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Philosophy 101
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The Right to Die
| Philosophy 101 |
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The Right to Die |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan 
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. “On Monday, a court in the city of Dijon rejected Sebire's request to be allowed to receive a lethal dose of barbiturates under a doctor's supervision. It refused the request for doctor-assisted suicide because of French law and out of concern for medical ethics. Sebire's case revived a debate in France about the right to die. She received national attention after the media published heartbreaking before-and-after pictures that made her suffering instantly apparent.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339709,00.html If someone in such a situation requests it, should they without adverse legal consequence be allowed the assistance to die? I have a best friend . . . John . |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
When you see the extremes, as in this case, it’s easy to jump in with an unequivocal YES but I’m going to say no for the simple reason that all situations and all cases aren’t as clear-cut. Allowing assisted suicide opens the door to abuse and misuse, it’s a slippery slope that I believe played a substantial part to in the courts decision. Good question though, it made me wonder whether there’ll ever be a “right” answer, and glad that I'm not in a position where I'm faced with the question for real. I also realized that at that point my answer could just as easily be YES. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Yes. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
quote: The whole point is that situation will soon become superfluous to the question, if doctors are given this albatross. The right to die is one question. But this question also has to do with the right to kill. It is not a physicians place to cause or accelerate human death ... though a patient certainly has a right to refuse the good doctor's offered help to sustain life. If a physician is given such a responsibility or power to euthanize, then the patient's consent can easily become non-essential in situations where the patient is not considered competent to give consent ... Thus the doc would simply have the power to write an order to kill. And who is to say what is and is not grounds for such an act ... mere suicidal ideations? clinical depression? a lingering chronic illness that makes life very difficult? The passive allowance of natural death is still very different than actively causing it. I myself am an RN, and I can promise you that I'll never give a lethal dose of medication with the intent of ending a human life. Lingering wasting illness involves pains and trials that I cannot pretend to be able to relate to, much less trivialize. I still think that death with dignity excludes the temptation of suicide, MD assisted or otherwise. Stephen |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
How come a dog with an incurable extreme of disease and suffering can be put to death peacefully, but a human is expected to live and be tortured by it as long as he possibly may? |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Ess, This goes back to our thread about a fundamental difference between humans and animals. Why do we eat animals with no or little qualms, and not humans? While it might seem merciful to "kill" a person in the throes of illness (or to help them kill themselves), there is something about our nature that makes it wrong. We have the moral struggle with it for a reason. I'll just say that I am Dostoevskian enough to think that there is a redemptive quality in suffering for higher beings such as ourselves. "Thou shalt not kill". That's my moral / philosophical view. But I think there are good reasons otherwise (legally, professionally, sociologically etc ...) that doctors should recoil from that kind of power. And believe me, I'm aware of the many angles of it. I work on an ICU where people die, and are in these situations almost daily. I personally think people should be admired for (and encouraged in) their courageous facing of illness, not given an option of a euphemized and "clinically efficient" suicidal escape. Stephen |
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Alison
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! |
Yes, I believe that we have the right to die when faced with an illness or injury that gives us no hope of recovery. In my opinion, it is the right of the individual to make that decision. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Does one have the right to die? Yes. Unfortunately, it all goes back to painting with a wide brush and the dark side of human nature. Our courts are geared to follow laws to the letter, whether or not justice is served. Violations of the Miranda act come immediately to mind, along with other things. If one person is granted the right to die, the robotic law claims to have no choice but to allow it for all. That is a sad part of our legal system. The dark side of human nature will have others using such a decision to have others put away for their own reasons and, for the right payment, would be able to get doctors or even judges to be accomplices,,,sad but true. If we were able to judge each case on it's own merits fairly, there would be no problem. Our system, and our species, does not possess that ability, sadly. |
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Marchmadness Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 9271So. El Monte, California |
YES, Ida |
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Mysteria
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328British Columbia, Canada |
Yes |
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jwesley Member Rara Avis
since 2000-04-30
Posts 7563Spring, Texas |
Right to die? It seems to me if one dies of natural casuses like heart attack, stroke, motorvechile accidents, etc., there is no question of a "right to die". It's accepted that it happened. But let one want to die because of unacceptable physical or psycological problems - then it becomes a question of a "right to die". All I can say is if one of the "do-gooders" get between me and my death, or the death of my loved ones, when/if the time comes/happens - death will happen even If the do-gooder has to cross the river styx with me. Right to die...how dare you tell me that I don't have a choice in the matter of my own life. A soldier on a battle field makes that choice and he's called a hero, a patriot. Yet a person in immense, unbearable, unrelentless pain (physically or mentally)is strapped down "protected" from himself...prevented from dying because that's "corwardly" Again...all things being equal...get between me and my death if ever the occasion reaches that point...and you can paddle that boat with me because you have no damn right to tell me I can't die if I want too. Oh, I think all I had to say was YES in answer to HAUN YI'S question, huh? That's what I did...just in larger letters than most. Jimmy |
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wisdomofthesword Member
since 2007-12-17
Posts 224the last place on earth |
it's their life I don't care if you think I'm a fool but don't ever tell me so |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
George Orwell knew. The battle for the mind is invariably a semantic one. The words we use (or are cajoled to use) influence the way we think. When you are able to put your own words into someone's mouth, half the battle is already won. That's why the opposite of pro-Life isn't anti-Life or pro-Death but, rather, pro-Choice. The words matter, especially if we wish to persuade. Questioning the right to die is, please excuse me, somewhat silly. That right, if right it indeed be, would have to be one of the few absolute rights anyone has; after all, no one, in at least a few thousand years of recent history, has had it successfully taken away from them. If words matter, as writers shouldn't we perhaps try to use the right ones? What we're really talking about is the right to kill. |
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Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois |
hmm if they really thought that they needed to die and that they needed a drug that would help. Its not right to do, but they should be allowed to do. its their disicision right? XxZachXx |
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Juju Member Elite
since 2003-12-29
Posts 3429In your dreams |
No My grandfather had his life taken away by a nurse. He didn't "want" to go. He was a very staunch catholic who believed it was wrong no matter his suffering. My mom didn't want to sue, because my grandfather was against suing. She should of. Now that "nurse" is probably still killing. Putting my ethics aside, this would open the door to allot of abuse of interpretation. Suddenly suicide is something that is no longer crazy and a legally acceptable solution "under certain circumstances." -Juju |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Ron: quote: Yes, but that's also why the opposite of pro-choice is not anti-choice or pro-oppression, but rather pro-life.  BTW, I do agree with you that the particular question at hand has more accurately to do with the right to kill, than the right to die. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Tough question. More complex, though, than we're letting our discussion of it be. Do I believe people have a right to die? Dying isn't a right; it's a process we begin from the moment of our conception. It's a universal fate. It comes to everybody, wanted or not, and marks the end of that person's span. Ron's right about the semantics of the issue controlling so much of the discussion. When I worked on locked psychiatric units I would get regular requests from some patients for me to bring them razor blades or poison or a gun so they could kill themselves. After all, I seemed like a reasonable guy, and any reasonable guy would understand that people had a right to die, didn't they? I used to hate those people. Because, yes, I did believe that people had a right to die and their accusations, which generally came very quickly, that I was being a hypocrite didn't make things easier for me. I decided I would have to live with being a hypocrite for a while while I figured things out. The job was already getting me beaten up underpaid. Maybe hypocrisy was simply another job benefit. After a long time sitting with my moral discomfort, I realized that I believed in people having the right to make a personal decision to die, and to carry that out if they had to. I didn't and don't like that decision, by the way, from having had to clean up after what some of these folks have left behind them. I don't believe their decision means that everybody around them must snap to attention and carry out the will of that person who made this decision I'm not terribly fond of in the first place, I don't like you wanting to kill yourself, won't help you with your plans, and will do what I can to dissuade you. I have to live with myself, too, not simply with your demands that I help you do this thing I will acknowledge you have a right to do. If I were to love you enough to believe you, I would not be able to bear to pain of helping to create your loss. I simply not as noble and self sacrificing as so many others, who might be able to do it for you. If it were a matter of physical pain, I would work to get you the right drugs, many of which are illegal in this country. When I've started an abstract and hypothetical conversation and come to the point that I'm using the second person form of address, I know it's time to stop. BobK. |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
Hmmm... Everyone's so worried about this "slippery slope..." but I don't see it. Not sure how it is in other states, but here at least, there's a very strict procedure for getting a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order. The doctor and patient (or family, if the patient is unable to communicate) must agree, and a nurse (or other 3rd party) must witness. Kind of like surgical consent. I don't imagine that euthanasia would be any easier to come by... and, if you want my opinion, it's more dignified and less cruel than, say, letting the person who is a DNR with a massive stroke (unable to eat/drink) sit there and starve to death. This happens every day, it just doesn't always make the news like Terri Schiavo did. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Amy: quote: The 'Slippery Slope' is not about the ease of getting consent, but about which situations would perceivably warrant assisted suicide. As it stands, anyone can make themselves a DNR, including a 19 year old mountain climber with no history of health problems. The required doctor's order you mentioned only stands as an institutional policy, not law (if I understand it correctly), since a patient has the rights to refuse any medical treatment for any reason. If a doctor will allow assisted suicide for terminal cancer, why not for chronic debilitating diabetes, depression, or paraplegia? You will have those crack-pots like Kervorkian sure enough, but the others will still be legally challenged by patients who want the same 'treatment' for their own problems. The medical community should not become a springboard, where suicide finds a loophole for legal and social sanction, with the warranting medical condition eventually becoming irrelevant. That's the slippery slope I see. Stephen |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
Rights? Bah! No one has "rights", they're all just make believe stuff that we feel we should follow. Hell, I didn't vote on the rights which govern me, I didn't write a constitution or agree to what was written, so what gives people the right to tell me what my rights are, when their rights might be wrong for me? Bah, and double bah I say. If a person who's sick wants to die, and can say, "Please kill me", then let the poor fella die. And allowing doctors to help put someone out of their misery isn't empowering doctors, it's empowering the sick and dying with the control over their life (the control they've had to give up to others just to keep them "alive" and in pain for another day). I mean come'on, we're not talking about mentally ill people who are looking to jump off a bridge, we're talking about terminally ill people in a lot of pain and poor quality of life. Laters. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
bbp, First of all, if you ridicule the whole concept of 'rights', why should we listen to your ideas about assisted suicide? Are you suggesting that everyone should simply 'get what they want', when it comes to public policy? quote: Well, who says we're not talking about mentally ill people? And even if not, who says that the debate wouldn't soon extend into medical conditions which affect 'quality' of life rather than length? Stephen |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
The right of living, who can take it away, beside death? In reality, we fight with death with all kind of resources until everything gets exhausted to none... No matter how the concept of death has changed. We really don't see cancer patients jumping from cliffs, bridges and skyscrapers but we do see them go through all kind of suffering treatment. People want to live no matter what, in pain physically or mentally. This is human being's biological right, many things indeed tempt us to give up the right to premature death though. Many shall die naturally without modern medicine. But we have modern medicine now. Delaying treatment by doctors, insurance company, and loved ones ...kind of murder I have solid examples on all of these. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Yes there is an ethical dilemma involved in withholding medical treatment to make someone better. But that's a different subject altogether than the one we're discussing. There are patients (albeit few) who would choose an unnatural, pharmacologically induced, physician-mediated death, if it were available. Stephen |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
Stephen, do you personally know them? Many may complain but I have not heard anyone made a decisive decision that "let go". One of my friend had cancer and refused further treatment and died...it was a controllable cancer. ( i think that she was tired of living not because of sole reason of cancer) If you were given a choice, to die peacefully or struggle painfully...it would become a religion kind of matter. Patient can judge suffering but they have no judgment of prognosis of a treatment or certain disease, let along so many times doctors make wrong diagnosis and give wrong treatment. To live is also to give many other options time. I take it as humanity issue. legal or illegal. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
***First of all, if you ridicule the whole concept of 'rights', why should we listen to your ideas about assisted suicide? Are you suggesting that everyone should simply 'get what they want', when it comes to public policy?*** Noper, I'm sayin everyone does what they want despite public policy. Rights are an illusion, made up in order to control people. And I'm not saying that its a bad thing, just an imaginary thing. You can choose to believe them or not, or follow them or don't, at anytime. Which is why people do bad things despite public policy. Many people will find a way to end their painful life no matter what laws, all you want to do is punish them. ***Well, who says we're not talking about mentally ill people? And even if not, who says that the debate wouldn't soon extend into medical conditions which affect 'quality' of life rather than length?*** Dude, think treatable vs. untreatable. You can't compare some poor sap painfully wasting away in bed with no cure or better life to look forward to with some guy who's life could improve with treatment or medication. That's just silly. ***We really don't see cancer patients jumping from cliffs, bridges and skyscrapers*** Don't be naive, that stuff happens everyday. ***People want to live no matter what, in pain physically or mentally.*** Yeah, that's why people from all walks of life kill themselves everyday or do stupid things like go to war or take drugs. ***There are patients (albeit few) who would choose an unnatural, pharmacologically induced, physician-mediated death, if it were available.*** Yeah but don't worry, your "rights" are better than their rights so rest easy knowing you kept them in immense pain till they finally died, rather than allowing them a dignified peaceful death. BTW, don't know how to use the fancy quote thingy, if any could let me know I'd appreciate it. |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
quote: (terminally ill patient jumping) Do you has data on this? Most subside happens before 40 yrs. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
