To Die, To Sleep... to jail for anyone that helps - by Queue
Queue on 15/8/2009 at 02:52
This is somewhat old news, but I'm just now catching up on things: (
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09081112.html) Terry Pratchett on Assisted Suicide.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm all for making one's own exit on one's own terms if one is terminally ill--and how dare any lawmaker believe they have the right to deny such an individual the choice over one's life and eventual death.
SubJeff on 15/8/2009 at 06:17
There is only one issue here, and one issue only.
Don't forget this issue.
Do NOT try to divert.
It is the ONLY thing that the lawmakers really care about.
What is it?
It is the possibility that allowing euthanasia might allow people to be coerced or otherwise killed without it being their express wish and their express wish alone.
There is no other issue. It is not about other people making a choice for you, its about no one else being able to make that choice for you. Unless there is a method that is 100% watertight you can forget it in the UK. And I mean 100%.
Any trying to dilly dally around this point in an effort to justify euthanasia will be met with the most (deservedly) snarky replies.
That is all.
nicked on 15/8/2009 at 08:17
Quote:
In my case, in the fullness of time, I hope it will be in the garden under an English sky. Or, if wet, the library."
He's still got it.
Vasquez on 15/8/2009 at 08:21
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
It is the possibility that allowing euthanasia might allow people to be coerced or otherwise killed without it being their express wish and their express wish alone.This could be easily avoided with a good set of rules - there are ways to make certain it's really the patient's own will. In Finland we have the "will of treatment" that you can make beforehand, like any other will, that states how you want to be treated in case you end up braindead or something. It can include the wish to stop life-sustaining treatments, so in a way it means passive euthanasia. If it's possible to have will of treatment, where you can't double-check what the patient thinks RIGHT NOW but still let him/her die of hunger, thirst or suffocation, I think we should trust and respect a person's will for euthanasia when s/he can state it with his/her own words.
Hospitals have lots of bureaucracy already, so including practices of euthanasia shouldn't be terribly difficult. I think it goes without saying that euthanasia isn't something anyone could do, it should be up on the medical authorities (and decision of it on the person, of course).
I find it hard to believe that a person could be
coerced to euthanasia.
Scots Taffer on 15/8/2009 at 11:28
raph is on fire
van HellSing on 15/8/2009 at 11:46
Popular, Anti-Christian Author
Sulphur on 15/8/2009 at 11:55
raph bringing out the dead ITT
Muzman on 15/8/2009 at 12:30
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
There is only one issue here, and one issue only.
It is the possibility that allowing euthanasia might allow people to be coerced or otherwise killed without it being their express wish and their express wish alone.Rampant second guessing of others' thoughts perhaps, but I don't reckon that's all there is to it. That's the issue, sure, but there's plenty of "Do not travail in god's business, mortal. Your soul is at stake" at work. Which is why the opponents make no effort whatsoever to talk beyond that point about legal risk and help draft decent legislation. They only want it plainly forbidden.
Quote Posted by Vasquez
I find it hard to believe that a person could be
coerced to euthanasia.
We've had a few cases on that very point here. The opponents of euthanasia contest every case to the letter of the law (to try and combat what they see as watering down of current laws) and cases have been made against confidants of terminally ill people who have killed themselves. The suggestion being that they put the idea in the deceased's head, they weren't mentally competent etc. The only person who can really defend them is dead. You can always find some family member who is against the whole thing (and after such a suicide a lot of supporters in the family seem to change their minds on the whole thing as well).
SubJeff on 15/8/2009 at 13:14
Vas we have living wills or advanced directives here too. Its a competely different issue.
You can refuse treatment that would prolong your life, but requesting treatment that will end it is a no no. Its an interesting moral and ethical quandry; action that causes something vs action that permits something. Have you heard of the thought experiment about people on a train track? Look it up.
The issue of assisted suicide in the UK is all about coercion atm.
