Despite being from the neocon journal, The Daily Standard, and not being in favor of it, this article presents a fairly complete assessment of where the country (and the world) seems headed on this subject. Personally, I think as long as the person isn’t coerced and all treatments have been tried (not the case with some of Kervorkian’s patients and in other instances), it is none of the government’s business how or when we choose to die.
Should laws against assisted suicide be rescinded as “paternalistic?” Should assisted suicide be transformed from what is now a crime (in most places) into a sacred “right to die”? Should assisted suicide be redefined from a form of homicide into a legitimate “medical treatment” readily available to all persistently suffering people, including to the mentally ill?
According to Brown University professor Jacob M. Appel, the answer to all three of these questions is an unequivocal yes. Writing in the May-June 2007 Hastings Center Report (“A Suicide Right for the Mentally Ill?”), Appel argues in that assisted suicide should not only be available to the terminally ill, but also to people with “purely psychological disease” such as victims “of repeated bouts of severe depression,” if the suicidal person “rationally might prefer dignified death over future suffering.”
[…]
As disturbing as Appel’s proposal is–it is essentially a call for death-on-demand–it is refreshing that Appel has written so candidly. After years of focus group-tested blather from the political wing of the euthanasia movement claiming that legalizing assisted suicide would be strictly limited to the terminally ill, we finally have a clearer picture of where the right-to-die crowd wishes to take America.
There are two weight-bearing intellectual pillars that support euthanasia and assisted suicide advocacy: (1) a commitment to a radical individualism that includes the right to choose “the time, manner, and method of death” (often called “the ultimate civil right” by assisted suicide aficionados); and (2) the fundamental assumption that killing is an acceptable answer to the problems of human suffering. Appel describes these conjoined beliefs succinctly as the “twin goals of maximizing individual autonomy and minimizing human suffering” by avoiding “unwanted distress, both physical and psychological” through creation of a legal right “to control . . . when to end their own lives.”
Bobbo, #31 last paragraph, that’s about right except it’s the power of religion forced upon the power of the state forced upon individual rights.
Jesus doles out, painful, debilitating and terminal horrors, with the stipulation that you have to go through the complete torture program until you’re dead. Now, that’s an imaginary friend I can do without.
33—What do you mean “until you’re dead?” That would be merciful.
#34, he has to kill you before he brings you to paradise. After all, what good is paradise if you’re alive?
35—Oh, you think sitting on clouds with a bunch of christians admiring the presence of God is not a continuing torture? OK. I do get your meaning, the torture is supposed to stop when you die–if you get to heaven.
Only a loving god full of mercy who recognized his design in my actions would allow me into heaven. Course, if he were that kind of god, maybe paradise would be a good thing?
#31
> The majority thinks a patient is best protected by life no
> matter what the consequences.
That’s the crux of the discussion. Most believe that’s a false presumption. You are assuming that the bills passed truly reflected the constituents and not the old, predominantly religious men that signed the bill. The issue is not nearly as black or white as you make it out to be. From what I can understand, your premise is that because of government incompetence they should only protect life. Frankly, I would prefer they protect *rights* rather than *life* per se. Let the individuals choose whether they want to use those rights for life or not.
No, no, bobbo, you can’t sit on a cloud if you don’t have a bum. paradise has to be somewhere where you don’t need a body… basically it would be pitch black, soundless (no ears) and without any kind of other sensual interaction… wait a minute… paradise sounds like death.
37—None of us know what most people think. Even most voters are not most people. So who knows? Some will say there are no rights without life to exercise them. Pretty basic argument trumping most. I don’t think “life” is the highest good. Follow that to the end and you go past autonomy to the “Duty to die.” There is no level land, just a slippery slope to where few want to go.
> Some will say there are no rights without life to
> exercise them. Pretty basic argument trumping most
The right to end your life is *also* a fundamental right. So, your argument trumps nothing. It is the living that want the choice to die.
40–I agree with you. Just pointing out the majority view as expressed in law and theology that disagrees with us.
Other countries have already done this. There, the experience tends to go from ‘right to die’ to ‘duty to die’. We already have here, college professors of bioethics saying that parents should be able to kill their children in the first thirty days under certain conditions. The British are restricting access to government health care for some patients based on value. As health care costs keep rising, we’ll see more and more people forced to pull the plug to keep costs down.
#22 Umm, now about by requiring the individual who wanted to die (or his or her appointed designee) to attest to the fact?