quote: Why is there such a compelling conviction among most people that others should be treated ethically, if there is no reality behind the idea of 'rights' except the desire to control others? And yes, even people who do unethical things to others feel this to be true ... they've merely rationalized that their own instance of mistreatment is circumstantially different. I have no problem with you shrugging off a complex philosophical notion such as rights, but would like to ask for some reasonable explanation. quote: Even if that's true, it doesn't follow that much more will not find a way to end their lives if suicide finds legal and social sanction through the medical field. Euphemized as 'treatment', I can see how Physician-assisted-suicide could become more popular than taking it into your own hands. And no, there's no element of legal "punishment" in my own mind that has to do with this particular issue. quote: Dude, think curable vs. incurable. You CAN qualitatively compare some person suffering from terminal cancer, with a person suffering with the mental torment of intractable depression ... or paraplegia ... or diabetes ... or COPD ... or Kidney Failure ... or ... I work in an ICU and see the effects of chronic medical conditions probably a bit more than you. To make such a comparison is not silly at all. "No cure and no better life to look forward to" (your own words) is not limited to an imminently terminal condition. And that's my whole point really, that the perceived quality of life will easily become just as much of a consideration as predicted quantity or length. quote: Not nearly as often as it would if you made it as easy as asking for a sleeping pill, along with the legal and social sanctioning that would present it as noble and compassionate, which itself is quite debatable. quote: Explain to me how the medical community could "keep" anyone in pain, by not actively administering pharmacological death for them? You slip in the word "allow". But what you're advocating has nothing to do with passive allowance. Think "assist", or even "perform" and you'll have a closer description of what is really being debated. quote: Just do this, except without the spaces: [ quote ] your text here [ /quote ] Seoulair: quote: Not personally, but we are talking about a very small percentage. We really don't have to depend upon personal encounters, since we have a historical precedent with the arrests of Dr. Jack Kervorkian. So yes, it undoubtedly happens. He didn't get his infamy or his court orders for just proposing a theory. Stephen |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: No more than you have data to refute it. But since people kill themselves everyday, for every reason, then I'm putting money down that some are doing it cause they're sick and dying. Actually, now that I think of it, I did watch a show once about people with a type of arthritis, rumatoid I think, and like a combined 25% intentionally and accidentally O.D. according to this specialty doctor. quote: So you're telling me, that a piece of paper outlines how you treat other people? Without a law you wouldn't know how to treat people? Rights, wrongs, good, bad, it's all grey areas, and boils down to individual choice, not legeslature. It's no more wrong to kill a cow to eat, then it is to kill someone, take their money, and buy some food. We just say its wrong when it happens to people cause it hits closer to home and scares the poop out of us. Plus, most of us don't want to kill other people, again, think it hits too close to home to see images of ourselves die. So we make a law saying killing is wrong...but it don't matter cause killing keeps happening because the people who really want to kill, they kill, and the people who don't, don't, regardless of laws. Right, wrong, it's all situational dude. Until we're both dying and in pain, we can't be sure what we'd want. Maybe you'd be asking a doctor to help you die and I'd be crying cause I'd fight to the end. Who knows? quote: Using dude, dude, doesn't suit you dude. So you say diabetes is the same as paraplegia? Or someone who is eligible for a transplant is the same as someone with a football tumor in their neck that will slowly chock them to death in a month?? Yeah, that doesn't make much sense. And not to sound cold, but someone with intractable depression you won't have to assist, they'll most likely do it on their own because the torment of living outweighs the fear of death. And maybe that's what you don't get about it all, that these people have calculated it. Wieghed it out. Put'er on the scales. And they decided it is worse for them to live than to die. And of course amigo, wer'e not talkig about some lady who just got dumped by her man so she wants to die that day, we're talking about sound of mind people who are suffering and asking for help to end the suffering. And since we have failed to find a cure four them, we should at least honor them by doing right by them. I'm sure there are a lot of doctors out there who agree with assisted suicide. Why are they wrong? Why are they not considered to be acting in the best medical interest of someone? Furthermore, who cares what we think. It sholdn't be up to us. You don't wnt assisted suicide, then don't do it. Doesn't mean you should be allowed to stop it since it could happen everyday and never affect your life. And why shoujld you have a say in something that doesn't affect you? quote: Well its a hell of a lot nobler than them splattering their brains out with a gun or jumping off a bridge. You make it sound like there wold be an epedimic if it was allowed. And if it did increase so much, maybe that's because it is something that people wanted more than they didn't want. btw, thanks for telling me how to do the quote thing. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: Sentence two and sentence three comment on each other. What we get from many folks who exercise some form of their right to die often leave others behind pondering exactly the kind of questions you try to come to grips with here. Do she really and truly have to do this? Wasn't she only depressed? Couldn't she have chosen a more favorable path? It's in leaving these sorts of gifts behind that we can see the hostile and aggressive face of suicide. Sometimes it's more obvious, sometimes less. At times it may not be present at all, though I would suggest that almost always it carries something of those elements with it. I certainly do know people who have chosen suicide in one form or another as a way out of life and the pains it had for them. I had a college room-mate for a summer or two, a guy I enjoyed a great deal and a pretty good beginning poet who killed himself. I never knew why. I had a friend in grade school who was a minister's son who killed himself as well. The element of rage there was pretty obvious for anybody to see, but we can only suppose it, because nobody really knew the actual reasons behind it. My grandmother had very serious cancer and decided to have elective surgery she knew she would not survive. The surgeon had offered her the option, telling her that she would not survive it, because he knew that the pain had gotten unbearable and he knew she wouldn't want to surrender her dignity. He was correct. I kissed her goodbye on the way to the operating room. It's sad that physicians are not allowed to have this kind of relationship with their patients today, because within the depths of a lifelong relationship it may actually be possible to reach an honest resolution to such things. I wouldn't be able to do such a thing, but others might be able to. quote: As long as there's life, there's hope, I think you're saying. Perhaps in a more complex way. I think the passive voice covers many sins. What the proverb should mean is that as long as (the patient) has life, (then) (the patient should have) hope (for a cure). Too often, however, when the physician says it, the patient has lost hope for a cure on realistic grounds, and what the physician is actually saying is something on the order of Where (you, my patient) there's life (maintain a pulse), (I, your physician, still entertain some distant) hope (that somebody will pull a rhinoceros out of a beach bucket and come up with something that will put off your death a little bit longer. The goals do not have to be different, but they may be. |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
quote: Exactly!! Back to the original question, if the patient wants to die, shall medical staff assist her? Even if law allows it, I will still say no. Because if the patient chooses to get into hospital, her will is very clear that she wants to get treated. If one wants to die for whatever reasons, then it is not necessary that one has to die in hospital, right? The right of living or the "free choice" of end one's own life shall not be relevant to the thought of any other people. To make it extreme situation, it is called helplessness to give up useless treatment.. waiting to die and to get a lethal dose are different. Could be days, months, years different. and I believe miracles. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: Dude, I'm baffled. So you're saying that currently, right now, the people in a hospital who are asking for doctor asisted suicides, don't exist? According to you, if they are in a hospitl then their will is to live. If that's true, then why are they asking for help to die? quote: There's an old saying, wish in one hand and poop in the other, and see what comes first. I think the same applies for "miracles". I'm not knocking your religion, I just ain't buying what your selling. quote: And that's a fine, fine, example of what I was talking about with rights being make believe. Rights and laws are only as true as the people following them. Lets say the earth was suddenly near out of water and food and only enough for 25% of the population...lets see how sturdy paper rights and laws are in that situation. Lets see how many Christians obey Thou Shalt Not Steal or Kill. But I'm straying from the topic. In a nutshell, let me say my way is the best way cause its a win win for everyone. If you want to hang on till the very end and have docs do all they can to give you every extra second, then so be it. But if ya know yer time is done like dinner, and want to check out before yer raduced to pooping yer pants and having to eat from a straw, then so be that too. And if a doctor doesn't want to help, then he shouldn't have to, but if a doctor does, then he should be allowed to. Maybe throw in a psych and physical evalution to make sure they aren't fuddy duddy in the head, and making there decision with a sound mind, also make sure there really is no realistic hope for decent treatment or cures. |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
quote: Your rights might well be as imaginary as you imagine them to be. Mine, however, are intractable. Don't believe me? Try taking one of my rights away and see what happens. You can't. No one can. The absolute most that you or anyone else can do is make me pay a higher price for exercising my rights. Rights are, indeed, as inalienable as Jefferson contended, but no one ever said they were free. There's always a price, even in a society such as ours. In other societies, and sometimes even in ours, the price can be much higher. The price you personally are willing to pay to exercise a right doesn't reflect the existence of that right, though. You can't give up a right. You can only choose not to exercise it, not to pay the price for exercising it. Because that, too, is your right. quote: It doesn't suit you, either, and it certainly doesn't fit well in these forums. It represents a familiarity you haven't earned yet. It's rude and it's potentially offensive. Please don't do it? quote: Right. And the step after letting people legally kill themselves based on a subjective quality of life determination is to let them kill their children based on equally subjective criteria. The kid was born with a defect? Have the doctor give it a shot. After all, what business is it of yours? Why should you have any say in something that doesn't affect you? It's not your kid, after all. Of course, the reality is that life and death decisions potentially affect us all. Again, you're not talking about a right to die but rather a right to kill. You want to give doctors (to start) the legal option to end a human life upon request. You've given us no meaningful, non-subjective criteria by which we can expect that legal option to be limited. You've, instead, used words like "terminable" when in truth everyone is terminable, words like "pain" when no one I know is without pain, and you've told us that it's essentially none of my business because it doesn't affect me personally. Sorry, but when you give doctors the option to end my life, that does indeed potentially affect me and those I love. You cannot realistically hand anyone that kind of power without imposing some fairly strict limitations on the use of that power. You've even essentially acknowledged that on several levels in this conversation, but you've given no indication that you've thought it through enough to realize that such limitations are impossible to adequately define. Here's the bottom line. No one, yet, in this thread has argued a true right to die. A true right to die would impose no limitations at all. You got out of bed this morning and decided it should be your last? Fine, go to the doctor and get a prescription to die. You don't need a reason, you don't need an examination, you have simply but to ask. That's a right to die, any time, anywhere, for any reason. No one has, and I sincerely hope no one ever will, argue such a case. So, what are some arguing? You (that's a generic you, not aimed at any specific individual) are arguing that people should be assisted with suicide so long as YOU agree with their reasons for wanting to die. Ironically, if you don't agree their reasons are valid, you seem to be quick enough to rescind your permission. That's not a right to die. That's just another way of letting YOU decide who lives and who dies. And that, as always, is something I'll never willing accept. |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
quote: Story of Titanic ... quote: Absolutely agree!!! Right of Death I would like to give my opinion on this since Ron has mentioned it more than twice. I don't think that we have a right called the right of death. Since the first forbidden bite, death is a punishment from heaven. Or if by evolution, the motivation should be to survive than evolute to a better death. (have we seen a better death yet among the species?). If there were not(still a arguable topic) a right of death, then there would be not a situation as yield the right to other causes. So, it is still the situation of if one should give up the fighting (to be exactly) for the right of living. (but in cellular level, there is process called programmed cell death--A program within a cell when activated by certain triggers will make the cell die) Right to kill Do we have the right to kill? Ironically, Killing is one build-in human characters. That is why "thou shall not kill." So, we do have a right to kill. but it is forbidden by heavenly law and human social law, unless there is a "law"-permitting cause...as self-defense, war and when Titanic was down that many people rather chose to die(kill oneself) for young people and pregnant women and subside under pathologically mental stress.(I meant the motivation) The case of doctor assisting subside of patient, he was exercising his right on following an order of rule or law, or his "higher calling" of whatever kind. But what should be the justified causes in law and rules? I am shivering just on thinking of those cases who got wrongly capital punishment in jails. In medical field, I shall say that it has much a sarcastic sense as if there is no way to treat her, then kill her. It is a career failure, a self-slap on his face. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: Again, they're only as true as the people following them. If that ain't true, tell me what rights I have, where they came from, and who decided on what rights I have. And you're fooling yerself if you think someone can't take away your "rights". Cause you choose to live by them, you make them a tangible in yer life. and well that can be taken away, sometimes without you even knowing. Just cause you'd cuss and scream if the gov't forced you to move out of your house because they decided they wanted to build a Navy base there, doesn't mean they can't and won't make you leave. Try running fer presd. Your 'rights' say: a homeless guy should be allowed the same fair shake to be presd. as a millionaire, but lets see if that's true. People's so called "rights" get snatched away from them everyday, but I guess you're the guy they can't do it to. You may not want war, not go to war, not believe in war, want our troops to come home, don't like what they're there for, but sure as grass grows green, you're paying for war and supporting it one way or the other. Whether you like it or not, you're helping line the pockets of some fat cat. Try taking that "right" away from the gov't and see what happens. What about slaves, guess they just stayed slaves cause they didn't know they could exercise their rights until a kindly white fella told them they could. You seem like a smart guy so I'm sure you know there is slavery still going on. Maybe ya could get in touch with them and let them know they have the right to refuse to work and get their heads chopped off. Them sure are some good old rights. Or maybe something closer to home. Maybe you can tell some poor old fella working for next to nothing in some poor old town for some mean old codger, that he's got the right to demand higher wages, be laid off, and be homeless. Right to an education. Well I'm sure poor areas are just uneducated cause they ain't exercising their rights good enough. Yeah I know, I'm sure ya think education should be free, but try telling that to the poor old fella working fer next ta nutt'n who'll lose more off his cheque to pay for someone else's education. I'm sure he'll enjoy that right. But hey, it's all cool, we all have to live by some road map to navigate through life, and there ain't a perfect one that's been made. I'm all for you choosing how to live your life, just as I am for me doing the same. The whole system is pretty good and all, ya don't throw away a car cause the tire is flat, I'm just calling it how I see it, not trying to change the world or stuff. quote: Of course, that would be like transferring imaginary money at a bank to an imaginary friend. Lovely words, but people give up they're rights everyday, have them taken away, or have em changed on them. Rights are inalienable because they ain't real. They ain't real because people made them up and can choose to interpret them however they see fit. Your rights, my rights, there rights, ain't none of it the same. quote: Well its a friendly term where I'm from. Like man, or bro, or bra. And my last post the guy mocked me for using it, which ain't very nice. That's why I made the other dude comment I did. But I guess mocking me is cool, yeah I get it, kick the new guy. I've been around the block enough times to know that game. I ain't allowed to be myself until the "gang" says its fine. So why don't you scold someone else. But yeah, I guess I haven't "earned" that right to speak in a manner I'm comfy with, cause rights are inalienable and all that. I guess the guy couldn't say, please don't call me dude, I don't like it. Cause that would've only made me reply with sorry, didn't know that bugged ya or something along those lines. But yeah, again, I get it. New guy is the bad guy, but the other guy. The guy who has been here longer is always the good guy cause he's fit