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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (3924)	1/21/2003 8:44:13 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7720

If I choose to up and leave tonight and go into a hermatage at an undisclosed location I have deliberately set some consequences for myself and the significant persons in my life. But this happens with every decision you make. Sometimes the results are predictable, sometimes they aren't. People who decided to go to work early to their jobs in the WTC on 9/11 made a decision, though they didn't know it, that profouondly affected their lives and those of many other people. Every time you get into a car you make a decision that may have profound implications for society. So the fact that decisions may have profound implications for society isn't a determining factor.

To: one_less who wrote (3924)	1/22/2003 6:46:13 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7720

So unless you are going to parse the "freedom to commit suicide" as being a freedom only for people who are totally unobligated, I think you must address this issue of abandonment. The point that I don't seem to be able to get across to you is that I'm prepared to address damages caused by the suicide just like any other damages caused by the act of a person. If the problem is damage, then focus the law on damage, not on the suicide. The person who is unobligated should not be restricted just because other people have obligations. And focusing on suicide when you really mean abandonment of obligations is wrong-headed. It would be silly to say that you "can't" because it is illegal, when of course you can. Of course you can. Which makes it silly to have a law against suicide, which the law can neither prevent nor penalize. Whether on can or can't only becomes an issue when you are in such poor condition that you need someone to help you and that helper risks legal penalty. Basically, then, the laws against assisted suicide discriminate against the disabled who can't, in good conscience, risk a legal penalty to a friend for what able bodied people can do without legal consequence. At what point does one have the right to murder any human being. When that human being is oneself. If we haven't a right to do that, then rights are meaningless.