Euthanasia?

13 Responses to "Euthanasia?"

• Comment by: Helen

  1 06/5/07 8:20 AM | Comment Link |

  Here’s something I read yesterday to throw into the mix:

  Polish man emerges from 19 year coma

  Something else to consider is: when a physically healthy person wants to take their life it probably means they are clinically depressed - which means their brain is incapable of making good decisions - and I would rather not see someone like that making a decision they wouldn’t make if they were mentally well. I’d rather see them helped to get well.

  When someone has a terminal illness that is causing them significant physical pain or loss of function then my pragmatic atheist side takes over and says “they should have the choice what to do”.

  I don’t think much of slippery slope arguments against things like this which allege “If you say it’s ok in this situation soon we will be killing off everyone who fails to pass some criteria for quality of life or usefulness”. Most of those kinds of arguments ignore the reality that people do not turn their brains off when they are given permission to make judgment calls. If anything they get more practice using them and they get better at drawing appropriate lines, not worse. (In my opinion and based on my experience)

• Comment by: Doreen

  2 06/5/07 4:34 PM | Comment Link |

  Thanks for posting this Benjamin.

  This subject was bothering me last night as I watched Dr. K. on Larry King.

  In years past, I supported Dr. K. but now that I am trying to find consistency in my own theology, I cannot.

  I’ve never been pro death penalty. I’ve changed my mind on abortion - not that I want to outlaw it completely, but I am working to make it safe, legal, and RARE. I don’t step on bugs anymore. And I don’t think I can support people like Dr. K.

  I understand why some would kill themselves, and I don’t think doing so is an automatic ticket to hell (maybe because I don’t believe in hell, LOL).

  Assisted suicide is such an oxymoron as to be ridiculous. It’s accelerated death.

  I’d like to see more energy put into dying well. Our medical-industrial complex, with the exception of some hospices, does not support this very well.

  Dr. K. should give his suicide machine to death penalty states to eliminate these 2-hour dying cycles for prisoners.

• Comment by: benjamin ady

  3 06/5/07 4:50 PM | Comment Link |

  Doreen

  now that I am trying to find consistency in my own theology

  Good luck on that. I pretty much gave up =)

  maybe because I don’t believe in hell LOL

  Perfect! Me neither.

  not that I want to outlaw it completely, but I am working to make it safe, legal, and RARE

  That rocks.

  Can you talk a little more about this last one–working to make abortion safe legal and rare.

• Comment by: Benjamin Ady

  4 06/5/07 9:51 PM | Comment Link |

  the reality that people do not turn their brains off when they are given permission to make judgment calls. If anything they get more practice using them and they get better at drawing appropriate lines, not worse. (In my opinion and based on my experience)

  Indeed. My experience too. It’s been *as* I’ve been given, received, or simply taken the permission to make judgment calls that I’ve gotten better at doing so, and become more human. Well said.

• Comment by: Doreen

  5 06/7/07 11:29 AM | Comment Link |

  hey Benjamin,

  Making abortion safe, legal, and rare.

  Supposedly, this line was 1st used by then Pres. Clinton in 1992, and now Hillary is also using it in her campaign speeches.

  I see 2 main ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies, which would reduce abortions:

  1 - birth control
  2 - not having sex

  Method One

  I know many women who have forgotten to take their pill. You can’t tell me they can’t a) build an alarm that goes off if you haven’t taken that day’s by a certain time of day b) put something in it that makes your urine a certain color so if you don’t see that color, you say, “oops” and take it. Those are just off the top of my head for the pill.

  What about a male contraceptive? Pill or implant.

  Comprehensive health education in schools with opt-out available.

  Method 2

  What are the reasons a woman who knows she does not want/need a baby still chooses to have sex? What are the reasons a man does?

  I would approach abstinence not in a preachy religious way, but in a self-respect way. I’ve read studies that when schools use the “carry this pretend baby around,” it significantly reduces unwanted teenaged pregnancy.

  I can no longer see abortion as a reasonable form of birth control; I do not think that’s what is in intended for, but is what it has become, in some cases.

  One fascinating aspect of abortion is pre-natal counseling. They can now tell if your fetus has or has a strong probability of having over 600 “defects.” Is there a purpose for telling someone this other than for considering an abortion?

• Comment by: Janice

  6 06/7/07 11:43 AM | Comment Link |

  I can’t quite get behind assissted suicide. I think many times people suffering just want to end the pain - the physical pain, mental pain, spiritual pain. If we can get better at dealing with end of life issues I don’t think as many people would be faced with the agony of their illnesses or aging. Our society is not good with death in general and we don’t have much compassion or respect for the elderly. A friend of mine is a professional ‘deather’ - she does this part time and its fascinating. She has a mix of nursing degrees and pyschology degrees, she deals with the medical and clinical psycho-social aspects of ‘deathing’.

  Doreen, thanks for sharing your thoughts on abortion and preventing pregnancy, etc - very interesting. :)

  Janice

• Comment by: Rachel

  7 06/7/07 1:38 PM | Comment Link |

  Making abortion safe, legal, and rare.