in and something different ain't all that good. And don't think that's some sort of poor old me statement cause I ain't look for sympathy, I can handle myself just fine. And I know what's coming next, I've lived many'a places, met many a man, and the next step is some talk about how ya have to do this or that, and be like this or that or however you have it laid out in yer mind that humans should act. Maybe if I use Mr. or sir from now on, or is that too formal? Ah fudge, let's just save some time, why don't ya just tell me how I should talk cause that's where this is going anyhow. And then I can go back to my sideways little village of ignorant cave dwellers and nut pickers and tell everyone that we can't say dude anymore cause we were being rude all along and didn't even have the decent sense to know it. Either that, or you could take a time machine from 1950 and into the present and discover dude ain't a rude term. Yeah, it ain't so fun being mocked is it? No one likes a burr under their saddle. quote: Yeah, and after that it's to let them kill other people, then after that its to let them kill other people's kids, and pets, and grandparents and pretty soon everyone will be allowed to just put to sleep anyone if they think someone's life ain't as good as their own. Maybe skip all that and just have doctors keep or kill the good ones in the delivery room. Whoa amigo! (is amigo ok? let me know) Think we're putting the cart before the horse so to speak. You're talking like cigarettes are a gateway to heroin. No one's talking about letting other people decide to kill other people(save for doctors cause ya have to weed out the crazies for their own good). I ain't saying "my kid walks a bit crooked, could we put em down". We're talking about sane people asking for themselves to be put down. I'd say crazies too, but they don't know what they're talking about sometimes, so ya can't say for sure they really want to die if they don't really know either. I don't know why you think some poor soul asking to be put out of his misery, adn some doc helping him, is leading to a genocide of handicapped kids. You almost make it sound like parents of handicapped kids don't love their kids as much as "normal" kids. Cause amigo, I know some parents with disabled kids, and it often seems like they love their kids more than the ones with "normal" kids. And I doubt there'd be a rush of people asking to kill their kids if you made it legal. If ya know anyone with a badly handicapped kid, ask them if they'd put'em down? But again, I'm not talking aobut people killing their kids, I'm talking about someone sick asking for their pain to end. What else should we do, keep em higher than a kite and stoned until they die? I've seen that, it ain't very pretty either. That ain't living. quote: And so does the price of soda pop. Everything kinda affects everything, but I'm talking day to day stuff here. Someone dying in the hospital today that you don't know, never met, yeah, that affects you in a round about way, about as much like a car crash in Japan. I can't see society slipping into a muderous mind frame over legalizing assisted suicides, so I can't really see some poor guy suffering badly and dying in the hospital, getting a shot of eternal sleep medicine by choice, really keeping ya up at night. quote: Call it what'cha will. Feel free to get bogged down by whatever name yer giving it. Right to kill, right to die, right to this, right to that. The word "right" often gets in the way of doing actually doing right by someone. I dunno, maybe I'm just back frontwards and all, but I don't see how we give our kids machine guns, say go kill them cause they bug us, but then get all wishy washy and weepy eyed, when someone in really bad pain, who we know ain't gett'n better, asks for help to be put out of their misery, and we say no, life is precious. Don't make much sense at all. quote: Well I ain't a doctor now am I. I'm not claiming to know what's best for someone, I'm saying give em some freedom to decide what's best for themselves. They've come up with a pretty good way to judge abortions, so I'm sure they can find a way to judge the terminally ill. I'd be a fool to think I should be deciding who stays and who goes. quote: Well I guess we'll have to wait and see if your definition changes if ya get some "terminable" disease and get so much unending "pain" that all you want to do is die. Then ya can write their perspective from their perspective. I think there's an expected "natural" lifespan of people, or so doctors say, and a "natural" amount of pain people are in, that's what doctors say too I've heard. Bones and porches get creaky cause they both get walked on. So you can twist those words into any balloon shaped animal ya want and stretch that taffy to look like more than it is. But in the end, you know what I'm implying and all the fancy side stepping don't change that. quote: Don't put foam in my mouth and call me rabid. I never said such a thing. I never said if you were sick that a doctor should have the option to end your life, I'm saying you should have the option of being allowed to asking a willing doctor to assist you in ending your own life. Son, why do you keep saying I was saying something that I wasn't. Stop dealing from the bottom of the deck. quote: Adequatly define for who? For you or for me? Cause I think we have a difference in what would be adequate or defined in that situation. And just cause one person isn't satisfied with their meal, doesn't mean you should take back the whole table's dinner. And the power you speak of ain't in the doctors hands really, it's in the person who is dying. quote: So there's a "real" limitation to dying? Or just legal ramifications? Maybe we should arrest people who kill themselves. quote: And I thought I was good at tall tales. I don't know why you see one thing apparently leading to another like it's enivitable. It's like the sky is grey and you're calling it Armegeddon. quote: No sir, I'm saying as long as an educated doctor agrees with their reasons for wanting to die. Again, it ain't up to me. But what you are saying, is it should only be allowed if YOU agree. I ain't saying that at all, I'm saying I'm not to decide anymore than I think you should. I don't know better from a doctor anymore than I know better from someone who is in severe pain and dying. But apparently your side of the story seems to. quote: No to that again, I'm saying that's between them and their doctor, and the good lord, not between me and them and my almighty. quote: Again, I'm not asking to decide anything other than letting other people decide for themselves. It's YOU, and that there is a generic you, who want to decide who lives and dies, cause someone too weak to eat on their own ain't able to dash out the window or hang themselves by a neck tie. All they are able to do is lay in pain and agony until they die. The big difference between YOU and I, is I would rather empower these people with one last option where you'd rather force them to drag out every last painful minute of their lives. That ain't compassion man, that's just cruel. In war, if you shot someone, they didn't die, but you knew you couldn't get em medical help, but you also knew they'd live a day in excruciting pain, and they begged for you to help them into the afterlife, would ya finish them off or just let them suffer? What would be crueler? To let them live, or to help em die? Or would ya just tell them we are all "terminable" and in "pain". If ya'd show such mercy to an "enemy", why couldn't ya show it to a friend? |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: That's fine and all but what if ya don't believe in heaven and all that stuff. Heck, in some religions its an honor to kill and die...rewards of virgins, and good meatloaf, and California wine, and all that hocus pocus. I ain't trying to squash your religion or nothing like that, I'm just saying why should your religion, or something you believe in that I don't, be allowed a say in my life or decisions? I have no problem with people cutting the skin off baby's weiners, (though they should have probably waited and asked the kid) because they believe that god told them to do so, all I'm saying is don't make me fall victim to the clippers just cause your God told you it was right for everyone. I'm saying practise your religion, and everyone in your religion can choose not to have assisted suicide, but don't impose your God onto my life. Just like I would never force you to "choose" assisted suicide. |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
quote: Why it the business of medical doctors who are as fallible as everyone else? Haven't heard any malpractice yet? And here we are not talking about religion. we are talking about how we view life or death. |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
quote: Sorry, you and I are talking about very different things. The things you're talking about aren't human rights, they're just political agendas. And, yea, those can be stripped away. Good thing, too, because most of them in this country are loony as 'toons. quote: You mean like the founders of this country yelled "No taxation without representation" and stood up to an oppressive British rule? You mean like the soldiers of WWII fought and died to stop a madman from imposing his will on the world? Yea, them sure are some good old rights, at least if one has the courage to pay the price for them . . . or the luck to have someone else do it for them. Again -- the failure to exercise your rights is always a choice. You might keep your mouth shut at work because you don't want to get fired, you might keep your mouth shut at home because you don't want to sleep on the couch, but no one can force you to remain silent unless you agree. The most they can do is kill you. And, yea, that's a price men have paid in the past and will likely pay again in the future. quote: No, actually it's not okay. It's not any more okay than if you called me sweetheart. I'm not your friend, at least not yet, and I'm certainly not your lover. Names actually work pretty well around here. At least until you get to know someone well enough to call them friend or dude. p.s. I don't think I'm alone in how I feel, either. There's a new movie called 21 where an older teacher played by Kevin Spacey very directly and curtly tells a young student, "Don't call me dude." I can relate. Pet names should be reserved for lovers and close friends. Or, I guess, for pets? quote: No, you're not. And realistically, I don't actually expect that to happen any more than you do. But that's not the point. The point, rather, is that you've said nothing to preclude it and the arguments you've offered would very easily support it. You want to hand someone a loaded gun but apparently haven't thought through the consequences of what they just might do with it. Worse, in my opinion, you seem to think there won't be any consequences? quote: Giving things names is what writers do. And this is, after all, a site devoted to writers? More importantly, of course, giving things names is how we communicate. quote: Ah, that explains a bit more, I think. You're not trying to decide who stays and who goes, you just want to decide who I should or shouldn't trust with my life? You want to give this guy and others like him the power to decide if my pain-induced pleas for surcease are carefully considered requests or the ranting of a man incapable of thinking beyond the next thirty seconds. Sorry, but you trust people more than I do. I'd like to add "even doctors," but it would probably be more honest to say "especially doctors." Any doctor who would directly and willfully violate the oath they took to "do no harm" certainly can't be trusted to exercise the kind of power you want to give them. Believing in the justification of mercy killings is one thing; I personally think it's misguided but I would never fault someone for being misguided. It's another thing entirely, however, to take an oath to protect life and do no harm, only to turn around and use that guise to exercise a belief in mercy killings. That's not just misguided, that's deceitful and wrong. And please don't be shocked, badboypoet, but apparently doctors can be deceitful and wrong. Not all of them, of course, but enough to warrant maybe just a little bit of caution? People sometimes ask for the relief of death for all the right reasons. But people also ask for death for all the wrong reasons, the latter greatly outnumbering the former, and we don't have anyone we can fully trust to tell the difference. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Sometimes the solution is in asking the person who says they want to die the simple question, "What's the cost?" Frequently their answer is, "Nothing." This is actually the case for only those with the most isolated and meaningless of lives, and frequently even not then. Otherwise it amounts to delusional thinking. For those with family, friends, communities, businesses, homes and entanglements of any sort, "Nothing" is not an accurate answer at all. It is a lie to comfort one's self at a time such comfort is sorely needed. A person may build a life upon lies to the self; but it is poor rationale for recruiting somebody else's help in terminating that life. The life of lies may be over for the suicide, but the helper is left holding the bag. And the cost of that is scarcely "Nothing." The evidence we have from researches such as Stanislav Groff suggest that the whole nature of pain is quite plastic, and that there are therapeutic techniques that alter the perception of pain quite radically. What was once unbearable becomes bearable once again. Hypnosis and decent use of serious drug therapy can also make a significant difference in the end stages of life. Doctors have become very shy about using high doses of addictive drugs on terminal patients because they are paradoxically shy about addicting them and suffering the judgement of their fellow physicians. Much of this issue, I believe, is a result of oddnesses such as these within the medical profession and squeamishness on the part of governments in using drugs such as the "Brompton Cocktail," which is very effective for severe pain relief and is used in England, because it contains Heroin. There are certainly large ethical issues here. Let us not forget the policy issues that come along with them, and let us not forget that to some extent this issue has been dumped on the shoulders of those least in a position to make unpressured decisions by those of us who don't want to make courageous policy decisions about drugs and caretaking of the seriously ill among us. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
BBP: quote: Of course not. But shouldn't laws reflect, as much as possible, right principles of how people should be treated? The subject of this thread IS a legislative one, as well as a moral one. quote: So to you, eating a cheesburger as essentially no different than a murderous theft? Please don't invite me to dinner. quote: Does that mean there's no such thing as a real right and wrong? Weren't you just arguing a bit ago that it was wrong to force someone to die with pain and without dignity? quote: What does that have to do with this question? We already know there are dying people for and against Kervorkian-style Euthanasia. The question (in this thread) still boils down to what is the right thing to do legislatively. If you don't think this subject belongs in legislative terms, then you are misunderstanding the entire question. What doctors do is ALWAYS managed under legislation. quote: okay, dude is a bit too "eighties" anyway don't you think? quote: Actually there's a complication of diabetes called "diabetic neuropathy" which involves nerve damage that can be painful and debilitating especially when coupled with PVD (peripheral vascular disease), which can render a patient unable to walk, cause them to lose their legs, and live very much like a paraplegic. So seeing that these are complications of diabetes (not to mention renal failure, gastroparesis, and blindness from retinopathy) ... Yes. quote: Have you even taken a precursory look into how difficult it is to get a transplant, or the potential complications of getting a transplant? ... Have you considered that transplant wannabes usually have to be pretty healthy otherwise, and of a certain age range to be accepted? It all makes more sense when you look at more critically. What you keep evading is the fact that "Terminal" may be widely interpreted in the field of medicine. To give you an example, we treat patients with "End Stage Renal Disease" who stay on Kidney dialysis for years. There are patients with "End Stage COPD" who live for years with considerable breathing difficulty. Are they terminal or not? Should they be able to get a shot of death upon request? Not so clear anymore? quote: For many, this may not be true. Dr. Assisted Suicide will never be presented as suicide (with all the connotations) by its advocates, but as "ending the pain", and "choosing dignity". quote: And maybe what you don't get, is the question of "what in the world does that have to do with doctors and nurses"? quote: Because they are not acting in the best medical interest of someone. It is not within the scope of medicine to kill. As you said, apart from legislation, suicidal people may act out their temptations. But don't distort the professional jurisdiction of medicine by adding suicide to their repitoire. quote: How many times have I mentioned that I'm a Registered Nurse? Remember what they do? They administer pharmacological agents ordered by MDs. Yes it would affect me directly. However, even if it didn't, I don't think your insistence upon direct proximity is valid. There are people who care about nearly extinct animal species, the loss of which would have no immediate or remarkable affect on them personally. That doesn't mean they shouldn't do what they're doing. quote: That's a fallacy. Would it be more noble to sneak into your room at night and inject you with a lethal dose of Potassium Chloride, or to flay you open with a knife? While one example is more grusome, neither is more noble than the other. quote: And if what is right were simply "what people want", then you would have won the argument. quote: I don't agree with any abortion, but I'm sure that most people would at least disagree with late-term or "partial birth" abortions. But guess what was the "pretty good way" they dealt with that? You guessed it ... legislation is the only reason that half-born babies can't be killed by physicians. quote: You're welcome. Ron: quote: brilliant. Stephen |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: I think what you are calling human rights, I'm just calling personal freedom. To live and let live sort of thing. But I disagree with what you said, cause as far as I'm concerned, if there are human rights or freedom, then a man has a right not to be forced to sell his home and be allowed live where he chooses if he isn't doing anyone no harm. Just cause someone's taking his home away for political "rights" or agendas, doesn't mean it doesn't go against his human rights or freedom. It ain't the cause, it's the effect. And the effect is sometimes we lose our rights, both imagined and real. quote: Well it's always easier to stand up for for what ya believe in when ya have an army behind ya. When you are standing alone, it's a much different thing. I'm sure