Is Assisted Suicide “Putting People Down? A question that spans during birth to awaiting death.
Article first and comments after.
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Posted: May 07, 2016 12:01 AM
Assisted Suicide Is “Putting People Down”
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Cortney O'Brien
Last year the UK TV personality Ursula Presgrave generated controversy by her Facebook posting: “Anyone born with down syndrome should be put down, it’s just cruel to let them lead a pointless life of a vegetable.” Aside from the remarkable ignorance she displays about people with Down Syndrome, I’m troubled by the dehumanizing rhetoric. She thinks we should “put down” some of our fellow human beings, as though they are nothing but animals.
It may seem at first glance that her comments have no real connection to the assisted suicide debate, because she is calling for murder, not suicide. However, when one examines the debates over assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, the same kind of mentality emerges. Robert Baxter, who successfully sued in Montana for the right to get physician-assisted suicide, stated, “I just feel if we can do it for animals, we can do it for human beings.”
In my new book, The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life I provide many more examples—some of them rather shocking—of the way that our intellectual culture has promoted the view that humans should be treated like animals—or even like machines. Ironically, however, proponents of assisted suicide are trying to take the moral high-ground by insisting that their position gives humans more dignity.
The crucial question then is: Does assisted suicide for terminally ill patients really provide a “Death with Dignity”? Or, is it a bold step downward into the depths of degradation by treating our fellow humans as just another animal?
CARTOONS | Robert Ariail
View Cartoon
According to Death with Dignity, last year twenty-four states plus Washington, DC, introduced legislation to legalize assisted suicide (four states had already legalized it earlier). Except in California, this legislation failed, but the success in California has given renewed encouragement and optimism to the pro-assisted suicide lobby.
It is understandable that people nearing the end of their lives should want to avoid excruciating pain and debility. However, is death preferable to sickness and pain? Does pain or disability alter our lives to such an extent that such a person’s life has no value?
Let’s make no mistake about it: Legislation allowing physician-assisted suicide conveys a powerful message: Your life—if you have terminal illness—is no longer important or valuable, so we will not only permit you, but we will help you, kill yourself.
But who am I to impose my value judgments on others, especially those in misery who desperately want relief? The most powerful argument in favor of physician-assisted suicide is that we should respect every individual’s autonomy. Let each individual decide if his or her life has value any longer.
However, the argument from autonomy is internally incoherent. Because we as a society value personal freedom, we have banned slavery, because enslavement would violate their right to liberty. In the same way, we should not allow people to choose to kill themselves, because suicide brings an end to their autonomy.
Ironically, according to surveys of patients in Oregon who requested physician-assisted suicide, the number one reason for making the request was not pain. This is a crucial point, because all the hype surrounding passage of assisted-suicide laws centers on compassion for people suffering pain. Rather, patients more often claim that the reason they want assisted suicide is because they fear losing autonomy and control as their physical condition deteriorates. Ironically, their fear of losing autonomy prompts them to take action to end their autonomy altogether. Decisions to commit suicide by terminally ill patients are not based on reason, but on fear of the unknown, fear of losing control of one’s functions. Yet multitudes of elderly and disabled people live fulfilling, happy lives, so often the fear is unfounded.
Further, as a society we restrict people’s autonomy all the time, when we know that bad decisions are likely to destroy lives. We ban cocaine, force people to wear seat belts, and spend large sums of money preventing people from committing suicide by flinging themselves from the Golden Gate Bridge. These are all legal restrictions on people’s autonomy.
If this legislation is really based on autonomy, then to be consistent we should be willing to assist any competent adult commit suicide for any reason whatsoever. Why only terminally ill patients? This is completely arbitrary, which is why the slippery slope argument against assisted suicide has such force.
Indeed, if we examine countries where physician-assisted suicide is legal—the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland—we find evidence confirming the slippery slope argument. In the Netherlands physicians regularly flaunt the law by killing patients without consent; in 2005 about 0.4% of all deaths in the Netherlands were physician-administered euthanasia without the patient’s consent, despite the fact that this is technically illegal.
In Belgium physicians are killing mentally ill patients. In one infamous case in 2013 a physician administered euthanasia to a woman who was physically healthy, but had been sexually abused by another psychiatrist. In Switzerland, suicide “clinics” are killing people for any reason whatsoever. One Italian woman distraught because she was losing her physical beauty travelled to Switzerland and ended her life in a suicide clinic.
Instead of passing legislation that effectively tells some people that their lives are not very valuable, and that tells physicians that they can help some people kill themselves, we should encourage people to love and comfort those who are suffering. Let’s help people fight pain, not kill people who are in pain. Let’s not become so degraded that we think it proper to “put people down.”
