We don't like slippery slopes for very good reasons. They do lead to further and further declines.
As for "lingering in pain and hopelessness" I am in pain a lot (rheumatoid arthritis) and have my own bouts with despair, but I am not anywhere close to dead yet. I don't want some bright-eyed and bushy-tailed busy-body deciding to do me any favors and help me along, either, thank you very much.
There are all kinds of new drugs for RA, so maybe I won't wind up frozen up in a wheelchair, but maybe I will. And I'd like to be able to make up my own mind about it, as I go.
The first time I realized it was never going to go away, there was a sea change in my outlook on life. This is common for people with chronic ailments. What looks unbearable and seems unbearable becomes part of the background.
So, first of all, I dispute very much that others can or should make end-of-life decisions for those who are not at the end of life, but merely disabled. They don't have any idea what it feels like to be me. If they're young and healthy, I represent their worst fears. Death isn't pretty, and neither is old age, and neither is disability, but it doesn't really feel all that bad from the inside.
And second, while I don't dispute your right to refuse medical treatment, I don't think you have any "right" to assisted suicide. Someone may be willing to do it for you as a favor, but that's not the same thing as a "right." I won't do it, and I don't think you should be able to force anybody else into doing it. That's what "rights" are, you know. If you have a "right" then you can use the legal apparatus to enforce it.
This type of problem is rather timely -- can you force a Catholic hospital to give you an abortion? Can you force an Evangelical pharmacist to give you morning after pills? I would say "no" and "no" but others beg to differ.
If you have the "right" to assisted suicide, then you can force hospitals which take government money (and they all do) to assist your suicide, regardless of whether it's a religious institution or not.
Maybe the pendulum hasn't swung that far, yet, but don't lecture me about paranoia, please. |