a sex slave, who has been beaten half to death for refusing to work, so tired of the beatings that she eventually gives in, she might paint yer wagon a different color if you talked to her and told her she wasn't courageous enough to stand up for her basic human rights. Or if you were trapped in a dark alley by a dozen thugs with a dozen weapons, and said you had to pay a 'walking on their block' tax. Would ya pay them, or would you just tell them, "no taxation without representation"? Don't get me wrong, I know what yer saying too, and I agree that it's great when people stand up for freedom, just it ain't always glorified as you are saying. John Wayne won't be riding over the hill to come save ya when yer by yourself. quote: I'm sorry, it looks good on paper but that just ain't always realistic in the real world. So what yer saying is, people choose to be impoverished and dominated by a more powerful force? Guess the slaves just chose to be slaves cause they were cowards. You should go to B'nai Brith and tell them that the Jews who died before and during WWII gave up their freedom. That they had a choice and they just weren't brave or smart enough to make the right one. Because, as you say, the failure to exercise your human rights is always a choice. If a person can't choose death, can't get by the notion, won't grasp it, and so terrified of it and won't accept that as an option, then it falls short of being a choice. It ain't a choice if you can't choose the unchooseable. And if there are only two options in a situation, do as someone says or die, then really, is it a choice if you just can't choose death? Again, your idea looks good on paper and sounds good in speeches, but it ain't always practical or realistic. quote: I'm gonna steal a quote and say, "there are things worse than death." Otherwise people wouldn't kill themselves to escape it. I don't know yer background, or what you've seen, maybe a lot, maybe a little. So my next words aren't meant as a willy measuring contest, But I've been in some hairy situations where I was looking at the wrong end of a gun or knife. And if I had the gumption to declare my freedom from their oppression, then I probably wouldn't be here. And if they killed me, their life wouldn't have changed, they'd still be the SOBs they are. Well maybe they'd be in jail, but since they didn't catch em, doubt they would have if they killed me. So my choice wasn't really a choice. Declare freedom and die in a pool of my own blood, with them being the only ones enjoying the freedom I declared. Or comply and have my freedom taken away from me, and live to be free another day. quote: I guess you are not alone if Kevin Spacey is with ya. Wish I had movies stars in my corner. But who am I to disagree with Mr. Spacey. If it rubs ya the wrong way, then I'll just leave em be when I'm talking to ya. So lets set the table back on its legs, my apologies if my using dude, amigo, or man has ticked ya off. I'll choose my words more carefully around you pleasent, but fickle bunch. quote: But that is the point, or at least one of em. You said we shouldn't do it cause next we'll have parents sending their kids off to the promise land if the kid is disabled. That was what I read and one of yer reasons for not allowing it. quote: Oh no, there's no mistake what I'm handing them the gun for. To kill, something we do everyday for many a reason a lot worse than for assisted suicide. Consequences, yeah course they'll be consequences, always is to just about everything. Don't confuse me with a loose turnip. I'm sure there will be mistakes along that path, but where isn't there. And then of course you'll have religious groups shooting doctors who assist in suicides to make their point of 'killing is wrong'. Political parties would molest the issue to gain votes. And the families will be sad to see a love one pass on. But come on, when was the last time you lost sleep over someone you didn't know about, being assisted with suicide? Cause that's what I mean when i say it won't have any consequences in your life. At least not anymore than a teen you never met aborting a baby. Cause assisted suicide happens with or without our permission and I'm sure you're life has managed fine and didn't miss a beat throughout it all. I'm sure you haven't missed a meal or lost sleep because of it. And I don't mean that in a bad way, it's just the way it is. Why should ya really care that someone dying was given a big dose of sleepy-time by their request? Its not like it will become a fad or trend. Unless of course MTV gets their mitts on it and Paris Hilton declares its hip to get assisted suicides by Versace. What I don't get about what some of you are saying is this. You are saying it's fine and dandy to kill and die for your rights, but as long as it ain't for the right to kill and die. I'm a carnivore, I ain't ashamed of that anymore than a wolf or lion should be. I eat the flesh of dead animals just about daily and a variety of critters too. But I ain't of the "might makes right" type of mindset. I don't go around killing things for the sake of killing and my belly will back me up when I say I always clean my plate. And I suspect not many people want to kill for the sake of killing. So if given the responsibility of deciding on assisting in suicides, I'm sure that would be a heavy weighing decision on a doctor who chooses to do so and he would do all in his power and knowledge not to make a bad mistake. Of course mistakes will happen, but just cause nothing is perfect, doesn't mean we should just do nothing. quote: I wasn't saying that names aren't important, I was saying don't get bogged down in em. The first two hunters in Africa, came upon a lion. At the time they didn't know what it was. When the lion charged, one said look out the girraffe is coming for us, the other said, no not a girraffe, that's a hippo. Well they bickered and bickered as to what to call this new creature until it pounced on them and ate them both. Course there's two points to that story. The first is that if they both agreed to a name, then they wouldn't have been eaten. But the second is, if they wouldn't have worried about the name so much, as what was happening, then they wouldn't have been eaten either. So it's important to name things to communicate, but never more important than the message itself. Too many people try to debunk something just cause you didn't pick a word they wanted you to pick even when they know exactly what you are talking about. quote: No again, only you could decide that too. If you don't trust it, don't use it. I ain't trying to say you gotta use a system you don't trust. I'm just saying give other people that option to have a system for those who would trust it. quote: I guess this is the big fork in the road. You see it as harming people, where as I see it as helping people. Killing ain't always a bad thing. "Thou shalt not kill" that's easy for god to say, he was never human and didn't have lung cancer. He never had a disease that was robbing him of all his bodily functions and his dignity. quote: No fooling. Well I'll be! I learn something new everyday. And now you hold on to yer hat too Mr. Ron, cause I don't want to shock you out of yer slippers, but apparently doctors can be honest and right. Not all of them, of course, but enough to warrant maybe just a little bit of trust? quote: No, you don't have anyone you can trust. Just cause you don't trust anyone, don't make it right to stop others from trusting in it. Because you lack so much trust in the medical system, you'd rather have these people you don't trust, drug a dying, in pain person up so badly that they're in and out of consciousness, screaming and moaning until they die (and that ain't living), instead of allowing that person to be helped on to the sweet hereafter in a dignified manner. quote: I noticed no one answered the above? |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: Well you might not agree with me, but I'm sure I'll get the cows vote on that one. Cows don't belong to us, they belong to themselves, we just enslave them and eat them. But like I said, it's all situational. I'm sure in the right situation, you'd kill me for a cheeseburger. I'm sure if we were trapped in a desert, and I found a big old bottle of water, enough to last me till I got to civilization, and I decided not to share it with you cause if I did, I'd dye (and I wouldn't share it cause you wn't even eat cheeseburgers with me). I'm sure you'd have more than cuss words to share with me, even though "legally" the water is mine. And as you fought to get at my water, I'd remind you of the legislation and how it was right that you can't take my water from me. Then of course you'd tell me I was right, that the law says you can't, and then you'd say enjoy the rest of your life while I die in the dessert here with my legislation. But I gotta say, you'd have every "right" to kill me for my water, just as I would have every "right" to let you die so I could live. But neither of us could be "right" cause what we're doing to each other is "wrong". quote: I sure was, but as you can see others disagree with me. So if I know that I'm right, and you disagree, but know that you are right, and I disagree, well then, where are we at other than we're both right about something we're wrong about. And there ain't no real right or wrong, at least not for this kind of stuff, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a moral compass to make our lives more managable. Just like there ain't no real borders except for the ones we make and change all the time. They're real cause you have gaurds there, but they ain't real cause you need gaurds there and no one can agree on them. Like the rules kids use playing superheroes and such, or the Emporer's New Clothes. quote: Well it has everything to do with it if ya use it like I said it. Situationally, when the reaper is at your door, you might ask for a heck of a different legislation then the one you are aiming for now. Just like I might do the same. We don't know. But what we do know is that some people in that situation right now are asking for help dying, so since they are in the know, I'm gonna say maybe they have a more valid point than us and that should be taken into consideration. I just can't see how everyone of them who asks for assisted suicide is wrong in asking for it when they are the ones dealing with that situation, not you or me. So if some of them are right, isn't it wrong not to help them? But you're a nurse, so you are dealing with it everyday so I'm sure you know better how they feel then they do. And I can't trust you no how. Ron told me that, and don't you be shocked too, but doctors are sometimes wrong. I know, Iknow, it was a shocker to hear that for me too. But all that is odd cause doctor's also are against assisted suicide. So I shouldn't trust that opinion either. So who should I trust? A philosopher named Ron, a nurse named Stephanos, a doctor, a politician, or myself? We can't legislate it, cause that would have to come from a doctor's opinion, and they are known to be wrong. Gosh it's all so confusing. quote: Yeah I guess it is. But I ain't allowed to use amigo either which is pretty timeless. Tell ya what, I promise to stop using dude, if you promise to stop using tired old smiley faces that way we can get the pop culture police off both our tails. quote: Well, that's an eye opener. I'll just add diabetes to my list of people who can kill themselves. Or you could just say that nowadays, most people with diabetes live a fairly long and somewhat "normal" life and most of the severe complications happen when they are getting on in years or if they aren't taking proper care of themselves. You are either a parapeligic or you are not, but having diabetes does not mean you are a parapeligic anymore than having parapeligia means you are a diabetic. So no, falling down the stairs and breaking your neck and finding out your are never going to walk again, ain't the same as diabetes. Now go ask a doctor at your hospital if diabetes is the same as parapeligia and see what they say. Or ask a diabetic and a parapelegic what would they rather have, diabetes or a completely useless body? Then after they both choose diabetes, you can tell them it doesn't make a difference cause they're both the same. quote: Okay then, lets use the phrase "He's a Goner" instead. That's the new phrase for a little past terminal but not quite at death, like Jesus couldn't even come down and save this soul. Like you could ask a million doctors and they'd all say he's a goner. Then we could get those million doctors to vote on an official "He's A Goner" assembly who then can decide who's acceptable for "He's A Goner" legistlated suicide assistance program. And then the families of the deceased could get group rates and fridge magnets. quote: Maybe, maybe not. That I don't know about cause I don't know much about it. But I do know that dismissing it for one thing, doesn't dismiss it for another. Just like allowing it for one thing, doesn't mean you should allow it for another. That would be like saying all diseases and the people who have them should be treated the same way. That's fine if you're a gingerbread man in a cookie cutter world, but don't work well in the real world. quote: And don't forget "He's A Goner" too. Maybe suicide ain't wrong all the time. No one calls someone a coward or says they are wrong for jumping to their death to avoid being burned alive for a minute when they're trapped on the twentieth floor of a burning building. So if that ain't "wrong", then there are "right" reasons to kill yourself. And if there are "right" reasons to do it, then it can't be all that "wrong" to help. quote: Well in the situation someone is dying, and it hurts something fierce, and they know they ain't getting better, and they given it some thought as to what they would like to happen, maybe they know better than a doctor as what's best fer them now and again no matter what the legistation says. quote: Well not usually, but there are a lot of dead piggies, frogs, and worms who might say different. What about when there is a complication in birthing and mother and baby will die during labor unless they abort the birth? And the mother chooses to abort. Is that in the medicine scope to kill? I know it ain't the same as what we are talking about, but just wanted to tell ya that it is in the scope of medicine to kill. What about the stories I've heard for war doctors? Some of em, for really badly hurt fellas who they couldn't get to a hospital to treat, would slip em some extra morphine to help them along to the pearly gates. Are these stories made up, or are these doctors not real? Or are they just murderers playing a mean game of god? I think if it was my buddy on the ground with his guts hanging out, screaming like the devils fire was roasting his nuts, and there was no hospital for a hundred miles, and enemies all around, I'd do right by him and slip him a micky. quote: Well don't get your nurses uniform in a knot. No offense, I have a lot of respect for nurses, but I don't think they would allow nurses to administer "death cocktails", especially not ones who think diabetes is the same as parapeligia. Plus, how many times have I mentioned that I don't think anyone who doesn't want to assist in it, should have to. We ain't talking about asprin or gravol. You could keep your hands nice and clean. It's a heavy burden to ask but thank god some people out there are willing to pay the price. Yeah, I poached that last line from Mr. Ron. quote: Just cause you care about something doesn't mean it "affects" you. Did you lose any sleep last night knowing another homeless person died on the streets? Or is it ya just don't care enough to bat an eye? I'm sure you, like most of us, have done our fair share of looking at the sky when a homeless guy asked ya fer money. Most people's lives wouldn't change much if there was assisted suicides. Just like your life don't change much everytime a homeless guy dies, even when it's just down the block from you. Even if he killed himself. And even if he had help killing himself. quote: The big difference is, someone's gotta find yer body and the state its in. So is it more noble to die by choice peacefully in a hospital bed with a dose of nevermore, or have a loved one find you hanging in the closet, OD'd in the tub, or you and your brains and the family gun making a right old mess of the living room walls? quote: And if what is wrong were simply "what people don't want", then you would have won the argument. I don't know what yer getting at. We ain't talking about kids asking for cocaine. Were talking about sane adults, dying of a terminal disease with no hope for being saved, and their quality of life has been reduced to a daily rampage of inescapable pain and suffering. But I guess they ain't smart enough to know what's best for them. quote: Ya, figured as much. I'm sure there's some raped pregnant teens who might not take kindly to that. Or some janitors who find dead babies in the trash or stuck in the toilet. quote: Is that much like vampires CAN'T be killed by bullets? Cause they can kill full term babies if they want, but they might get in trouble with the law. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: Ain't you just sorta quantified it? Maybe not an exact number, but ya must have some sort of calculation to be able to say the latter greatly outnumber the former. Some ball park figures. At least a good idea to be able to so confindently make that statement. But I ain't figured it out yet, how you can tell the difference between the two, but a trained doctor couldn't? |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
quote: I give you my answers to you if you tell me your experience of war. |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
quote: And the obvious corrollary to your quote is "there are some things more important than life." Yet, you would seemingly argue otherwise? quote: Practical or realistic? I think what you mean to say is that it isn't always easy. You're mostly right, though. Novelist Theodore Sturgeon might even put a percentage to it for you. However, for all those who would agree with you that a hard choice is no choice at all, history has always given us a few who refused to agree. A few who refused to submit. When everyone who tries to climb a sheer cliff wall fails, it's reasonable perhaps to argue the impossibility of the task. Some mountains just can't ever be conquored, and it's neither practical nor realistic to think otherwise. If you can find one man in ten, though, or even one in a thousand, willing to accept the pain and hardship, just one man in a million who makes it to the top of the mountain, I'm sorry, but it's no longer reasonable to call the task impossible. It's just hard. I don't think we should be afraid of hard. I know it's probably not very practical or realistic, but I've always preferred to set my clock by the few rather than the many, by the possible rather than the easy. When you accept that some have made the choice, it's perhaps easier to see that there really is a choice to be made. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: Ain't all that sure what it has to do with a tough question. Before I answer that, I'm liking to ask you another question. Where'd ya learn about God? A book or in heaven? I ain't never been in a war, and I can rightfully say I hope I never have to. That's not to say there ain't things I wouldn't fight for, just a lot things I'd prefer not to. I don't think the first hand account stories I've read aobut war were written by liars, so I don't think my question is unreasonable. |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
