[quote=@SleepingSilence]

[@Penny] Respectfully disagree. :P

[/quote]

Disagree about what? That assisted suicide should be legal?


[quote=@SleepingSilence]
While true, some survive even bullets to the head...it's low, but that chance makes the idea of trying so, especially when you're younger. It's an incredibly selfish decision.

(Self inflicted gun head wounds.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5175460/

For patients who survive SIGSWs to the head, the injuries sustained are often devastating and require multiple complex procedures performed by a diverse team of specialists.

Data measuring the average costs and reimbursements of these cases suggest that UIHC approximately “breaks even” or makes a small profit in the treatment of these patients. This implies that while these cases place a large burden on society—one source estimates an annual cost of $11 billion in lost productivity alone in the United States.


[/quote]

Lost productivity! The horror. If attempted suicide is unprofitable people should definitely rethink it.


[quote=@SleepingSilence]
https://communications.yale.edu/sites/default/files/10.27.2016_survival_rate_of_head_gunshot_wound_victims_higher_than_expected_wtnh_connecticut_news.pdf

A new study, a first of its kind, shows that civilians who
are shot in the head or have other penetrating brain injuries, have a 42 percent chance
of surviving. The senior author of the study, Kevin Sheth, is an Associate Professor of Neurology and
Neurosurgery at Yale. The study, published in Journal Neurology, includes 400 patients
at two major trauma centers.


[/quote]

I think I found the study this is referencing and the methodology is measuring people that are admitted to trauma centers. I think it excludes people who are pronounced dead at the scene. So if you are alive when you get there, you have a 42 percent chance.

A study on suicide lethality from the American Journal of Public Health [i](RS Spicer, TR Miller - Suicide acts in 8 states: incidence and case fatality rates by demographics and method. - American Journal of Public Health, 2000)[/i] rates lethality as follows:

Drug/poison ingestion  1.5
Poison by gas 41.5
Suffocation/hanging  61.4
Drowning/submersion 65.9
Firearm 82.5
Cut/pierce  1.2
Jump 34.5
Other  8.0

Making firearms the clear winner. Im actually a little surprised at just how few death are accounted for by OD and Cutting although its possible that suicide by OD is poorly captured in their data.


I'm not arguing that we should be offering assisted suicide in outpatient clinics for anyone who wanders by, but I do think that is is a sensible option to have on the table. Terminal patients often choose to die simply by stopping treatment even though we could keep them alive for months or years longer. Some simply opt to kill themselves and make an end to it one way or another. Id just as soon have it happen in a humane dignified way, rather than buying a shotgun and eating a shell.