Article Ends
For some reason i suppose because it seems fitting this went under philosophy or more correctly the application of a philosophy.
Comment One I thought it would do more justice to each stage of life not melding them together but upon reflection decided this approach had merit.
The differences are a baby 'being born' or a capable of viability in the event of a premature birth has no choice. Neither does a Downs Syndrome or other afflicted but born ....individual....but the other side is terminally ill or terminal having made a cognizant choice and letting that choice be known in advance.
The degrees between the two extremes vary the answer to some to others change their minds not at all.
I'm going to cut to the chase as this one was really aimed at assisted suicide. First started in Oregon in the USA.
Having witnessed the degrading life one parent had to live and the toll on the sister unit who provided the care I came to a hard conclusion and filed my papers on the side of pull the plug. or better yet never plug it in. The conscious loss of dignity of a once proud adult who couldn't make it to the toilet without leaving the waste product scattered on the floor between there and the bed was one deciding factor and watching him, my own father, beg the Doctors for release was a second. There was no miracle cure no real disease except the disease of old age and the indignity of such a life. Finally Alzheimers set in.
|
Posted: May 07, 2016 12:01 AM
Assisted Suicide Is “Putting People Down”
Recommended
Dozens of Parents Sue DOE Over Illinois Transgender Bathroom Law
Cortney O'Brien
Last year the UK TV personality Ursula Presgrave generated controversy by her Facebook posting: “Anyone born with down syndrome should be put down, it’s just cruel to let them lead a pointless life of a vegetable.” Aside from the remarkable ignorance she displays about people with Down Syndrome, I’m troubled by the dehumanizing rhetoric. She thinks we should “put down” some of our fellow human beings, as though they are nothing but animals.
It may seem at first glance that her comments have no real connection to the assisted suicide debate, because she is calling for murder, not suicide. However, when one examines the debates over assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, the same kind of mentality emerges. Robert Baxter, who successfully sued in Montana for the right to get physician-assisted suicide, stated, “I just feel if we can do it for animals, we can do it for human beings.”
In my new book, The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life I provide many more examples—some of them rather shocking—of the way that our intellectual culture has promoted the view that humans should be treated like animals—or even like machines. Ironically, however, proponents of assisted suicide are trying to take the moral high-ground by insisting that their position gives humans more dignity.
The crucial question then is: Does assisted suicide for terminally ill patients really provide a “Death with Dignity”? Or, is it a bold step downward into the depths of degradation by treating our fellow humans as just another animal?
CARTOONS | Robert Ariail
View Cartoon
According to Death with Dignity, last year twenty-four states plus Washington, DC, introduced legislation to legalize assisted suicide (four states had already legalized it earlier). Except in California, this legislation failed, but the success in California has given renewed encouragement and optimism to the pro-assisted suicide lobby.
It is understandable that people nearing the end of their lives should want to avoid excruciating pain and debility. However, is death preferable to sickness and pain? Does pain or disability alter our lives to such an extent that such a person’s life has no value?
Let’s make no mistake about it: Legislation allowing physician-assisted suicide conveys a powerful message: Your life—if you have terminal illness—is no longer important or valuable, so we will not only permit you, but we will help you, kill yourself.
But who am I to impose my value judgments on others, especially those in misery who desperately want relief? The most powerful argument in favor of physician-assisted suicide is that we should respect every individual’s autonomy. Let each individual decide if his or her life has value any longer.
However, the argument from autonomy is internally incoherent. Because we as a society value personal freedom, we have banned slavery, because enslavement would violate their right to liberty. In the same way, we should not allow people to choose to kill themselves, because suicide brings an end to their autonomy.
Ironically, according to surveys of patients in Oregon who requested physician-assisted suicide, the number one reason for making the request was not pain. This is a crucial point, because all the hype surrounding passage of assisted-suicide laws centers on compassion for people suffering pain. Rather, patients more often claim that the reason they want assisted suicide is because they fear losing autonomy and control as their physical condition deteriorates. Ironically, their fear of losing autonomy prompts them to take action to end their autonomy altogether. Decisions to commit suicide by terminally ill patients are not based on reason, but on fear of the unknown, fear of losing control of one’s functions. Yet multitudes of elderly and disabled people live fulfilling, happy lives, so often the fear is unfounded.
Further, as a society we restrict people’s autonomy all the time, when we know that bad decisions are likely to destroy lives. We ban cocaine, force people to wear seat belts, and spend large sums of money preventing people from committing suicide by flinging themselves from the Golden Gate Bridge. These are all legal restrictions on people’s autonomy.