badboypoet, I just knew that the tale was not your life experience but you asked a quite judgmental question. War or not war, the question is that if we shall kill for relieving other's pain. Why do you think that killing is the only way to stop pain? in your war story? since you took in the word mercy, it has become an issue of humanity. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: I had to look up corrollary, and I think I know what yer saying, but there were a few definitions. I'm figuring you meant this one, "something that incidentally or naturally accompanies or parallels". But not to be a sticky turd on yer shoe again, but I have to say no as well. The corollary to "there are things worse than death" would be "there are things better than death". I don't know if we're both just trying to be Robin Hood and split arrows, but I see a difference between worse, better, and important. But yeah, maybe them words are the same. But there are things better than death, just as there are things worse than death and same goes with life. And maybe the two does seem interchangable because they are part of each other. And I do believe that depends who you are and what the situation is. Not what a second or third party thinks how you should feel or what you should want. And I ain't saying other opinions don't matter. For us to live together it has to on some level or we'd always be at each others throats with knives and daggers and that just ain't good business for no one. Just like when ya say I shouldn't call you amigo cause you think its rude. I may not care for that you think I'm being rude, but if I want you to respect what I'm saying, I gotta respect what your saying. Ain't nuthin wrong with that cause mostly it works out well for us people. But too many meddle where there ain't no meddling to be had. I don't want to force anyone to do what they don't want to, be it a doctor or a patient, but I'd like everyone to have a decent choice espeically concerning how they meet the Maker. Ain't that probably the biggest and nicest choice ya can give someone. We all gotta go sometime, why shouldn't we have a bit of say in it, and why is it so wrong to ask for some help in it from people who want to help. I know you say a doctor ain't helping no one, no how, by killing. But killing ain't always bad, sometimes it is just a thing that needs to be done. In war, on the killing floor of a slauterhouse, and maybe even by a doctor. And I know you know that killing has to be done sometimes, and it ain't always bad. If ya don't want medical people involved in mercy killing cause it goes against the Hypocratic Oath (more like the hypocritical oath when they help insurance deny you treatment) then lets fetch someone else to do it. Train a marine to inject a dose. Or a serial killer, two birds one stone with that one. Quell a kooks desire to kill, and a dying persons need to be killed. Course I'm fooling with that one so don't think me a nut. Or think me a nut but not cause of that. The people who jump to their deaths to save themselves the pain of burning. Ain't no fault in that. But for some, they'd tell ya that person is going to hell cause they killed them self. If it were up to them, they'd rather see that person die a painful death just to protect what they believe in. I've even heard someone tell a sick person if they don't hurry up and find Jesus, they'll go to hell when they die. Man, like that fella ain't had enough to worry about, he looked as if he just moved three doors down from death and was in a wheeled chair. God gave him the disease so I'm sure God will understand if he ain't none too happy with the Lord. Maybe that God up there should start asking us for a bit of forgiveness now and again. By my count, he ain't so perfect. But I'm getting lost down a path to a place we ain't talking about. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: Well I'm calling you on that one. You don't always prefer to set yer clock by the few rather than the many. By your count, the few want assisted suicide. By your count, the few are right in asking for assisted suicide. The few want genocide. The few often do the most damage as well as the most good. But I like what you say by the possible rather than the easy, cause I figure that is what makes us unique little creatures. We dream of being better then we are. And sometimes we succeed in that. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: I ain't said nuth'n like that. I ain't said the only way to stop pain. Sure ya can drug em into a coma so they ain't got no life, and still no hope, but not being a part of life no how, ain't living either. Taking away everything from a person that makes life be life, ain't letting someone live. Drugging someone up till they ain't dead or alive don't solve nothing. You won't let em live, and you won't let em die. What's the point in that. quote: Hey fella, you going to answer the question or not. Stop pussy footing around it. You said you'd answer it if I answered you. I done that but your end of a bargain ain't been uphold. I thnk my question is just fine fer discussing should we kill to relieve others pain, cause the question was about a situation where you had to decide to kill to relieve pain. And you done said you'd answer but ya haven't. |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
badboypoet, the first question, Shall we kill the half killed enemy to relieve his pain? No. If you you have the heart to save him but has no time, then let his sides to save him. So to friend, of course we will try the best to prolong his life and try all available method to cure him. quote: ? |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Badboypoet, I'm sorry, BBP, but I'm having trouble following your language. I think you're probably saying something interesting, but I can't pick it out of your idiosyncratic spelling and syntax. I'm not asking you to change your vocabulary, style or stuff like that. I think that's interesting and you may be on to something that might work out well for you in your poetry or writing overall. I'm asking you to work a little harder on being absolutely clear as to what you're saying so that you get a chance to do the experimenting you need to do and we get to follow you while you do it. Everybody wins. I want to know what you're saying; you want to be understood. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
Mr. Bob, You ain't gonna be surprised when I tell ya you ain't the first fella to tell me somethun like that and I'm not likely to disagree with you or them. I know I write a little too loosey goosey with my casual talk. I'm just kinda starting out writing and I wear a different suit of sorts when I do (I write poetry and short stories in a more legible way). I am capable of writing normal, just find it more taxing is all. I don't know if I'd call it lazy, more like I only got so much energy to allocate to certain stuff. And I think dictionaries and thesaruses are a thing of beauty, but sometimes I'll lose my thoughts as I look for thoughts in them books. But I will try and be clearer if I can and double check what I say. quote: What if his side is all dead or fled? |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
Mr. Seoul, You ain't gotta answer the question if ya don't want to. I don't want to be pushy and by the way ya keep waltzing around it, I get the picture anyhow. Next yer gonna say ya'd let god take care of him. Which is fine if that's yer choice, even if the dying fella didn't believe in yer god and won't appreciate being left to die slowly and painfully. I reckon we done talked about it enough to know where each others lines in the sand are drawn. And I don't figure that we'll change them lines anytime soon from talking more about it. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
BBP: quote: Well the problem is, if we take your point of view then we'll have to say that your are as bad as a murderer. Reductio ad absurdum. I'll go on thinking you are more decent than that. There's a fundamental difference between animals and humans you're not acknowledging (at least in your philosophy, though in practice you certainly do). But we've already done that thread. quote: That's debatable. But of course desperate situations would make temptations harder to resist. But only in that desperate context can you even begin to make your argument that these two things are morally equatable. Why? Because we don't kill people with the same casual air that well fed people pull through a McDonald's drive-thru for a burger. And people who do, we consider wicked and deranged. quote: So the existence of differing answers somehow implies that they're all right? I know it's not quite as clean cut as mathematics, but people give wrong answers there as well. The thing is, any time you argue passionately and persuasively, you are presupposing a real "right and wrong". quote: Like I said, what someone may be tempted to do in sheer desperation, should not guide legislation. quote: If such legislation is passed, you might be shocked that you would be forced to do just that. and of course I'm not talking about ALL diabetics. But those who don't take care of themselves exist in droves. I see them everyday. Should they be encouraged to keep trying, living? Should they not be given the same "out" that a terminal cancer patient is given just because their remaining time is counted in years rather than months? You are not admitting the overlap, and the bleeding of the dye that will occur. quote: When you're talking like this it really is hard to tell whether you are making a serious point. But if you are, It is safe to say that those who are "a goner" don't need a suicide assistance program. I am not against the patient having a right to refuse the medical treatments which might prolong the imminence of death (which they presently do). quote: And so I wonder if you realize that the view that only "terminal illnesses" will fall under the jurisdiction of MD assisted suicide, is such a cookie-cutter world? quote: The notable difference, which perhaps you don't see, is that no matter the slender chances of surviving the fall, a person would never do such a thing to merely choose a better way of dying ... but in the slender hopes of surviving the fall. And so this cannot be a premise for your conclusion that there are "right reasons to kill yourself". quote: In reality, if a person's "guts are hanging out", that person will imminently die within minutes. Pain can be relieved with a non-lethal dose of morphine or dilaudid. And yes, that will help them die easier. But I believe it is immoral to cause the death, and thus far legislation for hospital medicine supports what I'm saying. I don't know about military medicine, but I suspect its the same. Does that mean there are no doctors in the field who give lethal doses? Of course not. quote: Thank you for restating my argument to a tee. The people getting killed in Darfur don't affect me either. But I am against the killing. And there are many like me who are doing what they can to get it stopped. You seemed to imply earlier that since this "doesn't affect me" I shouldn't bother about Dr-assisted suicide. But apparently you agree now, that whether something directly affects you is not the issue. Good. quote: Someone could also kill themselves in a "cleaner" manner at home. My whole point was, the physical "mess" is irrelevant to the question at hand. quote: What's the price of tea in China? So there's an essential difference here besides the "mess" factor? The lesser occurrence of one phenomenon does not justify the widespread acceptance and sanction of another. quote: And so be deterred. Yeah, that was kinda my point. Stephen |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
BBP: quote: BBP, It's my feeling that no sinful human being has a right to be mad at God. But my feelings don't matter much. Is God as impatient as I am? Do angry questions make him angry? Is God as riled as I am when people cast doubt upon his goodness? I doubt it, especially if the manifestation of God we have is Jesus on the cross praying for his tormentors "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do". There may be an explanation for God's allowance of evil that is not immediately obvious for mortals like ourselves, especially if he is all wise. I wouldn't want to be a Job's friend, and say that all suffering is personally deserved, or say that good can't come from misunderstanding and offense that arises from pain, but if we are part of a deeply guilty race, (as the Bible says we are) then we probably should try to be thankful it isn't worse, and know that our trouble does not cast shadow on the light of the sun. (or in view of the cross, know that it cast more shadow there than we can even imagine) Stephen |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: I may not kill people but I sure ain't more decent than a murderer when it comes to cows and other little critters. I plainly either kill them or have someone kill them for me, and then well I dine on their flesh and it tastes pretty good. And before that, I have em imprisoned just waiting to kill em and eat more of them. I have a choice not to do it, I could just eat vegs, but then ya kill things through displacement when ya plant too many crops, or have to shoot critters who mess with your crop, so somethings gonna die. Just cause you can't face what we do or what we are, don't mean we ain't. I know you think people are something more special than other things but unless ya look into the eyes of a dying critter and realize it's life is just as important to it as ours is to us, then you don't know what you really are. If you eat meat, you murder animals, or kill, or name it whatever you want to not feel bad about doing it. So you may think it's reduced to the absurd to call a carnivore a murderer cause you'll feel better about the bacon you had for breakie, and you might dream the eggs grow on chicken trees, but the facts are we kill things all the time. Don't make us bad, just makes us human. quote: A lot of scientists might disagree wit'cha on that one. Sure there's a difference between a horse and a cat and a monkey and a man, but I ain't romanticising what we are like we is special. Sure we can build a dam, but so can a beaver. Sure we can fish but dolphins do that too. I ain't never seen a monkey use a computer, but I reckon it doesn't have much use for one neither. quote: Yeah I know, you'd be the noble one. Which is great for me if I'd get lost in the desert with you and found me that water. I wouldn't even have to fight ya to keep it. quote: Course not. Like I said to Mr. Ron, it ain't good business for no one to just go off and kill other people for no good reason. quote: Yep, sometimes it does. Cause sometimes there ain't a right or wrong answer, just a course of action that someone either agrees with or disagrees with. I ain't figuring allowing or not allowing assisted suicide will make a better or worse world, I just think it might help a few people out who want that choice. We're you seem to think life would go to hell in a handbag. Like a big old moral collapse would happen and a lot of people would die who wouldn't have to and all that. quote: Well that's an bowl of sour soup. If legislation is supposed to account for what people do, then what people do when they are desperate should count for something in legislation. Ya tellin me that a desperate dying cancer patient should have no say in how desperate dying cancer patients are treated? That to me ain't very nice, and it ain't very wise. [quotes]But those who don't take care of themselves exist in droves. I see them everyday. Should they be encouraged to keep trying, living? [/quote] Course they should, there's a hope for them to live a good life. quote: What do you think? yeah sure, kill them off too cause that's what we are talking about anyhow. Kill em all. Colds, flus, achey back. Lets strangle em with our bare hands. Cause if ya kill off someone on death's door, ya can't stop there, nah, ya gotta keep going till all them sick folk are dead. What was that phrase you used, Redicto Absurd'ish. Some people's situations are hopeless beyond a doubt to have any kind of quality of life cause they are just about dead and in so much pain, they can't wait for death to come a calling. So if you want to make that the same as a diabetic who ain't ben taken care of himself and got to get a foot or leg chopped off and still has a chance to live a few years if he smartens up, then be my guest. quote: Yeah its a real point, cause you ain't comfortable with the word suicide cause you think its wholly bad, just like killing, imprison, slaves, or murder. So when ya eat a steak and such, you call it farming, deli, meat counter, and what not. I call it killing and murder cause that's what it is. And you're saying its safe to say they don't need suicide assistance if they is a goner, but we wouldn't be having this tea party if that were the case. We are talking about it cause people who are goners, sometimes ask for suicide help. You seem to think there minds don't count for nothing when it comes to making decisions about them cause they are just desperate folk, and I don't think that is right. I'm sure as sugar that when you ask for help when desperate, that you want yer voice to be counted for. quote: I'm sure they have there guidelines and such, and try to follow em to a T, but I can't say I figure they'd apporach it like they would treating someone who needs stiches. Just like I can't see them treating someone with diabetes the same as someone a couple days away dying from cancer. quote: That Mr. Stephanos, is just plain wrong and I ain't trying to slap ya in the face or nothing, but a little bit of a naive statement. I can't figure that I'm the only one who'd choose jumping to my death over burning. What would you choose? Burning or jumping, you must have a choice? Or they the same to you? I'm sure a few jump with hope in mind, but I'm sure many who've jumped say from the World Trade Towers weren't fooling themselves with hopes that an angel would scoop em up and save em or they'd find that bouncy soft part of the ground and be all right. quote: Jumping or burning? Pretty simple question really. quote: Well then there ain't no harm in helping him along then is there. quote: Yeah I've seen that too, people in and out of conscious screaming and crying till they die and all confused cause they high. They talk and make no sense and don't know who they are, who you are, or where they are. That's real compassion. I especially love seeing a family have to watch and watch and watch it drag on. Makes my little heart grow that much bigger. quote: You ain't causing the death, the cancer and whatnot is. We'd just be helping someone deal with the final outcome that can't be changed so they ain't got to suffer. You probably think alot of things are immoral but thank the lord there are heathens like me cause with out immoral fellas like myself, you wouldn't be allowed to live with yer partner or have sex with them before marriage, ya wouldn't be allowed to see a rated r movie or sip a whiskey sour, heck that new stem cell stuff would be in the garbage can with out godless barbarians like me. All them surgeries and medicines and what not that you probably dig, half them be in the poop throne too. So when ya speak of morality, ya should try and remember all the "rights" that immorality has given us. And some hospital legislation also says to deny treatments to some people cause they ain't got no money even though it goes against a certain oath people are touting around like a champion belt. So s'cuse me when I roll my eyes a bit when ya say if it's good enuff fer legislation, then its good enuff for me. Or imply that somehow, someway, legislation always makes things "right". quote: Well I ain't been to Darfur, but I'm sure they ain't eager to die, ain't asking for it, and ain't many dying of cancer in a hospital. Big difference is I'm talking about an agreement between consenting parties. One dying and asking for help, and one willing to help them. My whole point about the homeless fella was, you ain't doing much to help the homeless guy, and you ain't losing sleep over it, so why when this doesn't seem to affect you much, that you think the assisted suicide will, cause I think you did say it would affect you. Ya, I know, you's a nurse and all but we covered that stuff too. quote: Yep, I'm saying it don't matter how it affects me or you, that ain't the issue, the issue is how it will affect the people that the decision is being made for. You seem to think that you should have yer nose in every little thing that bugs ya, fine can't stop ya, but what I"m saying, lets stick our nose out of it once a while and empower people with the option of choosing now and again fer them self. Some times yer the best person to make a decision for yerself regardless of what every one else is thinking. I ain't saying always, cause for us to get along and work together and be happy and all that, we got to protect the weak and innocent even sometime from them self. quote: No it ain't cause I explained why it might be more dignified and noble to die in a hospital bed with a doctor's assistance. I think that's at least a little bit important when talking about suicide assistance. And you said carving someone up is as noble as giving em some drug, which it ain't. quote: It don't dismiss it either. The widespread denial or refusal of one phenomenon, does not justify the dismisal of another. The greater occurrence of one phenomenon does not justify the widespread dismissal and refusal of another. Or we could just change it around again to, the occurrance of any phenomenon does not justify nor dismiss the widespread acceptance or refusal of another. