Is it suicide if a person refuses all available medical treatment for a debilitating, life threatening disease, and simply "does nothing" (as opposed to the more typical response of researching every cure, treatment, therapy, drug, specialist, 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinions, jumping through health insurance hoops, figuring out which hospital takes his insurance, how much out of network costs will be dumped on him, figuring out who will get him to treatment or surgery, help him recover, watch his treatments and meds to make sure none of the medical providers fuck up, review his medical bills to make sure his isn't being billed for tests and treatments he never got, figure out how long he'll be disabled and what kind of disability or LTC help he'll need, what is the long term prognosis, will he survive but at a diminished capacity, will he return to work, etc) ?
If he decides he does not want to drag his family and friends down with him as he faces ongoing, non-fixable disabilities, doesn't want to end up completely dependent or even partly dependent on others, doesn't want to go into debt (or deeper into debt) just to stay alive, or watch his hard earned wealth be eaten up by treatments and in home nurses. Worst of all, knowing that, treatment or no treatment, his livelihood, his passion, his career, one of the things that gives him great joy, satisfaction, purpose and pride, would come to a tremendous halt.
Is doing nothing about this, suicide? If not, what is it?
On a separate note, I completely sympathize with Robin Williams' decision to go now, and quickly. People close to him knew it was going to be long and downward existence.
What is bravery? What is courage? There are so many people living long, drawn out, painful, humiliating endings.... Because they (or their families) decided to try everything, every surgery, medicine, Doctor, to stay alive.
