[moistly]

> I've spent a lot of hours of my daughter explaining very calmly why we should stop caring about her so she can die in peace.

Surely this is worded very poorly, and is not intended to say that you have been telling your daughter that you don’t care if she suicides. Because that would be monstrously cruel and quite possibly warrants prosecution per the Michelle Carter/Conrad Roy III case.

[btilly]

It is indeed worded poorly.

She was the one explaining to me why she wished that the people she loved could let go of their desire to hold on her. That way she could die as she wished, guilt-free. But instead she was stuck with a life of misery which she had a variety of reasons to believe would never improve.

It would be easy to dismiss were it but a childish tantrum. But it was not. She was very intelligent, mature and persuasive. And spent months improving her talking points into the best arguments that she could manage.

You find it easy to condemn someone who was in this position and was persuaded by despair. I can no more condemn them than I would a torture victim who broke. But I hope that you never are unfortunate enough to have an experience that shakes the arrogant naiveté that maintains your ignorance.

[moistly]

> You find it easy to condemn someone who was in this position and was persuaded by despair

I do? That’s news to me. Pray tell, where did I state this condemnation?

[btilly]

Look above to where you say, "Because that would be monstrously cruel..." If that is not condemnation, then what is it?

It sure doesn't sound like any kind of empathy.

[moistly]

I apologize for triggering you. I should have assumed your OP was just poorly worded, not an admission of terrible behaviour.

[btilly]

There is an art to apologizing.

You just failed. Badly.

To start with, you made it about my reaction, and not what you did. Second, you have repeated your condemnation without acknowledging that you are doing so.

In polls, a significant majority of Americans support someone's right to choose suicide in the case of someone with an untreatable illness causing significant suffering for as long as they remain alive. A significant majority also support that allowing assistance in said suicide, particularly if there are sufficient protections. (Our actual laws are generally not in line with what people think, but that is what polls say people think. And it is what I think.) If your ethical judgments come from any other position, you are the one whose moral opinions are out of line.

The ethical question is whether a person with a permanent and untreatable major psychiatric disorder qualifies as an untreatable illness causing significant suffering for as long as they remain alive. If they can make that case convincingly enough, most Americans support their right to suicide. And even to receive assistance.

You've never had someone you love spend months attempting to convince you of this, that their pain is real, and the fact that you can't see from the outside what they go through on the inside doesn't make the pain any less.

Out of hand you condemn anyone who got convinced by this. Call them terrible. But you've never had to deal with this situation. This is the arrogant naïveté that I refer to.

[moistly]

> [Surely your post] is not intended to say that you have been telling your daughter that you don’t care if she suicides. Because that would be monstrously cruel…

I think you have misread the context. There is no condemnation of your daughter or yourself.

I am sorry to have upset you.