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: Who's sinned? I'm clean as a whistle cause ya have to be a christain to have sins and I ain't that. So since your god ain't got no voodoo on me, I think I'll choose to get mad at him once in awhile. Anyhow, if he is all knowing, created everything, done made everything perfectly the way he wants it, then I guess I can say he don't mind if I kick some dirt in his eye now and again. To think that the ruler of all existence gets bent out of shape if I cuss, touch myself, or get a little vexed at him, don't make much sense unless ya consider silly a sense. quote: Whatever floats yer Noah's Ark, I ain't mean to be ripping at your beliefs. I think there's nothing wrong with religion if thats what makes the days pass on by a bit better for ya. But I don't care much for people using religion when legislating on my behalf. If you think it's bad mojo in god's black book for suicide assistance, so be it, but why should anyone with a moral compass set partially by what I consider to be hocus pocus, be allowed to decide what is morally right for me. Though you ain't mention it to me, I'm sure in part some of your disagreement with suicide assistance has to do with fear of god sending ya to the firey depths of hell. So how can I, or other folk like me, trust what you say or the decision you want to make for me, when you are guided by something I think is imaginary? That'd be like me saying Zues told me we should kill the sick and when we die, we'll get a flock of goats and a plot of land on mount olympus. quote: I'm sure that goes over at the hospital like a box of pins at a balloon factory. Try saying that in yer hospital to someone dying or howabout a 95% burn victim. Tell em, be thankful, god could make it worse. Is that anythang like, stop crying or I'll give ya something to cry about? Maybe my daddy was right, maybe he is god cause they sure talk alike. Just keep that religion in check if I'm dying in your hospital or I'm taking you with me. Last thang I want to hear when I'm dying is about how God or Jesus loves me. Pain and suffering ain't showing love to your "children" or flock (yeah I like it when god calls me sheep). If pain and suffereing is showing love to kids, then I think I'll go beat mine right now and tell em I love them as much as god loves me. Maybe next time I take em swimming, and one of em starts drowning, I'll just let it happen and when they ask why I'm doing it, I'll just say you kids don't understand the big picture, it's all cause I love you so much. Then just before they die, I'll tell the little sinners they ain't gonna see god, but the devil cause they ain't gone to church. Yeah all that may sound silly and such to you, but that's exactly how I feel when someone preaches to me. |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
badboypoet, Quite enough killing now. If you agree the entire biological and medical field is advanced on the goal of prolonging life, curing disease and reliving all kind of sufferings, but not on the direction of the best and painlessly killing of terminal ill patients. why? Why not allow natural, or God take the last breath but let human hands choke to death? You may think that you are talking for some people but how many real cases do you know in real life? Just as I asked if you have been to a war. How many terminal ill patients have you visited to let you form your opinion? an opinion has to have a base, right? |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: Then put down yer fork. quote: Actually I think they have. Kervokian didn't use an old rusty razor blade or a big old mallet. quote: Tell ya what Mr. Seoul, I'll let your belief in your God rule my life and make my choices, if you let my belief in sparkely fairies and pagan wood gods rule your life. quote: Bout as much as you have. Have I seen terminal people die, yep. Did they want to die, nope. Did they ask for help in dying, nope again. But I ain't asking to change their choice, or yours. I'm asking to be allowed to have my choice when my time comes and allow others that respect my choice to assist me in passing on to greener pasturs. I ain't interfering with your choices, but you is interferring with mine. I ain't even asking you to like it no more than I like to keep hearing about your god and how he says I can't do it so you won't let me do it. There's a big difference, you all want to stop me from having a choice that mainly only effects me and those who agree with me cause its against your god fearing morals, and I ain't even believe in them. You some how think your morals are above my good sense when it comes to making a choice about me. Well that don't make much sense to me. quote: Mr. Seoul, I ain't never lit myself alight, but I burnt my finger on the stove once or twice, so I'm kinda figuring that burning alive ain't none too pretty. Like I said, I've seen people die, alot of folk have. [Personal attack removed. Your opinions on the post are welcome. You can keep your opinions on the poster to yourself, please. - Ron] I didn't mean no foul by what i said and ain't so sure it was a personal attack, I was just suggesting to Mr. Seoul that the preaching he and Mr. Stephanos was doing probably would be a bitter pill for some to swallow who are in a bad state and all. So my apoligies anyhow if I drove on the wrong side of the road. Ain't figuring any of ya to be part of a mean lot or nuthing so I ain't trying to make any of ya feel bad about what ya say or believe in. Just when ya start telling me that your god, not mine, is deciding my legislation and rights, I get a bit ticked is all. [This message has been edited by badboypoet (04-05-2008 09:52 PM).] |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
quote: This, badboypoet, is the entire, complete, unadorned crux of your entire argument. Everything else -- from killing cows to jumping out of windows to willingly murdering your buddy 'cause you want all the water -- is irrelevant and meaningless. This is it, all of it, and all else you've added are semantic red herrings. You probably feel you need those distractions because your argument doesn't stand up to even casual scrutiny. The only limitation your argument attempts to impose on what should be seen as a very serious act is that someone must be dying. But you can't seem to define what that means? That's hardly surprising since dying isn't a superlative. We're all dying, no one is dying, and there's no such thing as I'm more dying than you're dying. When you get ready to put a gun to someone's head and pull the trigger, how can you be so damn sure that particular person qualifies for your mercy? If a seventeen-year teen who just got his heart broken asks you to pull the trigger, are you going to willingly help him? The kid is dying, after all, even it might be seventy years hence. You didn't set any time limits, remember? Seventy years too long for you? How about a year, then? A month? Fourteen minutes, thirty-five seconds? Give us a number to work with here. And after you do, tell us how you expect that time frame to be exactly determined. You can't just point your finger, say someone is dying, please hand me the gun. And no, you don't get to point someone else's finger, either. Dying is an absolutely meaningless criteria. Quick, go look up the word prognosis. I think you'll discover that the word prediction figures rather prominently in the definition. You don't know when a person is going to die, badboypoet. Neither does a doctor. It's all guesswork, and even if you don't believe in miracles, you should sure as heck believe in history -- which is rampant with documentation of people living beyond all possible expectations. The only possible way to know if someone is going to die in fourteen minutes, thirty-five seconds is to sit back and see if it happens. quote: And that's the other flaw in your argument. Why should your choice be respected any more than the choice of a seventeen-year-old teen with a freshly broken heart? You both want to die because you're in pain and see no hope of your life getting better. Why should we trust your insight any more than we trust his? Anyone who wants to die -- by definition -- is not in a frame of mind to make irreversible decisions about their life. You simply can't be in so much pain you want to die and still be thinking straight. Convince me that the only people you will ever submit to a mercy killing are truly those without any possible hope and we might have something to discuss. But I don't think you can do that. You might get it right ten thousand times in a row, but when someone sets out to play God -- even a god they don't believe in -- mistakes are going to be inevitable. And this isn't an arena where mistakes can be tolerated. All the good you think you've done will be erased the instant you kill someone who could have and should have otherwise lived a long, meaningful life. Especially if that someone is my daughter. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
It may be possible for me to make a decision to die on my own and have that be a decent decision. I can see that potentially and have seen it in reality. My happiness with that decision is not high. In situations where I have had the power to change that decision, I have tried to do so. Sometimes I have even been successful. I have not always been successful, and I still struggle with those situations, wondering what else I might have done to alter things more in the direction of MY choice. To some extend I have in these situations imposed my choice over the choice of other people. When I no longer have any say in what happens to them, I rationalize to myself, they will make a decision that has been influenced by the input that I've supplied. I need to make what I do fair, loving and as kind as possible in the hopes that they may take something from it in making whatever choice they will have to make. When that time comes, as it probably will. As it almost always has. I don't see how it's possible for somebody else to bring another in to serve as an agent to do killing that the suicidal person lacks the will to accomplish in the first place. This places a hideous burden on the agent. When a person uses a police officer to commit suicide by cop, or when somebody throws themselves in front of a moving car, it may be suicide, but it is also an assault by the suicidal person on the person who manages to survive the encounter. One of the not so closely held secrets any more about suicide is that it tends to be contagious. Places where a single suicide appears tend shortly afterward to be followed by clusters of copycat suicides. This was first noted in the 18th Century following the publication of Goethe's classic novel of adolescence, The Sorrows of Young Werther. Following the climactic suicide of the hero of the novel, a rash of imitation suicides broke out across the continent. Today the patterns of suicide are often seen in families over generations, also in schools and certainly in hospitals and prisons. Attempts to deal with suicides as individual situations are understandable and fair, but fail to deal with the issue in its full depth. The right to die, in other words, is but a single segment of an issue that has a more complex social dimension than needs to be brought into the discussion. We've been doing a pretty good job looking at the ethics and the element of personal decision here. We haven't settled these elements by any means. I want to point out that there are social elements to the issue that push it beyond the terms to which we've limited the discussion. No just the individual against the decision to live or die, but the individual and the question of what that individual may rightfully request from peers, and the responsibility the individual bears for the consequences of his or her actions upon the health of the community. Thoughts? Dear BBP, "Mr. Bob" is what some of my friends call me sometimes. When I'm overwhelmed with a case of the terminal cutes, I've been known to use the phrase to describe myself in the third person. If I can ask you to work harder at being understood, I can't really complain, can I? Bob K. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: So you say. Why is it meaningless? I mentioned the cows cause people said it's wrong to assist in suicide cause that's killing, and killing is wrong, but I say it ain't always wrong, and I know you agree cause you seem to be fond of bringing up people going off to war. We kill things all the time, for one reason or another. Don't always make it right, don't always make it wrong. And then people went off and said they'd never kill and it's the law, and that ain't right either cause if put in certain situations they will kill, even if it done gone against their belief system. Then Mr. Seoul said never is killing your self right or something like that. So I says somethun about having lept to yer death instead of burning. And that there list goes on with stuff y'all mention. So y'all keep bringing up these points of why suicide and killing is always bad, but if I done shown a couple situations where that ain't the case, then it can't always be bad. So don't make it out like what I'm saying ain't worth spit. And then course you go on to say can't trust doctors, they sometimes wrong, cept of course the ones who agree with you bout not assisting in suicide. Apparantly then, them doctors opinion is infallible. But I guess dems all red herrings too? I think I done addressed what everyone said with examples of some real type things that done happened, and some things that could likely happen. I ain't sure why you think me addressing the points raised is a net full of red herrings but their points, or your points ain't? quote: Yer dismisal of what i said don't really shake my richter scale. Hard to take yer casual scrutiny too serious when ya liken a heartbroken teen's situation to that of a terminal illness. quote: Maybe, maybe not, I reckon yer right if ya stict to a strict definition, yer either dead or yer alive, but there is such a thing as being closer to death or it's just about yer time to die and stuff like that. quote: Cause there are points of no return when people are just plain old past them and those miracles y'all keep talking about ain't gonna happen. quote: Your really reaching deep in the old pockets fer change to break a dollar ain't ya? I give ya realistic scenarios like a man slowly, painfully, choking to death by a football tumor in his neck and ask ya if you'd let him get assisted suicide, and y'all come back at me with shooting a teenager in his head cause he's heartbroken. You liken a heartbroken kid to someone dying in bed with cancer? Ain't that a shame. I thnk there is a difference between feeling like you want to die, and knowing yer gonna die. But I reckon you talking about shooting a seventeen year old in the head is one of them red herring things ya keep fishing fer cause yer argument doesn't stand up to even casual scrutiny. quote: Course cause I ain't put a watch to it, then it shouldn't be. Maybe each case should be treated like they is, as individuals and then judged accordingly. quote: I ain't claim to be a doctor and so maybe an individual, with an individual circumstance, should be look at in an individual manner to decide if that individual should get his way. One boot don't fit everyone all the time. quote: Yeah, well actually ya can. quote: And here's what I was talking about you getting yer word heels stuck in the mud. Dying maybe dying in the dictionary, but try going up to a terminal patient and say, "hey pal, don't worry, sure you got cancer but we's all dying. Look at that 17 year old with the broken heart, he's dying, sure he got 70 years to live, but he's in the same boat as you." I done think ya know which context I was using it in. But if it makes it easier for y'all to swallow we can change "DYING" or dying or "dying" to something else so we can get past all that mud. quote: I did hop like a bunny to find it for ya, but I am surprised you done needed me to look it up fer you cause you seemed smart enough to find it on yer own. But since ya couldn't find it, here she be, "the prospect of recovery as anticipated from the usual course of disease or peculiarities of the case" and yeah, "prediction" figures prominently in the meaning. Wus the secondary meaning but I figure the first is saying that anyhow. I ain't figuring theres a perfect system anywhere for anything. And I know what y'all say next, then we should not do it cause it involves human life. I'll come back and say, but we done go to war and innocent people die who shouldn't but we still do it anyhow. Then maybe y'all will say, but that there is for the greater good. And I'll agree. But then I'll say, well I think mercy killing is for the greater good, cause no one should have to spend their last moments