If this legislation is really based on autonomy, then to be consistent we should be willing to assist any competent adult commit suicide for any reason whatsoever. Why only terminally ill patients? This is completely arbitrary, which is why the slippery slope argument against assisted suicide has such force.
Indeed, if we examine countries where physician-assisted suicide is legal—the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland—we find evidence confirming the slippery slope argument. In the Netherlands physicians regularly flaunt the law by killing patients without consent; in 2005 about 0.4% of all deaths in the Netherlands were physician-administered euthanasia without the patient’s consent, despite the fact that this is technically illegal.
In Belgium physicians are killing mentally ill patients. In one infamous case in 2013 a physician administered euthanasia to a woman who was physically healthy, but had been sexually abused by another psychiatrist. In Switzerland, suicide “clinics” are killing people for any reason whatsoever. One Italian woman distraught because she was losing her physical beauty travelled to Switzerland and ended her life in a suicide clinic.
Instead of passing legislation that effectively tells some people that their lives are not very valuable, and that tells physicians that they can help some people kill themselves, we should encourage people to love and comfort those who are suffering. Let’s help people fight pain, not kill people who are in pain. Let’s not become so degraded that we think it proper to “put people down.”
Article Ends
For some reason i suppose because it seems fitting this went under philosophy or more correctly the application of a philosophy.
Comment One I thought it would do more justice to each stage of life not melding them together but upon reflection decided this approach had merit.
The differences are a baby 'being born' or a capable of viability in the event of a premature birth has no choice. Neither does a Downs Syndrome or other afflicted but born ....individual....but the other side is terminally ill or terminal having made a cognizant choice and letting that choice be known in advance.
The degrees between the two extremes vary the answer to some to others change their minds not at all.
I'm going to cut to the chase as this one was really aimed at assisted suicide. First started in Oregon in the USA.
Having witnessed the degrading life one parent had to live and the toll on the sister unit who provided the care I came to a hard conclusion and filed my papers on the side of pull the plug. or better yet never plug it in. The conscious loss of dignity of a once proud adult who couldn't make it to the toilet without leaving the waste product scattered on the floor between there and the bed was one deciding factor and watching him, my own father, beg the Doctors for release was a second. There was no miracle cure no real disease except the disease of old age and the indignity of such a life. Finally Alzheimers set in.
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I have four born dysfunctional little brothers.
Each is weird in his own way.
Old dino says so.
Here is old dino's most extreme example to back that statement up, though I must admit that my widdle walnut-sized brain needed a minute to dredger the dude's name up from my memory banks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen...
My older sister had also made known that she did not want any heroic measures taken to keep her alive since the end was inevitable with her disease, yet there were times she was fearful and struggled to remain alive. When the time came her siblings and their spouses were in the room with her, we kissed her and said our goodbyes. I don't think there was anyone who could have willingly sped up the process, we simply waited. My youngest sister was then diagnosed with ALS a few years later. Knowing the indignity the disease would impose and its ultimate fate she declared that she did not want to prolong it but when faced with the inability to breathe she chose assistance, she was still viable and could not give up easily. My children, her children and her spouse each gave what they could of their time to assist in her needs. Her life had value until the end, loving and caring, teaching and being present. We all know the end will come one day and would like to choose its value. The value is how we lived not how we go. The key is to not let someone else choose it for us, yet the desire to prevent unnecessary suffering is present and the fine line of where does the choice shift from the one whose life it is to those who are left and are cognizant to make the choice. Each moment I have is worth living, when would I choose to go? There is more that I want to experience and that will be true until the last and that moment should be mine to choose, yet circumstance may make the choice for each of us. It is primary that the state or any group not be involved in the choice, beyond that each of us must choose how to deal with that moment when the decision is ours to make.
On the other hand, as soon as we allow assisted suicide, the pressure will begin on the elderly to stop being selfish and take that option so as to not be a burden on the social welfare net.
Whenever I hear people bring this topic up in terms of end-of-life (as opposed to just killing handicapped people like a Nazi would) I always think, "Have these people not ever known somebody to die in hospice?" What do you think a pound of painkillers does to somebody who's suffering terribly with cancer at the end?
So on the one hand we sentence without trial our elderly to end their life literally in shit. Both Cruel and Usual.
But the same Doctor can walk down the hall and take the life of not only an unborn infant but one 'being' born according to some. Thank God that barbaric act has been banned.
Never mind those in between....My advice "get iyour papers filled out signed and pray one of hillary's friends doesn't sentence you to some form of Cruel and Usual. that's the kind of feminist she is speak of when saying she has the right to play the woman card.
Just to keep it on track and for those who can't stand the heat I added a little gas to the fire and turned up the thermostat.