Million Dollar Baby

[greyhound]

Million Dollar Baby was on TV last night, hadn't actually ever seen it. Spoiler Alert...

In the end she CTB (assisted) due to being completely paralyzed and also leg having been amputated.

It got me thinking about how bad does your situation have to be before justifying CTB? Clearly her situation at the end of the movie was very bad. However there are many similarly disabled who don't CTB. Does anyone else feel guilty for wanting to CTB for seemingly less challenging life circumstances?

 

[Frew]

I think a mental prison can be as difficult as a physical prison.

 

[Lupgevif]

Feeling guilty for wanting to kill myself over less challenging circumstances mean weighing other people's suffering. How much movement someone should lose before being able to CTB; how conscious or lucid should they before being able to CTB; how much pain do they need to be in before being able to CTB? If there's a fixed point someone needs to reach to receive the right, someone immediately below it would still be suffering, but then fated to stand it forever. Doesn't seem fair to me, suffering is not about the intensity off it, but how much someone can take it, and I believe everyone can choose their treshold for themselves.

 

[262653]

We have different personalities, different circumstances. We are differently capable. We have different pain tolerance threshold. Why wouldn't we have different bullshit tolerance threshold?

Also, why would I try to justify my decisions based on decisions of other people? Why not the other way around, for example? Say, I off myself, and there would be another person who has it "worse" but still lives. Does it mean that that person's decision to stay alive is not justified because there was a person with "better" life who yet still offed himself?

 

[StringPuppet]

No one should feel guilty for taking control of their own fate

 

[flower]

suffering is relative. the only reason I would feel guilty is if I were taking the opportunity away from someone sicker than me, e.g. going via something like dignitas which isn't available to me anyway.

 

[greyhound]

I don't really know anything about bankruptcy law, but someone once told me that banks apparently look more favorably on people who declare bankruptcy for large amounts rather than relatively little amounts. Like if you owe 20k and declare bankruptcy for that it looks worse than for 200k.

I mean if there is an afterlife, and I end up there after CTB for some trivial thing like losing my beauty as I get older or something, maybe the other more legit CTBers will laugh at me.

 

[Lupgevif]

I mean if there is an afterlife, and I end up there after CTB for some trivial thing like losing my beauty as I get older or something, maybe the other more legit CTBers will laugh at me.

They may. Or they feel jealous and hate you. But we have no control over other people's impressions of us, and nobody else has the right to dictate our own reasons to either live or die, not even people in worst situations; it's not like it's even your fault these people are in the place they are.

 

[Gnip]

Million Dollar Baby was on TV last night, hadn't actually ever seen it. Spoiler Alert...

In the end she CTB (assisted) due to being completely paralyzed and also leg having been amputated.

It got me thinking about how bad does your situation have to be before justifying CTB? Clearly her situation at the end of the movie was very bad. However there are many similarly disabled who don't CTB. Does anyone else feel guilty for wanting to CTB for seemingly less challenging life circumstances?

Film critic Michael Medved was widely slammed for controversially appearing on The 700 Club to reveal this theme for Million Dollar Baby, which rival critic Roger Ebert lambasted Medved for as "unforgivable" spoiler breech for a member of their profession to commit.

In training for her role, Hilary Swank continued running despite a blister on her foot, ignoring it until red lines started creeping up her leg, the signs of a spreading infection which would have killed her if it reached her torso untreated.

Swank, normally a vegetarian, also loaded up on the flesh of upper food chain fish species for her protein source to pack on over 25 pounds of muscle for her role, but the mercury content of all that fish she consumed has resulted in her developing neurological issues which she's said will effect her for the rest of her life.


When is it proper to CTB? Tolerances vary. Pain tolerances, life circumstance tolerances. Swank's character was an athlete. In Stephen Hawking's case, his ALS was actually liberating, freeing his mind for conceptualizing. Wrecking Crew bassist Carol Kaye was forced into semiretirement at age 41 after a 1976 car accident, but was able to resume after corrective surgery in 1994, but the intervening 18 years had to be hell on her.

Not judging people until you've been a mile in their shoes is highly applicable. Many pro lifers can be slammed as hypocrites for disregarding Matthew 7:1 KJV: "Judge not lest ye be judged" if they claim to follow the Bible when in fact they do not in interjecting their personal values on others.