on earth suffering in unbearable pain when there ain't no hope fer a brighter tomorrow for some, cause there ain't even a tomorrow for some. I figure ain't no one thinks torture is a pleasant death, yet y'all let some folk to have a torturous like death, choking to death, having their insides eaten out by disease and the pain so bad they beg ya to finish em off, but ya won't, all cause yer afraid a heartbroken 17 year old will ask a doctor to kill him self or you to shoot them in the head. Would it make it any better fer y'all if we add a head shrinker into the mix? But I guess we can't trust them either, or at least not the ones that might take a liking to what I've said. quote: Lord have mercy. I ain't saying I can tell when a person is going to die, (though I'm sure a lot of folk know when their whiskey bar of life has called, "last call" cause I done seen that a couple times) and a doctor ain't a hundred percent about a hundred percent of the cases, but I'm sure there comes a time in certain diseases and for certain people, when it's a one hundred percent certainty that they are a goner and won't be around fer much longer. how bout we just help them? How come an elephant is smart enough to know when it's gonna die, but we are special animals, gods little image, or so I'm told here, and we can't even figure it out fer ourselves? We ain't talking about a calculation ya can just tap into a computer, we're talking about a person knowing their body and discussing the fate with a doctor who knows about the body and diseases and such. quote: Yeah if by rampant you done mean when them history books and such right about rare exceptions. They don't write many history books focusing on the 99.9% who die as expected cause that there story ain't as interesting as the ones who make it. And it ain't all guesswork for all cases. Sure might be off by a day or two, but I ain't figuring that to be a wrong guess like it was some bad mistake. quote: Sure it is. But y'all act like if its a second more or less that the doctor shouldn't do it. That every little thing in yer formula has to be exact or it's wrong to do. quote: Mr. Ron, if you can't tell the difference between a heartbroken 17 year old, and a ninety year old me with a inoperable football tumor choking me to death, I can't say yer decision making should be trusted. Why don't ya just put another realistic example of the big flaw in my arguement and done throw in babies asking to be killed cause their toy broke? quote: I sure can see now how that there is my big flaw. No how, no way should you trust a man writhing in pain from a terminal illness (like an inoperable football tumor choking him to death) about what's going on with his body if ya can't trust the wisdom from a broken hearted 17 year old with a bad case of the crushes. I sure done do see how that's the case. Couldn't ya fetch me a more realistic story like you and a baby both want an atomic bomb or something like that there. quote: Well ya confusing things again Mr. Ron. Just cause someone says please kill me, don't mean they "want" to die, like dying and playing the guitar has been a childhood dream of theirs. I am sure they want to live and wish very much they weren't sick and waltzing with the reaper and didn't have that tumor choking them to death. Just as much as a lady jumping to her death to avoid burning ain't "wanting" to jump, but even more, she ain't wanting to burn. Sometime there ain't be a win type of situation left, just a choice. Ain't just a matter of "wanting" to die. It's not like wanting an ice cream or anuther guilty pleasure. It's more a matter of knowing you are pretty much dead cept for the paperwork, and asking not to be in pain anymore cause ya'd rather not drag out the torture of it all. quote: I guess we can just about scrap everything then. I ain't wanting to play god no how, I aim to play a game I'm more familiar with called human. I don't believe there is or ever was a thing called playing god. I think its a silly notion people throw around loosely to excuse things. Shoot, never was there a worse saying than "playing god". quote: Well you probably ain't gonna hear much complaining from the dead. And the folk I"m talking about, well there ain't no fancy movie scene with a doctor running down the hall to stop the assisted suicide cause he just cured cancer. If we do things, the tough things in life that we feel do more good than harm, even like war when we know innocent people will die, or new experimental drugs and surgeries that ain't been proven yet where patient death rates are higher than expected, then sometimes even when someone dies that shouldn't, it don't mean we shouldn't do it, just means we should do our best to make sure we don't make mistakes. And I done know you don't think assisted suicide is doing no one good, and I guess we might always disagree with that there point. But I do think it helps a person pass on "better", and I do think that is a good thing. I know I don't aim to have my family watch me cry in pain fer a week before I die, I'd rather save them the heartache, save me the pain, both physical and watching them watch me, and die with a little dignity and pride left. Not all drugged out, screaming like a madman, pooping and ******* myself like I was a baby again. I done see my granddads die, both of em. One wanted to die at home so we took him out the hospital. He wasted away to nothing and hung on fer months, crying and wailing everyday. Took a terrible toll on the family cause most took turns taking care of him. Wiping his bottom, cleaning up his throw up, holding his hand as he cried. His last words to me was, "I'm so scared". You do right by your family so it don't put me out to have to do stuff like that for a loved one, no more than it would put me out to spare my loved ones from having to do that fer me. And I'm sure if I was gonna check out ahead of scedule, they and me, would much figure it better done by a professional so it is done right. quote: I ain't fooling when I say this, I do hope yer daughter never is sick and put in a situation that we have talked about as much as I hope my kids never get badly sick. I don't wish that fer anyone, foe or friend, or even cow. Well maybe a few foe but not the cows cause I need them healthy so I can eat them. But what if she, and I never hope this, but what if she gets an inoperable football tumor in her neck, is slowly choking to death and constantly begs for doctors suicide assistance cause she just wants to die right now but can't. What will you say to her? Will you dismiss her opinions as quickly as mine, tell her that her argument is flawed and doesn't stand up to casual scrutiny? Or will ya tell her she ain't allowed cause your worried bout a heartbroken 17 year old asking to be shot in the head? |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: You are assuming that it be a burden too big for everyone who did it. I could do it. Wouldn't be fun but I'd take on that burden. Plus what if a person who wanted to die, ain't lacking will, but lacking nohow or physical capabilities. Some poor soul trapped in a bed ain't rushing out to get sleeping pills or a gun. quote: Well dang, I ain't know what to call ya anymore, one fella tells me friendly names are disrespectful until yer friends, so I figure I'll call everyone Mr. since it's a formal sign of respect while keeping a distance. Now I find you done use it as a friendly term, and I ain't suppose to use those terms until I get the secret handshake. |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
quote: You must be thinking of someone else, badboypoet. I don't bring up war to either justify or denounce suicide. If I did, it would just be a meaningless distraction because they are in no way related. quote: Your time to die? At the risk of another distraction, that sounds dangerously close to a religious tenent? If humans come with an expiration date, no one has found where it's stamped yet. So, no, any concept of one person being closer to the death than another is only viable in hindsight, when looking into the past, not when looking into the future. We don't know. quote: No, but we're not talking about boots. We're talking about laws. If you want someone to be an exception to the law, that's absolutely fine. But you have to spell it out. "I'll know it when I see it" isn't necessarily the best way to govern society. quote: I'm guessing you never tried to console a seventeen-year-old with a broken heart? To him, his pain is pretty darn real. But then that, too, is another distraction. You can, of course, change the word dying if you want to. You're the one who used it in your argument, so please, feel free to change it. But don't expect me to do it for you. If not dying, what criteria do you want to use for killing someone? quote: I think we just figured out who keeps bringing up war. I'll make you deal. I'll stop advocating war if you stop advocating assisted suicide? Birth also leads to death, but I don't think it has much in common with assisted suicide beyond that. Your analogy is flawed. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of ways we kill each other, either quickly or slowly, intentionally or accidentally, and none of them have anything at all to do with your desire to kill someone just because they ask you to. quote: Sure it is. Actuary tables can result in some incredibly good guesswork, but it's still guesswork. Besides, we're not talking about tables, we're talking about people. You're the one who keeps saying we should treat these people as individuals. Please don't try to use statistics now? Even were I to accept your statistic (which we both know you pulled out of thin air), I wouldn't be satisfied with simply knowing that 99.9 percent of your death predictions are true. I need to know which 99.9 percent. And I need to know before, not after, you snuff out the .1 percent. quote: It doesn't necessarily have to be a second. That's up to you. You still haven't given us any numbers, though. Do you want accuracy within days? Months? Years? Decades? And, yes, given that you want to take a person's life based on when you think they'll die, I don't think accuracy is too much to expect. quote: I can tell the difference, badboypoet. The argument you keep putting forth, however, clearly can't. And, yea, that's precisely why it shouldn't be trusted. quote: See what I mean? That one sentence can, indeed, be used to describe a person slowly choking to death. OR it can be used to describe Romeo and Juliet. YOU don't differentiate. quote: You have my sincere sympathy. And, I hope, at least a modicum of understanding. For me, it was my dad. Followed, just a short year later, by my mom. It seems like only yesterday. The pain and grief are still raw, the memories still so very vivid. I don't think we should ignore our memories, but neither should we ignore that they ARE memories. We are looking into the past with the seeming clarity of hindsight. Do you remember the precise instant when you abandoned hope? I can't. There probably was no instant, at least not for me. It was a process, I think. A very long one. My dad, in particular, was a giant, burly man, and his thirty-some years on the railroad had left him strong of both heart and body. At 79, he could still hold the weight of his fourteen-year-old grandson on one extended arm, much as he had done with me fifty years earlier. The cancer had a mountain of flesh to devour before it could find and consume his core. My dad did not go softly into the night, but lingered long beyond anyone's hope of recovery, beyond even Mom's muttered prayers for a miracle. When Dad finally passed, we thought it a blessing. I remain convinced, however, that the blessing had to come in its own time. Many years before that, I also had to help bury my little seven-year-old brother-in-law. Donny was born very late in life, back in the early Seventies when there was much less understanding of Down's Syndrome than there is today. I introduced his father to his mother, so was there from the beginning. And my wife at the time was particularly close to her little, unexpected brother, though certainly no one who ever met Donny could ever fail to love the bubbling tyke immediately. Down's Syndrome sometimes brings with it a host of related conditions, including congential heart defects. Donny had a hole in his heart. The doctors all agreed he would never see his first birthday. Later, they agreed he wouldn't make it to his second. That went on for seven years and countless operations, leaving scars of dead flesh branded the width and breadth of his chest, a too-white "T" that always marked Donny as different. I'm not sure if Donny ever knew a single moment of life without pain. I know his mother and sister didn't. I watched each of them, when they didn't know they were being watched, cry their silent tears. I think I cried a few of my own. Yet through it all, just knowing Donny made the pain bearable. He was the happiest, most joyful soul I have ever known. When you walked into a room, Donny always greeted you with a bubbly smile and laugh, with eager eyes that at least momentarily made you feel like the most important person in the world. His arms would immediately extend for a hug and I never knew anyone who could deny him. Donny was love incarnate. The hard questions have to be asked, badboypoet, if perhaps only rhetorically. When do you think Donny's pain should have been terminated? Think back to your own grandfather; would you have ended his life seven years earlier so he didn't have to suffer? A year earlier? Six months? I can guarantee you, if he was human, he knew pain. At what point do you think the cost of life should outweigh our desire to live? When does relief become more precious than life? People, sometimes, can be smug. I've met a lot of young people (and, indeed, used to be one) who said they never wanted to grow old. I've met a lot of healthy people who said they would not want to live if it meant being blind, being deaf, being unable to walk. My own dad reminded us that he used to often say he never wanted to live long enough for someone to wipe his butt for him. We really don't know what we will tolerate, though, until it comes. And when you look at people like Helen Keller, or Steven Hawking, or Christopher Reeve, or tens of thousands like them, you really have to wonder if there is -- or ever should be -- any limitation on our tolerance for hardship and pain. In my experience, old people don't want to die. Those who cannot see, hear, or walk aren't ready to give up the ghost. And even those who face a daily loss of their dignity generally want to give life another go. Pain is not a reason to give up living. Pain is just an excuse. The only people who ever want to die are the ones who have lost their hope. And, yea, sustained pain and a dim prognosis can certainly result in a loss of hope. I'll give you that. But a broken heart can lead to the same result. Teenage hormones can, too. Clinical depression is rife with hopelessness. Even drugs can do it. There's simply too many known instances where hopelessness is clearly unjustified. A complete loss of hope is probably the saddest thing in the world, but it CANNOT be a reliable indicator for when life should end. Sorry, but I will not trust the person who tells me they want to die to be making rational decisions. And I sure as hell don't trust the person who thinks himself so infallible that he's willing to help them. [This message has been edited by Ron (04-06-2008 03:24 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
"'You can't just point your finger, say someone is dying, please hand me the gun.'" 'Yeah, well actually ya can.' —————————————————————————— Dear BBP, Certainly you can. This is often called "Murder." As had been pointed out, by myself among others, we are all born dying. At some time or another there is somebody who is happy to point out that fact about each of us. For those of us who haven't taken the point, law suggests this is not sufficient reason for canceling another person's check, and supplies sanctions. My mother has an inoperable brain tumor, and has had for more than 20 years. It isn't happy, but somebody in a similar situation with a depression might easily decide for a suicide. The brain tumor is still inoperable, you're still willing to pull the trigger because of that and because the (most likely treatable) depression is distorting her reality testing. [Lengthy passage removed. Please limit discussion to the posts. Not the posters. - Ron] [This message has been edited by Ron (04-06-2008 07:55 PM).] |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
