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

To: one_less who wrote (4538)	2/17/2003 3:29:16 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7720

I am not sure we can define what would be genuine hopelessness ahead of time Not with any finality. You're right, people adapt. But if the living will approach you suggested were to work, then we have to define up front. As I mentioned earlier when I said I had but my minimum requirements in writing, I've updated them several times. I imagine I will continue to update them as long as I'm capable of doing so. I also imagine that if I were in the condition I described, I would continue to reevaluate. Maybe I'd change my mind, but I don't think so. If anything, the older I get, the more likely I am to lower the bar, not raise it. The point of my describing my minimum requirements was to shift the discussion from someone who was temporarily depressed and suffering from tunnel vision to someone who was truly hopeless and ready for the cave. You've already said, if I'm not mistaken, that you are accepting of the cave idea. I believe that what I described is, in fact, truly hopeless rather than temporarily depressed or simply whiney. I must have gotten you confused with some one else. Cute! Didn't we already have that discussion about the abstract principle and the specific problem? Yes, I think that society should accept a well-considered choice of suicide, in general, because individuals vary in what they need from life or can tolerate from it. I do think that death decisions are a matter of privacy and are none of the business of government. And I think that is a sound basis in and of itself for my POV on assisted suicide. But I also recognize that you and others don't buy that principle so I also appeal to you on the basis of compassion for the hopeless and suffering. That doesn't seem to carry much weight, either. Why do you think I have to condone your personal life and death decisions or to validate them? I don't need you singular or plural to validate anything. I don't care if you make other choices for yourself or if you don't like mine. What I need from you an others is enough tolerance for other perspectives to loosen the law enough that the person who assists me isn't prosecuted. If I fear the prosecution of my assistant, then the choice is not open to me. The second question is, why are resourses an issue? Duh, how much do you think it would cost to keep someone around to scratch my nose for a couple of decades? If I don't have the right to die, then what about the right to spend my money as I see fit? The latter is pretty well accepted. I have a will that specifies how I want my money allocated. Why would you insist that I burn it up on something I consider unproductive. And then, of course, is the problem of when I run out of money and Medicaid picks up the tab. That's you paying for someone to scratch my nose and change the channel. Some may think it's nice of the taxpayers to pick up the tab for me, but I find it cruel and arrogant.