkers (Kitchener-Waterloo/Cambridge/Guelph), Thunder Bay Humanists, Toronto Oasis, Victoria Secular Humanist Association.
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Other International/Outside Canada Resources: Allianz vun Humanisten, Atheisten an Agnostiker, American Atheists, American Humanist Association, Associação Brasileira de Ateus e AgnósticoséééBrazilian Association of Atheists and Agnostics, Atheist Alliance International, Atheist Alliance of America, Atheist Centre, Atheist Foundation of Australia, The Brights Movement, Center for Inquiry (including Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science), Atheist Ireland, Camp Quest, Inc., Council for Secular Humanism, De Vrije Gedachte, European Humanist Federation, Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, Foundation Beyond Belief, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Humanist Association of Ireland, Humanist International, Humanist Association of Germany, Humanist Association of Ireland, Humanist Society of Scotland, Humanists UK, Humanisterna/Humanists Sweden, Internet Infidels, International League of Non-Religious and Atheists, James Randi Educational Foundation, League of Militant Atheists, Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, National Secular Society, Rationalist International, Recovering From Religion, Religion News Service, Secular Coalition for America, Secular Student Alliance, The Clergy Project, The Rational Response Squad, The Satanic Temple, The Sunday Assembly, United Coalition of Reason, Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics.
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