Dear Ron, powerful and touching write. I am not able to imagine how you went through THEM by yourself. Back to the thread. there must be a truth. And I believe that the truth is: people don't want to die. So don't help them to die. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: Nope, you done mentioned fighting and killing and dying fer yer rights as having a choice such as we done did in WWII and against them Brits to gain Independence. It wsa done said in counter of me saying about them sex slaves either doing sex or dying. Tha only reason I bring all this up is, folks are saying all thier reasons against assisted suicide, one of em is cause its killing and killing is wrong. I aimed ta show that killing ain't black and white, and it ain't always wrong and so ya can't solely dismiss assisted suicide based on them grounds. Can't justify it on that there one reason either cause not like suicide is a black and white thing neither but it may be part of the large picture and how we done look at it. Though we look to outside issues fer examples to relate complecated things to, don't meen when we find em, it makes things right or wrong, but don't mean they ain't hold some water either. Them more understandable things we can relate it to, the more we might gain wisdom fer making a tough decision. quote: Nah, I meant that there in a medicine way. All our time hear is limited even if we ain't know the expiry date down to a second. If I was there holding a bible when I done said it and pointing up ta the clouds, then I reckon you could say so. quote: You done said some conflicting things... quote: So when yer dad was at that stage "beyond hope of recovery," that ain't hindsight and how come you can tell but ya figure most of us can't when we're at that stage? And would you say at that there point in your pa's life, he was closer to death than you? I ain't talking it the strictist sense of them words (like we're all dying), I talking about how we folks use loosen up the neck ties on them words to relate hard ta communicate type things. And ya have my sympathies too Mr. Ron. That there is a tough storm ya had to weather. Funny enuff, my grandpa worked the rails too, that and hunted. Strongest man I met, could rip telephone book in half when he was younger, fitter than a fiddle in his eighties until he done got sick. quote: It shouldn't be terminated. I wouldn't let a person afflicted with down syndrome play with a gun, or drive a truck cause they ain't able to do so responsibly. And since Donny ain't able to make a choice about smaller things like driving, although it ain't nice to take away "rights" he shouldn't be allowed ta choose assisted suicide. And I don't figure others should be allowed ta choose for him either. I ain't aksing fer anyone to choose for anyone else, I asking for people to be allowed their own choice. quote: Depends on tha person and they own situation. I ain't figure you can answr that fer someone else. But there has to be a point cause sane people done kill themselves too. quote: fer sure! That there is why a choice is needed. I ain't sure when my time comes if I could pull my own plug, and get help doing it, but I done want that choice. There is pain that will knock a man flat out cold. What if yer last two weeks were filled with days that seemed endless where ya just wake up, have such bad pain ya keep passing out than waking up to more pain and on it went. I done wouldn't let it happen to a dog, and I ain't even give a dog a choice, so I sure ain't want to let it happen to a person who done asked to be treated better than a dog. quote: We all can do what we can do. I ain't done fault the brilliant Mr. Hawking fer any of his weaknesses, not that I done know what they are - side from the obvious, but we all have limitations, that there is a fact. As much as there is potential, there is also limitations. Everythang and everyone can be stretched and pulled and twisted only so far before they break. But I want to ask you, if Stephen Hawking done got himself a tumor in his neck, and was slowly choking ta death and asked fer assisted suicide (cause he ain't able ta do it himself) what then? He done ain't even have the choice ta kill himself like we do, cause he ain't got the body to. If y'all saying a person should never get someone else involved if they done choose to kill themself, how can a smart, sane fella like a Mr. Hawking, be considered to have that option when he ain't even able to tie his shoe? quote: Heck no they don't. Most people don't want to die ever. I ain't blame em, I don't want to die. Like I say a little while back, I don't figure people choosing assisted suicide "want" to die either, but I done liken it to a person trapped in a tall building that's being swallowed whole by a bad old fire with no way of help getting to them. That there person knows they only got themselves two realistic choices. Burn ta death, or jump to death. If they burn ta death, they ain't killing themselves but the last minute of their life would be like taking a swim in a volcano I reckon. If they done jump, they killing them self and sparring them self all that pain and suffering. I done figure ya can't fault someone fer jumping. Or do ya figure them wrong fer jumping? If so, why? If not then ya can't say suicide is wholly a bad thang when faced with certain options. Ain't no final page in the final chapter in no one's life should as a bunch of screams. quote: You say "lost their hope", I think I have ta differ, cause it ain't always so, sometimes, there ain't no hope to be had. quote: No it can not, I agree there, but there is hope and then there is realistic conclusions. There are certainties in life, well ya could start going into the law of probibility and all that there stuff, but we should really make our decisions on other stuff than alternate universes and such. There comes a point in a lot of diseases that it is for certain near the end. That there ain't no bouncing back. Yeah I ain't saying they got that down to a second or a day, but considering ya think no one can predict death, they is pretty close pretty often. quote: Agin Mr Ron, ya keep using want to. I think we done agree on people not wanting to die, even the sick, maybe espeically them. BUT, What if they done say, "I don't want to die, but I done have two choices, die by slowly choking to death and in great pain, or git me a doctor to inject me with something to make me pass on." Ain't that there similar to my example of a person in a building on fire? You done ain't never answered that hypothetical but realistic question. And I done seen people choose to jump to their death on tv more than once to avoid being burned to death. |
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badboypoet Member
since 2008-03-11
Posts 96 |
quote: But ain't that there how we make all our decisions for the future? Through our memories? Ain't that what decides our future actions? quote: Ain't nobody asking YOU to have to trust. But that there don't mean other folk should be denied something cause you don't trust it. I know ya think most of what I've been saying is pointless and irrelevent. But what here I been trying to establish is I reckon these here things. 1. Is killing ALWAYS "wrong"? 2. Is suicide ALWAYS "wrong"? 3. Is killing someone who's asking to die, ALWAYS "wrong"? (such in war time) 4. Is #1 and #2 and #3 major points in assisted suicide, which if ya boil the pot down to the bottom, I think so. Assisted suicide is both killing and suicide. 5. So if killing ain't always wrong, and suicide ain't always wrong, and even assisting in suicide ain't always wrong. The question in my mind ain't so much, is assisted suicide "wrong"? Cause it ain't, but the question is when is it "right"? And when should it be permited or tolerated? Not "IF" it should, but "WHEN". That there is where I am at. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/faqs.shtml#whatis . There's also the question of a "living will" that directs no extraordinary medical measures be taken . . . . |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
BBP: quote: If you're like me, you haven't even been able to live up to your own standards, much less God's. And if God is the creator of all, it would stand to reason that he is the judge of all. And I know it is the fundamental idea of God and personal sin that you are denying, but if it were all true, wouldn't sinners tend to do that very thing? In C.S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces", Orual (someone who also had a complaint against the gods) wrote in her realization at the end of the book, "Long did I hate you, long did I fear you." I've been there too (maybe sometimes still) so I'm certainly not condemning you. Just something for you to think about. quote: Are there Freudian implications to being mad at a God you don't believe in? I once read a vitriolic poem in which the speaker went on and on cursing God and ended by saying something to the effect of "you don't exist and you know it too!" Do you see an irony is this kind of thing? And yet I see it pretty often. quote: If you'll go back and read what I wrote, you'll see that I mentioned that the best image of God we have is Jesus forgiving his tormentors. Is that getting "bent out of shape"? And yet, if we remain in rebellion, or with misconceptions, or refuse to change, we'll have to live or die with those implications. The best interpretation of what scriptures says as a whole, is that it is we who are the bent-out-of-shape ones (though precious in God's eyes). The question is, are we willing to be fixed? quote: This thread, to begin with, wasn't about religion at all ... until you brought it up. Of course, as a Christian, my faith naturally influences my entire view of life, and so informs my thinking on issues like this. But its really no different with you. Your own philosophy and religious (or anti-religious) inclination informs the way you see and argue this issue. For example, your belief that there is no essential or soulish difference between humans and animals, fuels your belief that killing a suffering person would be no different than a fateful trip to the Vet. So you really shouldn't scold anyone for allowing their deeply held beliefs to inform their worldview (even in the areas of legislation), because it is unavoidable for everyone. Besides, there are certainly many non-Christians who are opposed to Doctor-assisted-suicide as well. And while I would say that their particular view of this issue is more at home with Christian belief, their opposition should suggest to you that its better just to debate the issue at hand, than to chide for having an ideology or religion. It's the Kettle and the Pot. quote: Hey there's a time and place for everything. I'm not about chiding someone for "not being thankful enough", or for lack of piety in the middle of their troubles. Even Job's friends were at their best when they kept their mouths shut and simply loved their ailing friend. When they started wielding theology like a weapon, they were quite out of line. And yet ... the hospital is not without opportunities for encouragement in areas of piety. I met a man the other day who was in the ICU with multiple debilitating health problems, whose personal joy and countenance put me to shame. For some, an alleged approaching oblivion offers no real consolation, but the knowledge of the gospel does. There is a place for "Jesus loves me" even in the most difficult trials, though you're right that it is not for everyone at every moment. I try to be sensitive to when and how. quote: But you do know that anger can distort the picture too, right? It is deeper than: "they ain't gonna see God but the devil cause they ain't gone to church". And if the gospel has been presented in this manner to you, it is understandable for you to feel that way. But I would still ask you to consider whether that's what preachers are saying. Or if they are, is that what the Bible really presents us with? Mister Bob, I wanted to respond to something you wrote, though it has apparently been nixed. But I'll try to respond to what I consider to be the thrust of what you were saying. If you'll go back and read my quote where I wrote "It's my feeling that no sinful human being has a right to be mad at God." you should notice that it was followed by: "But my feelings don't matter much. Is God as impatient as I am? Do angry questions make him angry?". Then I went on to describe Jesus praying for his tormentors. Your response to me seemed to dismiss that I said this, though you expressed much of the same sentiment. So I guess we actually agree that God is "above" petty human examples of anger and vengeance. And yet there's another side too. As you always like to say, the issue is more complicated that we've discussed so far. There is the patience and love of God presented in scriptures. There is the picture of God who is lovingly unperturbed at the "anger" and misconception of man. But there is also the plain statement that to remain in anger and misconception will bring harm to oneself, a harm that is just as much a result of one's chosen character as it is an imposed punishment. The two are really different descriptions of the same thing. We are shown the patience of God, but we are also told that it is a patience that can ultimately be rejected or forsaken to our ruin. Those are (accepting the Christian view) God's words. But there is also the precedent in scripture of what mortals say to mortals about this subject. God may be patient to Job's bitter questioning of divine providence, but Job himself tells his wife that she is behaving foolishly when she tells him to "curse God and die" with a proud and yet tragic kind of protest (Job 2:9). In the Pauline letters, God reveals himself as having "unlimited patience" (1 Timothy 1:16) yet Paul elsewhere writes things like "Who are you O man, to talk back to God?" (Romans 9:20). Jesus tells a condemned criminal on the cross next to him "today you will be with me in paradise", yet that same criminal rebukes another saying "Don't you fear God"? (Luke 23:39-43). So when it comes to one mortal talking to another, such criticism is sometimes appropriate. It's not about God being "prissy" and needing defense, or being capricious and mean, but of conviction. And really, this kind of balance is true to life. Even the most loving and patient people we know have moments where they can be austere and reproving. Something like this is true of God as well, though these things are only imperfect images of his own character. And yes we do get it wrong. Sometimes, like Job's friends, we reprove for no good reason, and at other times, like Job's wife, we reinforce someone's self pity and anger at divinity. Just something for you to consider Bob. Anyway, back to the subject of Euthanasia? Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: 1, 2, and 3—I can't imagine how anybody could possibly tell. You could get people at fight with you about that, but you'd probably have trouble agreeing on any sort of authority to mediate, wouldn't you? Part of the reason for this becomes clear when we look at the actual meaning of the verb "to kill." I've taken my definition from The New Oxford American Dictionary, which for discussions informal as this one is generally sufficient. If you insist on running to the OED, do it yourself. There are further definitions listed, which you may check at your convenience. The one which appears to the point is the first one. kill 1 "cause the death of (a person, animal, or other living thing)". The dictionary then adds examples. That is, the matter of will and intention are left out of the definition. That is why the general translation of the commandment Thou shalt not Kill may occasionally be disputed. I am no speaker of Hebrew, nor do I know the literature, but I am told the translation is more precisely, Though shalt not murder. Speaking of murder, The new Oxford American Dictionary defines the the noun in question as "the unlawful premeditated killing on one human being by another." The dictionary adds that the killing is done 1) to a human being; 2) that it is unlawful; and 3) that it is premeditated. Suicide is "the act of killing ones self intentionally." Historically it has been called "self-murder." I believe without good-enough evidence to attempt to assert my belief as anything like fact that the current definition is one that represents a bit of a historic change. If there are others with more of a scholarly bent than I have in either direction, I'd like to know what you think about this. BBP, I've let you toss in your references to killing and forks and as though they were the equivalent of one person killing another person unlawfully and with premeditation on several times. I don't like the thought of meat eating, though I do eat meat. I would like to register however that I do believe there is a difference between a Quarter pounder from Mickey-the-D and Aunt Emily, and despite your occasionally very funny come-backs, I believe you think there's a difference as well. If you were a vegan, for example, I know for SURE you never eat at MacDonalds. Aunt Emily, you're on your own. The thing that makes assisted suicide wrong is the one two three punch in the definition of murder. I have no idea what the actual legal definition involves, which may be more complex still. In the terms I am talking about, the terms of the way the language uses the words, assisted suicide is murder. The exception might be possible with something called an advance directive, having to do with what measures will be taken in maintaining life in extreme situations. Food or breathing assistance or hydration might be withheld in combination with drug therapy. By keeping the actions of the helpers within the range of "lawfulness" the charge of murder might be avoided. You'd need a legal opinion on that one. A comment on spelling: Above you used the phrase, "Well dang!" I believe the correct form is "Whale Daang!" I await your comment, sir. The form I use is generally preferred among right-thinking hornswogglers because of the secondary suggestion of cetacean anatomy. It is a whale of a tale, sir. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Stephen, I should know better than to imagine a lack of compassion on your part. You bear lovely witness, not to try to stir up pride, simply I think in being yourself. It's a better world for your being in it. As for being angry at God, I can't tell you. With some people, oddly enough, it's a sort of lover's quarrel. There are jokes Jews tell among themselves that illustrate this. Every day a guy joins his fellows to make a tenth, what they call "a minyan" so that they can have a service early in the morning. And every day, while he's praying, he's also complaining to The Nameless. "Tell me," he complains, "You Who fixed the orbits of the planets, and offered the Covenant to Israel, and Who gave us The Sabbath and made It Holy, why is it you arranged for me to win The Lottery. My brothers could use the money, my wife could use the money, my cousin Wulf, that putz, I could give him some money and maybe he'd move out of my aunt's house. I could give money to the Schul. Why is it you won't arrange for me to win the lottery.?" Day after day, Stephanos. Year after year. Decade after decade. Time passes. Wulf has kids, and they're as bad as Wuf was. The Schul is falling into ruin. The guy's wife is sick, and still he shows up to make the early morning minyan, and every day he complains to the Nameless. Finally, one day in the guy's eightieth year, all the other men from the minyan have gone back home or to work and our hero is taking off his prayer box and bindings, and folding his prayer shawl, complaining to YWHA, and a miraculous voice fills the pitiful little sanctuary. Plaster dust shakes lightly from the walls and ceiling, a couple of the ancient light bulbs blow out; and our guy looks up from what he's doing. "SO, DUMMY!," says the Voice,"WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BUY A TICKET?" With some people, I guess I'm trying to tell you, it's part of their dialogue of faith. Judaism is filled with jokes like these, and Jews laugh in recognition. There's probably some difference between the Old Testament God, when you think about Him; and the God of the Diaspora, now that I think on it. But that's another discussion, isn't it? I hope you at least enjoyed the joke. Best, Bob. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob, I don't think one need go as far as imagining a "different God" for different conditions and periods of history. God doesn't change, but since we do, his approach with us was bound to. A Davidic community needed to understand the unconditional faithfulness of God, and so they were given grandiose promises. A later smug and self-righteous community who couldn't conceive that God might allow harm to their Temple and status of favor, no matter how wicked the community had become, needed to understand the holiness of God in judgement, and so were given the trials of foreign invasion and deportation to humble them. A post-exilic community needed to understand the importance of holding to hope even when the dreams of the past seem shattered beyond repair ... and to see God move again to restore the community. One can see how an father treats an infant, toddler, child, and teenager differently without proposing that a new father steps in each time. Of course this kind of approach might be unavoidable for those who think God is only a product of human artifice and not ontologically and personally real. But yes, complaint and the "lover's quarrel" is a part of the dialogue of faith. Some of us would never talk to our wives if we didn't have friction to get things started. And having said all of that, Yes, I can appreciate the humor. Reminds me somewhat of "Fiddler on the Roof". And I appreciate your gracious reply. Stephen |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
On the subject of Dr-assisted Suicide, I think the general philosophy and aim of hospice care is in direct opposition to the Kervorkian philosophy. Anyone who is curious can look up "Hospice" and read about it. It might also provide material for further discussion on this thread. Stephen |
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