  Great points, Doreen! Have you heard of the group Feminists for Life? I am a member and I really appreciate their women-centered approach to preventing abortion.

  I’ve read studies that when schools use the “carry this pretend baby around,” it significantly reduces unwanted teenaged pregnancy.

  One of the high school girls I mentored had to care for a doll called “Baby Think It Over” for a week as a health assignment. The baby would cry at random times of day or night for up to an hour. The only way to make it stop crying was to insert a key in its back, turn the key and hold it in place. Let go of the key and the crying starts again. The key was strapped to the student’s wrist by the teacher with a special bracelet, so they could not take the key off and give it to anyone else. Also the babies are computerized so the teacher can check and see if it was tended to and the student will fail the assignment if they just let their baby cry. So the only way to pass the assignment is carry the baby with you 24/7. My teenage friend who had done the assignment told me that she “MIGHT have kids someday, in the far, far distant future.”

• Comment by: Rachel

  8 06/7/07 1:44 PM | Comment Link |

  Our society is not good with death in general and we don’t have much compassion or respect for the elderly.

  I definitely agree with you, Janice. I learned how unhealthy our American culture (and even our Christian subculture) is at dealing with death when my dad died suddenly four years ago.

  BTW, if anyone is interested…I recently posted about grief on my personal blog: A Lesson from Nature.

• Comment by: Elaine

  9 06/11/07 5:42 PM | Comment Link |

  Let me begin by saying, I don’t agree with Dr. K. and I am against the death penalty. I don’t like using abortion as birth control AND I can’t judge anyone who makes that decision. For me, there is a lot of grey out there.

  Rachel, I’m sorry to hear your father died.

  At age 71 (June, 1997), my father (who was walking 3 miles per day, square dancing, and more) was diagnosed with stage 3b of 4 stages of lung cancer. The doctor projected he had 6-12 months.

  My father committed to undergo the chemotheraphy as long as he could maintain quality of life. He told me he trusted I would help him make that decision. (My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer 4 weeks later. She lived another 3 1/2 yrs.)

  On August 10, my dad’s right leg was amputated to mid-calf, because of complications from the lung cancer. On August 26, when visiting him at the nursing home (for rehab), I noticed his left leg was badly swollen. After communicating with the nursing staff to put him back in bed and check his leg I left that evening very worried.

  I went home and prayed and talked with my husband about what I saw happening to my father’s body.

  The next morning, I stopped at the Hospice facility and picked up information for my father and family. I spoke with my father’s oncologist.

  On Thursday morning, my father was rushed to the hospital because of his badly swollen body. When the surgeon told my father they wanted to amputate his other leg, he told them that after talking with me and reading the Hospice information, he had made the decision not to have the surgery.

  On Saturday afternoon, August 30, my father died at the hospice facility.

  His doctors did not try to overrule his decision. Where does that fit in the definition of euthanasia?

  We all do the best we can and try to make the best decision we can with the information we have. I still miss my dad - very much. It is not how I thought my father’s life would end.

• Comment by: benjamin ady

  10 06/12/07 4:49 PM | Comment Link |

  Elaine,

  I’m really sorry to hear about the pain your dad went through.

  For me there is a lot of gray out there too. I used to be *so* judgmental, but I’m more with you now about not being able to judge people so simply. I was really moved by the description of a suicide in the brilliant little novel called “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”. It’s hard for me to figure out how, in respecting someone, to find a balance between respecting their wish to die and respecting them enough to help them *not* to act in a way which perhaps they themselves–their best selves–would not *want* to act. I’m trying to think how *I* would want to be treated if I were suicidal. it’s hard to figure out.

• Comment by: Elaine

  11 06/12/07 6:46 PM | Comment Link |

  Thanks Benjamin.

  Yes, life has a lot more gray than I realized at 21. Just living life has shown me that. Our western way of thinking tries so hard to make everything a simple black or white issue.

  My library actually has the book you mentioned. I will have to read it and let you know what I think.

  Thanks.

• Comment by: Benjamin Ady

  12 06/17/07 9:04 AM | Comment Link |

  Elaine,

  Goodness gracious–I see I got a little mixed up. I must apologize to you. The suicide I was thinking of wasn’t in Curious Incident at All. Although I do *highly* recommend Curious Incident–definitely in my top 10 of all time list, I think. But further up the list–in the top 5, I guess, is the book in which the suicide of which i was thinking actually takes place–which is called “The Last Samurai” (and it is *not at all* related to the movie with Tom Cruise–they just coincidentally have the same title).

  Again–sorry about that. But they are both really amazing books–Last Samurai is just more amazing, methinks. Both of these books have another interesting feature in common–they are both the first published work by their respective authors, and with Samurai–Helen Dewitt has *no* other published work, while with Curious Incident, Mark haddon’s second book was a big disappointment. But I have carried on at far too great a length.

• Comment by: Elaine

  13 06/18/07 12:52 PM | Comment Link |

  Too late - I already have the Curious book and have just started reading it.

  I’ll have to see if I can get the “last Samurai” from the library - not the Tom Cruise version. (trivia - many years ago, (20) my son was Tom’s double in “Rainman”. LOL)

  Thanks.

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