Re: Euthanasia
Whoa, pez...You clearly have followed this issue very closely. Why don't you fill me in?
As for me, I have not developed an informed opinion on euthanasia. Before I could do that, I would have to read up on the issue, familiarize myself with the different points of view, and weigh their merits. That takes time, and I do not have an unlimited amount of it. :-(
But of course I do not live in a vacuum, and so some questions have arisen in my mind about euthanasia. I told you what they were, since you asked. You say they are the usual questions. How, specifically, are they being answered? (Remember, I welcome having the plug pulled on me, if I turn into a veggie; my questions have to do with the other guys.)
1) Just for the record, that paragraph I quoted came from a pre-Nazi source. You seem to have misunderstood it, since I did not quote it in full. Here is the final sentence:
Binding and all subsequent proponents of his argument consciously confused the discussion by pointing to the suicide rights of terminal cancer patients facing a certain and painful death when in reality they wanted to "destoy" the "unworthy life" of healthy but "degenerate" individuals.
In short, what Binding really wanted was a law that would make it possible to practice "euthanasia" on "incurably feeble-minded" individuals, but he deliberately confused the issue by bringing terminal cancer patients into it, as window-dressing. (That the Nazis would actually practice such "mercy killings" later was not a foregone conclusion, at this point.)
The mere fact that the very word "euthanasia" is historically associated with such weasely arguments is bound to make people at least prick up their ears when the word comes up again.
2) Now, where the hypothetical case of Mrs. Smith is concerned (the impoverished lady who had the plug pulled on her without her consent), you said "the hospital broke the law plain and simple." This was a hypothetical case, pez; it assumes that "assisted suicide" is now the law of the land, everywhere, and that Dr. Kevorkians can practice anywhere.
I am sure that the physicians interviewed in that article I read long ago (it must have been about Kevorkian, now that I think about it), presented their argument in a more sophisticated fashion than they do in my paraphrase. But as I recall it, they were primarily concerned with the fate of the indigent, of the "feeble-minded", of the old winos off the street -- of all those who presently are regarded more as "burdens" than as "assets" to society.
These would not be your proper middle-class people, with their "living wills" and solicitous relatives & etc. Maybe it would not be a question of "yanking the plug" on these "expendable burdens." Maybe it would simply involve withholding treatment for them. Or maybe they could easily be convinced that euthanasia would be better for them than a "hopeless" course of treatment. ( For that matter, would it be that hard to pressure middle-class patients to take the poisoned chalice; can't you just hear those cost-conscious HMOs applauding?)
Are such concerns simply paranoid? I don't think they should be dismissed out of hand. After all, the air these days is ringing with denunciations of "welfare bums", of "piglets" sucking up to MamaPigGovernment, & etc. People are as irate about having all the money "sucked out" of their pockets to pay for social programs as they are about having the brains sucked out of aborted babies. In such an atmosphere, is it all that "paranoid" to be concerned about the fate of "expendable" and penniless sick people?
You say laws can address all these questions. Fine, I have no problem with that. What exactly would the laws specify?
jbe |