Three problems:
1. My statement in #19 was in reply to a statement by tkane in #10 – to the effect that: the state should outlaw assisted suicide, but “stay out of the matter” when it happens.
2. If I want to dispose of a relative who doesn’t want to die, I just need to get them to sign a power of attorney – before I put them out of my misery.
3. Forgery of documents. Would Terry Schiavo’s parents have believed any “living will” documents, even if her husband had been able to produce any?
#17 – {back from a quick google search}
Wikipedia uses the two terms interchangablly. A lot of the other links I found did too.
So you admit you add nothing at all ot the conversation – only derision, name calling, and ad hominem attacks.
I would tell you why you suck, but you should just go google it instead.
Socialized Medicine would indicate the the government owns and controls the health care system. That is, owns the hospitals, trains and pays the staff, manages everything from top to bottom. A system of nationalized health coverage, like Medicare, is a state managed insurance system, but it leaves everything else private.
Now who the hell doesn’t know that?
I’m not your Learning Annex professor. I don’t care if you know why I’m right.
Good post, OFTLO. I have no idea why these fools continue to interchange socialized VA medicine and Medicare/national health insurance.
I am not sure what these guys are smoking. If you have an insurer that requires approval for a procedure (as most do), that is socialized medicine. You are being given care based on a need and not because of a desire. Even the famed HSAs, that Republicans so love, have to be pared with a socialized private insurer.
“Something tells me, if medically assisted suicide were allowed, we’d find out the vast majority of those being “assisted” in the U.S. would be the poor. ”
You may not be surprised that black Americans are the poorest race in the U.S., but you obviously do not know that as a race, they are the LEAST likely to sign DNR, do not resuscitate, paper work. Hence, it is likely that blacks would be the least likely to go along with assisted suicide.
Your use of the word “assisted” in quotations is downright creepy. Are you saying that doctors and nurses would engage in bumping off poor people?
Health care professionals don’t get paid caring for dead people. Terminating a patient therefore is against their financial interests, so I have no idea why you would make such a paranoid and offensive statement. Let me guess: you are a liberal Democrat.
Christ, I am so sick of this. The conservatives with their socialized medicine bullshit and the liberals with their class based fear mongering. You people are more interested in blaming the other guy than working to fix this mess. Just on this issue alone, if the two political parties were wiped off the face of the earth, I swear most Americans would cheer. A pox on both your houses.
Im waiting for the Corner DESINTIGRATORS, as in Futurama..
I’ve worked as a hospice nurse (RN) for six years. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t have the option, but I think that for most people, euthanasia should be unnecessary. The problem is that people have a great deal of fear about dying, and there are also some people whose symptoms are not addressed. Palliative and hospice care is designed to help a great deal with those things. I find that most people just want the chance to die comfortably at home, on their own terms, and that is not only possible, but very likely, in the vast majority of cases. Let’s not forget: Dying is also often about those who are left behind, and I don’t think most people know how to get their heads around suicide, for lots of reasons, and it can leave a lasting legacy that can be difficult to reconcile. BTW, I’m an agnostic, and I still have serious reservations about routine euthanasia or suicide.
Unrestricted??? NO!!!!!
47–What is the value in a long lingering death? Maybe what you have identified is a lack of patient education?
48,
Good point…
Try this one…
IF’ someone WANTS to kill themselves, are you going to PAY for them to be put in a cell, and held for the rest of their lives…
WOW, what a way to get FREE TV, FOOD, RENT, Clean clothes, free house cleaning and MAYBE internet. I just wont be able to use a razer, have a tie, or long socks, and probably need to sit in my underwear all day…
WHICH would cost YOU, $40-60K per year…
#50….ECA….I’m not saying that assisted suicide should be banned. All I’m saying is that **unrestricted** assisted suicide is wrong. We always talk about the infamous **slippery slope** for all kinds of things(drug use, guns, etc), but do you honestly trust the system to fully protect the maybe not so willing, from assisted suicide, once it becomes fully unrestricted?? Thats like the goverment telling you the Iraq war was because of WMD’s. I’m not THAT gullible.
There needs to be some very enforcable, stringent safeguards to prevent the poor and uninsured, the elderly, the handicapped and the mentally challenged from being basically eliminated from life.
51,
and you think,
for 1 second,
That the Insurance and GOV wont get involved?
Life insurance policies are worth Billions…And if some could find a non-traceable Suicide/killing…
Insurance DONT pay on Suicide most times.. If you had a family member that WISHEd to die, and you could collect insurance ALSO.. What a bonus.